They walk for a while in silence. Jomier does not say what he is thinking. ‘You read so much because you are bored by your life in BA.’ Or: ‘All the arts have been taken over by charlatans.’ Or: ‘Without the vested interests of teachers of Eng. lit. in our universities, and the missionaries the faculties send out into the media, modern fiction would shrivel to the true proportions of its mediocrity and be blown away by the public’s indifference.’ He has these thoughts but does not express them. He does not want to spoil Louisa’s pleasure as a new book arrives from Amazon. He does not want to remind her of his negative outlook on life which was perhaps at the back of her mind when she said ‘not blame exactly . . .’ meaning ‘yes, you were to blame because you were cold and unromantic and stingy and sneered at Mum for reading modern novels and going to exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery with her friend Susie’.

Jimmy’s brothers and their wives and their children leave on Boxing Day for Punta del Este. Jimmy and Louisa and their children will join them there for the New Year. Louisa half-heartedly suggests to Jomier that he might go with them to the Uruguayan resort. Jomier fakes regret that he cannot accept because his return ticket to Europe on 29 December cannot be changed. He looks forward to getting back to Hammersmith: Jomier has in fact been looking forward to getting back to Hammersmith from the moment he checked in at Heathrow. He is suffering from the heat. Louisa tells him that it would be cooler on the beaches of the South Atlantic Ocean, then smiles sadly and says: ‘You never really liked the seaside.’ The seaside. She does not mean Worthing or Felixstowe but the pebbly beaches of Patmos or Corfu – family holidays, mostly with the Stutzels – Max, Jane, Hayden and Chuck. The sadness in her smile suggests to Jomier that this too – this dislike of heat and glare and heat rash and sand in his socks – his grey pink-spotted body in boxer-short trunks next to Max’s bronzed hirsute torso on the puttering caique – was part of the ‘not blame exactly . . .’ – the qualities that were not his fault but surely contributed to her mother’s disenchantment. ‘If it wasn’t for the ticket . . .’ She knows this is not true. He knows she knows.