Jomier never picks up his telephone or sends an email to suggest lunch but he is telephoned and emailed by others. Jomier is in demand among the salonnières of Hammersmith, Kensington, even as far afield as Islington. This is not because Jomier is popular but because he is an unattached man. There is a shortage of unattached men among Londoners of a certain age. The women who give dinner parties are liberated but nonetheless like to have an equal number of men and women around their table. Jomier would be happy to sit with the other male guests at one end of the table but this is not allowed. He must sit between two women. Nor are the male guests permitted, as they once did in certain circles, to remain behind after dinner while the women withdraw to the withdrawing room. Now people rarely get up from table until it is time to go home. Jomier is trapped between two women for two or three hours – one on his left, the other on his right.

Jomier is perfect for the role of the extra man. Like most barristers, he has been trained to go on talking long after there is nothing more to be said. He is thus a good conversationalist. He is presentable. Even handsome. He has no ponderous belly and a good head of hair. He drinks moderately and does not have the red blotchy face of those who down a 75-centilitre bottle of wine every day. Nor does Jomier smoke. He used to smoke but kicked the habit while still married to Tilly. Tilly too had smoked before she married but quit when she was pregnant with Henry. Jomier quit some time later, not for reasons of health – his health, Tilly’s health or the health of his children – but because he no longer enjoyed inhaling smoke from a cigarette. He remembers the feeling of concentrated tranquillity that it had once induced in him but little by little it ceased to have that effect. It was the same with reading. With travel. With sex. He remembers enjoying what he no longer enjoys. When Humphrey Bogart lights up on-screen Jomier feels a pang of acute nostalgia. So too when he kisses Ingrid Bergman or Lauren Bacall.

Though Jomier is in demand among the ladies of west London it is not because of his wit or charm. Women are happy to be placed next to him because they know that the conversation will never flag, but they sense that Jomier’s sociability is insincere. He asks questions about their lives or discusses films they had both seen as if he is reciting lines from a script – a script in which he is not playing a leading role, nor even a supporting role, but is simply ‘a man making conversation’ from central casting.