Jomier keeps reading his journal of 1968, not to find references to the historical Judith but to keep the twenty-first-century Judith out of his mind. But she cannot be ignored. There is her card next to his keyboard on his desk. Judith Grant. Yoga teacher. [email protected]. He closes both his journals and opens Outlook Express. He clicks ‘addresses’ and enters her details. There are no other Judiths. Now as soon as he writes the letters j u d his computer will know who he means. grant.j76. A digital label for a woman of flesh and blood. Days pass. Jomier postpones sending an email to Judith. He has it in mind. He means to do so. He writes ‘email Judith’ on his list of ‘things to do’. There are other items on the list. Putting things on the list is the first step towards doing what Jomier knows he must do. He waits patiently for the time to be right: for the day, the hour, the minute when he will feel up to making the call, writing the email, reading the book. Other things are postponed which do not even make it to the list: articles in periodicals which look interesting and will be read in due course – the New Yorker, the TLS, Prospect, the New York Review of Books. Jomier is minded to return to them but is deterred by the dense mass of words in those columns of print. How much easier to switch on the radio or the television. Particularly the television. Jomier likes to watch films – not just the black-and-white film noirs but Hollywood blockbusters in which Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Steven Seagal triumph over evil incarnate in Lee Van Cleef, Robert Shaw or Alan Rickman. He has seen them all before – the sequels and prequels, the Die Hards, Terminators, Under Sieges – but thanks to his age he only remembers the plot when he reaches the last reel.

Jomier avoids the main channels at prime time with their inane quiz shows and documentaries about menstruation or obese Siamese twins; nor does he watch afternoon made-for-TV Hollywood movies about the travails of lesbian mothers with autistic sons interspersed with ads to appeal to the retired or the unemployed – conservatories, double glazing, incontinence pads, personal loans. He also hates romantic films with happy endings; or erotic films with misty, tasteful takes of heaving buttocks, groaning and grunting on the soundtrack, which make him think of Tilly with Max but also that it would be good to be hugged and caressed by a warm woman. Judith. Should he try for one last throw of the dice?