How? How, how, how could his beloved Louisa, the creature he loved more than anyone else in the world – a precious child, an intelligent adolescent, a beautiful young woman (universally acknowledged) who went from Godolphin and Latymer to Bristol University, leaving with a 2:1 degree in History – have married this bufón, Jaime Miller de Ramirez? She had travelled in her gap year to South America, then had returned to Buenos Aires to teach English as a Foreign Language. Good, Jomier had thought. She should see something of the world before settling down with a nice young journalist or lawyer in London. But fate had decreed otherwise. She had introductions to families in BA. She had met and married Jimmy. Married him in the parish church of St Edward the Confessor in Appleton, Hampshire, with a reception in the Old Rectory, Tilly’s childhood home. Louisa had walked down the aisle of the church on Jomier’s arm. Jomier had wondered at his ability to hide his misery and smile. At the reception, genteel delight: a good match. Ten thousand acres of pampas. Jollity. Celebration. Jimmy’s compañeros from Argentina hoping to get lucky with Louisa’s spinster friends. Old friends of the grandparents in morning coats and dowdy dresses. Friends of the middle-aged Jomiers. Louisa’s stepfather, Max, and adoptive siblings, Chuck and Hayden. But no Jane.

Was that why she had fallen for Jimmy? A man like Max? Tall, rich, foreign, strong. Was the macho Jimmy chosen because he was as unlike the unsexed, hoodwinked papa as it was possible for a man to be? Consciously? Semi-consciously? Unconsciously? Or had Jomier nothing to do with Louisa’s choice in love? Pheromones. The tanned and muscular estanciero versus the pallid bankers and lawyers back home. Jomier does not like thinking of his daughter in bed with Jimmy. He had always had a problem with her boyfriends – in her adolescence anxious about late nights, sleepovers, weekends away. Sooner or later, he had known, she would lose her virginity; sooner rather than later; to a boy at Latymer; a boy at St Paul’s; a boy at Bristol. He knew it would happen. Tilly hoped it would happen. She wanted her daughter to have the adventures she wished she had had at the same age. Go for it! Had Louisa sensed her mother’s urging her to have sex? Had they discussed it? Girl talk? Discussions hidden from Jomier – like all fathers genetically programmed to protect his daughter from sexual predators; young men who want sex without commitment – a redundant and so ridiculous instinct thanks to the liberation of women and the invention of the pill?

Chapter 3

Chapter 3