Tilly is now married to Max and lives with him in a large house on Phillimore Gardens. Max’s first wife, Jane, has returned to live in New York with her two children, Hayden and Chuck. The house on Princedale Road that Tilly bought after the divorce is let to an American banker. The rent is her pin money. Or perhaps she is building up a fund – a safety net – in case she and Max split up. Or perhaps she plans to use it to pay her grandchildren’s school fees. Jomier does not know about Tilly’s finances. She and Max live in a different world. The disposable income of Tilly’s Filipina housekeeper is larger than Jomier’s. When they were married Tilly showed no interest in where money came from or where it went. She always assumed it would be there. She took it for granted that providence would provide her with the means to lead the English upper-middle-class life to which she was accustomed. Jomier succeeded Tilly’s father as the agent of providence and whenever he failed to provide she became annoyed. She was not extravagant. She was not frugal. She spent money reasonably and thought it unreasonable if Jomier complained that she spent too much. The early years of their married life were punctuated by quarrels about money.

The divorce made her astute. At the time there was no talk of her marrying Max. Max had a wife already – Jane. Jane was American and was also rich. As rich as Max. During the bust-up, Jomier used to meet Jane for lunch to talk about Max and Tilly. At first Jomier looked forward to these lunches: there was much to discuss. Jomier was obsessed with his suffering. He was an Ancient Mariner. His friends had grown bored. Jane was an interested party. And then Jane too grew bored. Or perhaps she had never been particularly interested in what had gone wrong. Jane had always been hard to read. All those holidays they had taken à quatre; the trips to the movies; the dinners in one another’s houses; the weekends in the country; the children’s birthdays.