They eat at Pizza Express. Judith asks for a tomato and mozzarella salad with dough balls; Jomier an American Hot, a side salad; they share a bottle of house wine. They continue to talk about the film. Jomier attacks the hypocrisy of ‘art house’ films which purport to be superior to Hollywood blockbusters but invariably rely for their appeal on a pretty actress at some point in the drama removing her clothes.

‘Do you object to that?’ asks Judith in the gentle tone of a psychotherapist.

‘It makes one complicit in voyeurism.’

‘And voyeurism . . .’ She hesitates.

‘What?’

‘Is wrong?’

‘It’s demeaning.’

Judith smiles. ‘You are puritanical . . .’

‘My ancestors were Huguenots.’

‘But you’re not a Calvinist?’

‘Far from it.’

‘Then what is wrong with enjoying the spectacle of Emmanuelle Béart’s naked body?’

‘Was it Emmanuelle Béart?’

‘No. I meant only . . . Let’s say Brigitte Bardot.’

‘Because it provokes desires that it cannot fulfil.’

‘The fulfilment comes afterwards when all those young couples go back to their flats and make love.’

‘Not all moviegoers have lovers.’

‘That’s true. But the celibate moviegoer, as you say, must know what to expect and can therefore stay away.’

‘Or . . .’

She knows what he means. Masturbation. The love that dare not speak its name.

The waiter brings the bottle of wine. Jomier fills their two glasses. He proposes a toast. ‘To old friends.’ Jomier clinks his glass against hers. She repeats what he has said. ‘To old friends.’

The mozzarella, the sliced tomatoes, the dough balls, the American Hot pizza are all eaten; the bottle of wine is drunk. Jomier asks for the bill. When it arrives, Judith takes a purse out of her bag, meaning to pay. Jomier will not allow it.

‘But you paid for the tickets –’

‘It’s a generational thing. I would feel emasculated . . .’

She smiles and gives in. Jomier wonders how a man can be emasculated when his cojones were long since removed – by Max the surgeon, Tilly the nurse. Yet he used the word. Why does he still feel that on a date the man should pay for the woman? A faulty signal to the brain like a twinge in the toe of an amputated leg? Or a necessary first step in the ritual of courtship – an assertion of strength, an implicit promise to provide for and cherish and protect?

Jomier walks Judith to her car – an old Peugot 305. She turns. ‘That was lovely.’ They kiss – not mouth to mouth but pursed lips on cheeks. A last look under the eyelashes and a smile that says: ‘I am sure we will progress from cheeks to mouth but we must take things slowly – step by step, date by date. This may be the last throw of the dice.’

Chapter 10

Chapter 10