‘A gift for Frankie,’ Stuart replied.

‘What is it, then?’

‘A pair of cowboy boots. She spotted ’em in Brentwood town centre last week when we were walking past a shop, so I went back the next day and bought them for her. I thought it might cheer her up, especially on a day like today.’

‘You’re a star, Stu, and I wish you and her would stop arsing about and get it together,’ Eddie replied.

‘She don’t look at me in that way, Ed. Jed put her off geezers for life, I think, and I don’t wanna spoil our friendship by complicating things.’

Eddie raised his eyebrows. He was well aware that Stuart was in love with his elder daughter, even though he would never openly admit it. ‘If you don’t make a move, you’ll never know how Frankie feels about you, will ya? Think about it, Stu, she’s a pretty girl and if you don’t snap her up, somebody else will.’

By the time her dad arrived, Frankie was on a proper downer. Gary and Ricky had unexpectedly turned up with their dimwit, silly-voiced wives and everytime either of the girls opened their very Essex-sounding mouths, Frankie felt like clumping them one.

Gary and Ricky had been destined to be playboy bachelors for the rest of their lives until they’d met identical twenty-one-year-old twin sisters, Nicole and Amy, in a London nightclub in the summer of 1999. At the time the girls had both been working as successful models, but since marrying Gary and Ricky in a joint wedding in the Bahamas last year, both Nicole and Amy had jacked in their careers at the insistence of their respective husbands. They now spent their days shopping, lunching and pampering themselves at health farms and beauty parlours.

Frankie had hated her brother’s wives on sight. They were incredibly thick, had skinny-minnie figures, long blonde hair, false boobs and the most stupid laughs and voices that Frankie had ever heard. In fact, they really put a capital D into the expression ‘dumb blonde’.

‘You all right, babe?’ Eddie asked when Frankie opened the door with a face like thunder.

‘No I ain’t. Gary and Ricky have bought them two silly tarts with them, and Nanny’s half-pissed already and keeps having a go at grandad. I only wanted a quiet day and every bastard’s turned up. There ain’t even enough chairs for people to sit on.’

Eddie wasn’t the biggest fan of Gary and Ricky’s wives either. He liked a woman with a brain, and Nicole and Amy unfortunately didn’t own one between them. Still, they made his sons happy, so they couldn’t be all bad.

‘Calm yourself down, they won’t stop long,’ Eddie responded, hugging his daughter to his chest.

‘Frankie, look at my wabbit,’ Rosie said, waving a bright pink fluffy toy.