‘They’re grown up,’ says Jomier.

Sandra nods. It takes little imagination for Jomier to imagine what she has left unsaid: ‘I know they’re grown up but from everything you’ve told us about the daughter and the layabout son in Devon they might turn out to be a nightmare and a drain on your resources and ergo eat into your grandchildren’s inheritance.’

The fiscal implications have also struck Henry. The effort of thinking about what would make his father happy has been too great to sustain. He returns to default. ‘Would you jointly own the new house?’ he asks.

‘That’s the idea.’

‘Are your present houses of equal value?’

‘More or less, I think. We haven’t got to that.’

‘It’s just that if one of you were to die . . .’

‘We haven’t got to that either.’

‘I mean, I’m delighted for you,’ says Henry, ‘but there are various factors that will have to be taken into account.’

Jomier is not upset by his son’s condescension. He feels it reflects well on his upbringing that Henry has grown so well into the role of paterfamilias that he now treats his father like a King Lear: compare and contrast with the dropout Tim living off his father with his potting mistress in Devon. Jomier also sympathises with Henry’s anxieties: he too is made uneasy by the thought that the equity tied up in his house in Hammersmith should find its way via a 50 per cent stake in a house in Notting Hill to Judith and from Judith to the demented Ophelia and the ne’er-do-well Tim. ‘I’m sure something can be worked out,’ he says. ‘There would have to be safeguards.’

‘And is now the time to make the move?’ The question is put by Sandra whose fingers never leave the pulse of the property market.

‘The market seems strong,’ says Jomier.

‘Overall, yes,’ says Sandra, speaking in her crisp office voice. ‘But while you would certainly get a good price for your houses, there has not been the same feeding frenzy in Hammersmith and Wandsworth as there has been in Notting Hill.’

‘What about Chelsea?’ asks Jomier.

‘Just as bad,’ says Sandra. ‘I really would doubt that the joint proceeds of your two houses would get you anything nice.’

Jomier suspects this may be true. ‘Then we’ll get a bigger house in Wandsworth or Hammersmith,’ he says.

‘It might come to that,’ says Sandra.

Henry goes to the stove to make coffee. Jomier asks Sandra about the Crockford-Tylers with whom they went skiing. He is not interested in the Crockford-Tylers. He asks the question to direct their conversation away from the property market and his plans to share a house with Judith. It has made him feel uncomfortable. The idea of life with Judith in Wandsworth or Hammersmith is subtly different from the idea of living with Judith in Notting Hill or Chelsea.