Chapter Three He took her to a trade fair. Fun? He’d show her fun. ‘We can drive or we can fly or we can get the train,’ he told her. ‘Where are we going?’ ‘Harrogate.’ ‘Then let’s turn it into an adventure. Let’s go by train.’ ‘What you have to understand,’ he explained, over a Great North Eastern breakfast, ‘is that there are trade fairs and trade fairs. Some I go to are dedicated leather goods and luggage shows – the hard-core, big-name stuff, Globetrotter and Constellation cases down one row, Longchamps, Picard, shocking-pink Pollini clutch bags made out of ostrich up another. Some are fashion events which also do accessories – good for off-the-wall items, copper-mesh evening bags, chain-mail belts, silk purses made out of sows’ ears. Where we’re going is more of a gift fair, which encompasses just about everything, even arts and crafts.’ ‘Are those sops to my rural origins?’ Chas asked. ‘Not at all. They are calculated insults to the memory of my cosmopolitan father.
