Larry gave him a sad smile.
‘I’m not stupid,’ he said quietly. ‘Would Loralee be with me if I was thirty and poor?’ He shook his head. ‘I think we both know the answer to that one. And I know it looks pathetic, a man my age with a woman like her. People see us together, they think she’s only after me for my money. Well maybe that’s so, but the truth is . . .’ Larry’s voice caught in his throat. ‘The truth is, Matty, I love her. I open my eyes in the morning and I look at her lying next to me, and I think how lucky I am to be with her. I know you think – everyone thinks – she’s just a gold-digger, but she’s been good to me. Through the illness, I don’t suppose it’s been easy for her.’
‘But you can’t just pretend she’s not having an affair.’
Larry waved his hand dismissively. ‘I tell myself it’s just sex. Since the heart attack, I’ve not exactly been active in that department.’
‘Dad . . .’ began Matthew, but Larry squeezed his hand.
‘It’s what I tell myself,’ he repeated, and Matthew knew that this particular conversation was finished. They sat in silence as darkness fell outside, sipping their wine, the rich smell of the meal filling the kitchen.
‘So how about you?’ said Larry finally. ‘Seen any more of Carla since her separation?’
Matt rubbed his chin.
‘I slept with her,’ he said in the spirit of shared secrets.
He felt a wave of relief that he had finally told someone. Granted, it was embarrassing discussing such things with your father, but Larry had more experience with difficult women than any man he knew.
‘My, my. It has been all go in the bedroom department.’
Part of Matthew wanted to bury the thought of what had happened between himself and Carla and put it down to the raised emotions of the situation, but he knew he had to talk about it, to try and make sense of what he wanted to happen next, because he was struggling to do it on his own.
‘Does she want to get back together with you?’ asked Larry.
‘I don’t know. She’s in Ibiza. We’re meeting for dinner when she gets back.’
‘And how do you feel about getting back together?’
This was the difficult part. If you’d asked him two, three years ago whether he wanted to get back with the beautiful ex-wife whom he had loved and who had hurt him so much, the answer, despite himself, would have been an unequivocal yes. But everything felt much more complicated now. For the first time in a long time he felt happy, secure, confident in his own skin and the life he had built for himself. He had got used to being alone, and in many ways, he enjoyed it.
‘She’s a beautiful woman.’ He meant the sex, of course, but he didn’t want to elaborate any further; Larry was still his dad, after all.
‘Do you love her, or are you just lonely?’ asked Larry.
How were you supposed to tell the difference after so long? thought Matt, opening his mouth to speak.
‘The day at the New Forest, Jonas was so happy . . .’
‘I didn’t ask how Jonas felt about it,’ replied Larry.
Matt shifted in his chair. ‘But this is everything to do with Jonas. I’m his dad. We’re a family. If that’s not a bloody good reason to get back together again, I don’t know what is.’
‘So you think you should get back with Carla because of what Jonas feels?’
Matt sank into a silence, defeated by the question. He dealt with this every single day of his life. He saw first hand why people stayed in relationships and why others left. Whenever clients asked him for advice – ‘What do I do now?’ – he always gave them the same answer: there was no right thing to do when your relationship faltered. The only thing to do was what felt right to you.
Larry put his empty glass on the table.
‘Let me ask you another question. Would you have wanted your mother to stay with me, even if neither of us was happy?’
‘But Mum was happy. And then you had an affair and left us. Why did you do that? Were you really that unhappy, or was it just a case of the grass is greener?’
Larry stood up.
‘Stay there,’ he said, and walked out of the kitchen. Matt could hear his slow footsteps going upstairs. He was away for a few minutes, and when he returned, he was holding a small envelope.
‘What’s that?’