At ten the next morning, Jomier calls Judith. As a rule, Jomier only makes calls when he has something to say but he knows that lovers are expected to ring to whisper sweet nothings into one another’s ears. He says, ‘I miss you’ and ‘It felt odd going to bed alone’, both of which were sincere expressions of his feelings. Jomier does miss Judith in the sense that, after a week in her company, he is conscious of being alone. It has also felt odd lying in a bed by himself after a week of sleeping alongside Judith. But were the awareness of his solitude or the oddity of going to bed alone altogether unpleasant? There is a certain ease in being alone, and while Judith’s warmth had been agreeable, so too in another way is it agreeable to lie in a bed by oneself. At times when she had faced him on the mattress of the king-sized bed in the Hotel Palazzo Solaia, and he had breathed in the air she had just exhaled, he had felt stifled: moreover, there was borne on that air a faint aroma of stale wine and rotting food. Jomier had turned his face away. He was then out of range of Judith’s exhalations but not out of earshot of the guttural rattle that emanated from her half-open mouth as she fell into an inebriated slumber.

Jomier also snores and no doubt a malodorous miasma is borne by the air from his lungs as he exhales. There had been some mention of snoring, even a purchase of earplugs, but clearly no suggestion that the downside was in the same league as the upside of sharing a bed – the warmth, the hugs, the sex and post-coital oblivion. No suggestion then. And now? Judith says she misses Jomier. She agrees that it seemed odd going to bed alone. But she does not propose getting together that day. Neither does Jomier. They both need space. They both need time alone. Reculer pour mieux sauter. Judith is leaving the next day to spend the New Year with Tim in Devon and Jomier has much to catch up with on the hard disk of his Sky+ Box.

Jomier spends the morning working on the spreadsheet ‘Venice’. It is a Saturday and, since Jomier has always spent Saturday mornings doing his accounts, he can easily discount the inner voice that accuses him of undue haste in calculating Judith’s share of the cost. So too the suggestion that he should forget about her offer to pay for herself. Jomier knows that he has more money than Judith and could afford to pay for the whole thing; he senses that this would be the chivalrous and romantic thing to do. But Judith has said that she wants to pay her share. She is a woman of today. She would surely feel insulted if Jomier were to ignore her offer.