‘Oh commercial, most certainly,’ Sharon confirmed. Indeed, her remark had been prompted by the vicissitudes of Christmas trade which, while it had been fast for Eustacia’s On The Heath, had by no means been furious. She wasn’t complaining; business, touch wood, could have been a lot worse. But she did feel that her specialized stock was always bound to let her down at this time of the year; that it of necessity lacked the festive element. Life’s Little Ironies, she explained, gift-wrapped with ribbons and a rosette, made a pretty enough present, but as a seasonal seller it couldn’t hold a candle to A Christmas Carol.

‘In which case,’ said Fitzpiers, ‘It’s not a question of more meaning worse but more meaning richer.’ In all fairness to him I don’t think he intended that as a gibe at our Jewishness. I don’t think he intended it as a criticism at all. As I was soon to find out with a vengeance, he was all for making a good living out of literature himself.

I meanwhile was more concerned with value judgements than my livelihood – they released more tension. ‘I think Hardy was wise to stay away from the genre,’ I persisted. ‘He had none of the necessary feeling for food and drink.’ I was rather disappointed with the way that sounded; if I’d been in better spirits I’m sure it would have come out more sybaritic.

‘Well I can’t argue with you there,’ said Fitzpiers. ‘A happy Hardy Christmas party is certainly difficult to imagine. Think of the fuss there’d be, for a start, over the killing of the dinner. You wouldn’t want to leave it to Jude and whatsename.’

‘Arabella,’ Sharon helped out.

‘That’s right, Arabella. Arabella Donn – she of the rank passions and the latent hungry sensuousness and the ample…’ But here Fitzpiers was guilty of the unpardonable sin of explicitness, for he lowered his eyes in mid-sentence and allowed them to range referentially over Sharon’s uncovered breasts. The action irritated me not because it was libidinous and even possessive but because it was overt – it alluded, it brought into the realms of the spoken what belonged properly to the understood; it confused the darkness with the daylight. What’s more I didn’t want Sharon associated, even by implication, with Arabella. I had nothing against Arabella – apart from her passing interest in Jude – but I remembered how much Hardy hated her because she was passionate and buxom, and the bad faith of the novelist’s impaired sexuality was suddenly with me, like an ill omen, in the bed.

I felt queasy, as if I’d perceived in myself the old symptoms of an old sickness.

Sharon was still at the impossible Hardy Christmas party. ‘Of course all the presents would go astray,’ she said.

‘Or go to the wrong people,’ Fitzpiers came back.

‘Yes, yes, they would,’ she agreed. ‘And later on in the evening, when the mummers had gone home, all the men could get drunk and auction their wives.’