Jomier also likes entering an account of dining with the Richards in his digital journal the next morning. He does not write with posterity in mind but this record of exchanges between significant people gives some weight to what might otherwise be judged another Diary of a Nobody. He may not be a Chips Channon or Woodrow Wyatt, but his thumbnail sketches of the different guests could possibly be of some historical interest in the future were Jomier’s journal ever to see the light of day.

On the following Saturday night, over an Indian, Jomier tells Judith about the dinner with the Richards, every now and then making a mental note of something he has failed to enter in his journal. Judith listens. Jomier can sense that there is something in his narrative that seems to annoy her. She says nothing and, when he has finished, tells him about her week – an overnight visit by Tim from Devon to ask her to arrange an exhibition for Tamara’s pottery in London (‘Why does he think I have those kind of contacts: there’s Karl’s gallery but he won’t want to show Tamara’s folksy junk; Tim should ask his father for help, not me’) and then (‘inevitable . . . it had to happen sooner or later’) fetching Ophelia from Islington police station after she had been arrested for driving Judith’s Peugeot while drunk.

Jomier thinks Judith’s difficulties with her two children are trivial compared to his anxiety about Louisa. He tells Judith that his daughter is apparently growing weaker and thinner and the specialists in Buenos Aires are at a loss. Judith listens. She sympathises. Her tone of voice becomes solicitous and feminine but Jomier can see that it requires an effort for her to show an interest in the suffering of someone she does not know. She feels for Jomier, her lover, not this piece of baggage from his past. She says: ‘poor you’, not ‘poor Louisa’. She wonders if Louisa’s illness may not be caused by eating too much meat. She tells Jomier that the per capita consumption of beef in Argentina is more than three times that of Britain – an absurdly extravagant use of potentially arable land but also, because of the need to cultivate soybeans to feed the cattle, the cause of deforestation which, together with the flatulence of so many animals, is a major contribution to global warming; and the eating of so much meat is a major cause of colon cancer and, no doubt, fatal diseases such as mad cow disease which they cover up to protect their exports. ‘Has she been tested for Creutzfeldt–Jakob’s disease?’ Judith asks Jomier.

‘I’m sure,’ says Jomier. ‘Anyway, the problem is with her blood, not her brain.’

A pause in the conversation as they await the bill. Then Judith says: ‘I’d like to meet the Richards.’

‘You’d hate them.’

‘You seem to have enjoyed yourself at their dinner party.’