This is their last day in Venice. They have been there a week. Both are looking forward to getting back to normal but both feel that the holiday has been a success. After the psychic turbulence Jomier had encountered while waiting for the antipasti and Asti Spumante at the Christmas lunch, all has been plain sailing. Plain flying. Beyond the turbulence, not above it. They had seen things of great beauty during the day and, during the long evenings, they have been to a concert at the Palazzo Barbarigo-Minotto, Verdi’s Nabucco in the Teatro Malibran, the temporary home of the Fenice Opera Company and, on the Tuesday, seen an English-language movie in the Giorgione Movie d’Essai. In the early evening, before going out, they have rested in their hotel: Judith has done her yoga while Jomier has read his novel or watched BBC World News or entered the day’s expenses on his Palm Treo. They have taken baths and showers and made love and tried different restaurants: both agree that Italian food is the best in the world.

There have been no awkward silences at table: they now find that they can talk about their childhoods, their marriages, their families with ease. The only time they have spent apart was when shopping; Judith said she preferred to shop alone. Jomier went out hunting for a pair of Italian shoes but all he saw were too spivy and expensive. He bought a wallet for Henry, necklaces for Sandra and Sam, and a model Maserati for Ned. Judith has been more successful: she has bought shoes, a skirt and three tops. ‘Italians are so stylish,’ she said.

Judith finishes her yoga. Jomier looks up from his book. Judith comes to lie beside him on the bed. She is not out of breath and the odour of her perspiration has been made fragrant by whatever deodorant she found to replace the confiscated Klorane. ‘Our last day,’ she says.

For a few moments they discuss what they might do with this last day; then Jomier says, without premeditation: ‘You don’t think we should move in together when we get home?’

Judith looks down at her bosom, flattened by the tight leotard, and picks off a piece of white fluff that has come off one of the fluffy white towels. ‘You wouldn’t want to live in Wandsworth.’ Then, as if realising that her considered reaction to his dramatic proposal showed that she had been considering the idea herself, she turns and smiles at him and says: ‘Could you bear it?’

‘We’ve managed well enough in a single room for a week,’ says Jomier.

‘I mean Wandsworth.’

Jomier thinks of the dribbling shower. ‘Does it have to be Wandsworth? Couldn’t we both sell our houses and buy one together?’

Judith pulls herself up: her thinking has not yet gone this far. ‘Pool our resources?’

‘Why not? We should be able to buy something in Notting Hill.’

‘Or Chelsea?’