Once he’d drained his beer and handed the glass to Barbara, he found he was too hungry to give a damn anyway, but that his mood had improved. The beer, of course. And the prospect of another one. Barb returned with a refill, giving him a kiss.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Good to know the President still has some supporters.’

He pulled down a tray, loaded the plates on top and followed his wife into the media room – a techie’s wet dream of entertainment equipment, most of it Korean or Japanese these days. A sixty-inch Samsung LCD came to life as Barb settled down on the leather couch that dominated the centre of the room.

She smiled. ‘Snuggle time, Mr President.’

James Kipper had never been much of a TV-dinner guy before falling ass backward into the presidential rumble seat. But he found nowadays that once he was free of the office, all he wanted to do at night was smash down a beer or two, have a nice dinner and put his feet up in front of the tube. It was a pity there was never anything on but reruns and imports, especially from Britain. Local Seattle television had started to offer a sitcom called Forever Wild that Barbara seemed drawn to. It followed a bunch of ‘econauts’ around various protests and coffee shops while they made lame jokes about the military-industrial complex. Econuts, more likely, thought Kip. He preferred his comedy delivered stand-up and low brow. Frankly, he missed Jeff Foxworthy.

And he really missed wall-to-wall sports broadcasting on ESPN, ESPN-2 and ESPN Classic. Granted, he had never had time to watch much, but it’d been nice to have the choice in theory. Now, with the economy only just grinding its way out of the subsistence years, there simply wasn’t the money for professional sport like before. The reconstituted National Football League and Major League Baseball were filled with wannabes and a few broken-down retirees who could-a been outplayed by any decent high school team. Paul McAuley assured him it would come back. Even New Zealand, with a population still many times smaller than America’s, managed to support a service-driven, consumption-based economy. But then they hadn’t had to rebuild themselves from the ruins of the Wave.

‘Damn, I forgot to kiss Suzie goodnight,’ said Kipper just after sitting down. ‘Is she still awake, reading?’

‘Worst. Father. Ever,’ said Barb. ‘She’s been down for about half an hour. Fell asleep reading Harry Potter.’