Lily rolls her eyes and says nothing.
“It belongs to my grandfather, he’s letting me live here while I’m studying. He wanted me to be comfortable.”
“And she is. So very comfortable,” Eric interrupts again, raising a toast to her with his wine glass.
“What does your grandfather do?” I ask. “He’s not a prince is he?”
I suppose it’s a stupid question again, or I work out it’s a stupid question, from the awkward silence. For a few seconds none of them even look at me, but they exchange glances between themselves. Then Eric puts down his glass.
“Billy. Why don’t I give you a tour of your palatial surroundings for the evening?” He turns to Lily. “Would that be acceptable? While you chop that tomato? I promise not to show him your boudoir…”
Lily’s face, which is still serious after my question, suddenly breaks and she looks lovely again. Demure and beautiful.
“Be my guest. But please don’t break any more vases.”
Eric sends a look in her direction, but then trips over to me. Before I know what’s happened he’s plucked my own glass from me and put it down, and we’re arm in arm. I can feel the thinness of his muscles through the shirt sleeve.
We go back into the hallway, and then into a room dominated by a huge dining table, set on a rug over a hard wooden floor. You could seat twenty people at it, probably, but it’s set for just – I count quickly – six, and with what looks like really expensive plates and cutlery, with napkins and everything. I don’t know if they’re expensive or not, but they look it. The rest of the room matches the house. There’s an enormous fireplace with a gigantic mirror hanging over it, and a large double window too, and when I step closer I see outside there’s a big piece of lawn shielded on both sides by mature trees. Beyond the lawn there’s a dock and the river, wide here as it meets the bay.
“This is where we eat,” Eric begins. “Decorated for King George the eighth by the Parisian interior design genius Pierre Le Gustave, famous for having only one eye and three legs.”
I look blank.
“I just made that up, but there will be a test afterwards.” He stops. “Actually I just had to get you out of there before you got yourself into any more trouble.”
If it’s possible I look even blanker. “Billy, let me enlighten you with the rules of the Lily-palace,” he slips his arm around me and leads me out of the room, back into the hallway, and then into another room. It’s lined with bookshelves on every wall, with ladders for reaching the ones higher up.
“The library,” He says. “Let’s sit for a moment and contemplate.” There are four red leather armchairs and he pushes me into one and takes another.
“The first rule of the Lily-palace is you do not talk about the Lily-palace.” He waits a second, then goes on. “You pretend, just like the rest of us do, that it’s quite normal to live in a ten-bedroom mansion on the river with priceless antiques and golden faucets.”
“But why does she…”
“Eh!” Eric holds up a finger to stop me. “You’re forgetting the first rule of the Lily-Palace. You don’t talk about the…”
“But…”
“Stop it. Billy. You don’t ask about, you don’t look quizzically at, you don’t even mention the Lily-Palace. Not to your friends, your family.” He fixes me with a hard stare. “Not even to your lovers.”
There’s a silence.
“I don’t have any lovers.”
I don’t know why I say that. I guess I’m finding this all rather overwhelming.
“Oh Billy. You’re very revealing. Like an open book. But it brings me onto the third rule. Up.”
For a moment I don’t know what he means, then he waves his hand at me to get out of the chair, and we leave the library, and go into another room. I guess you could call it a sitting room. It’s a little bit more normal, and it has a TV on the wall. There’s an opening at one end into a kind of sunroom that goes out into the gardens. Eric waves a hand vaguely around it.
“Living room. It’s where she actually lives, here and the kitchen.” Then he takes me back out. There’s only one other doorway from the hall that I haven’t seen, the one that Jennifer said the boys were in, discussing some sort of art, I think. We go there next, but even before we go in, I can hear they’re still there. Eric pushes opens the door without knocking, and I see it’s got a snooker table in it – I think it’s snooker, I’m not sure of the difference between that and billiards, but it’s obviously not a pool table because, like everything in the house, it’s massive. Inside James is there, playing with another man I haven’t met yet. I suppose this is Oscar. Both of them look at me like they’d much rather I wasn’t here, then James forces a sort of smile.
“Billy. You came.” He doesn’t introduce the other man, but Eric does.
“And this is Oscar. You didn’t meet before, but we told him about you.”
I don’t know if I’m supposed to go in there and shake his hand, or what, but he doesn’t make any move towards me.
“Hello.” I say in the end, and he just nods back at me.
“Your shot,” James says, turning his back on us. So I guess the conversation is over.
“Let’s look upstairs,” Eric says. And then when we’re going up the stairway he keeps on. “You’ll warm to Oscar. And to James. As long as you remember the third rule…”
By now we’re on the landing of the first floor, which again is lined with art. At regular intervals there are table type things with huge vases on them.
“That was what I broke,” Eric interrupts himself. “One of those. Playing
