“That’s pretty big of you.”

“And it might not even be Nixon. Who do we know who works at the White House?”

“Beep’s brother?” Dave was incredulous. “Cam did this to you?”

“He fell for me, all those years ago in London, and I turned him down kind of roughly.”

“And he’s held a grudge all these years?”

“I could never prove it.”

“The bastard!”

“So, I’ve put my swanky Hollywood home on the market, sold my convertible, and packed up my collection of modern art.”

“What will you do?”

“Lady Macbeth, for a start.”

“You’ll be terrifying. Where?”

“Stratford-upon-Avon. I’m joining the Royal Shakespeare Company.”

“One door closes and another opens.”

“I’m so happy to be doing Shakespeare again. It’s ten years since I played Ophelia at school.”

“In the nude.”

Evie smiled ruefully. “What a little show-off I was.”

“You were also a good actor, even then.”

She stood up. “I’ll leave you to get ready. Enjoy yourself tonight, little brother. I’ll be in the audience, bopping.”

“When are you leaving for England?”

“I’m on a plane tomorrow.”

“Let me know when Macbeth opens. I’ll come and see you.”

“That would be nice.”

Dave walked out with Evie. The stage had been built on a temporary scaffold at one end of the pitch. Behind the stage, a crowd of roadies, sound men, record company people, and privileged journalists milled on the grass. The dressing rooms were tents pitched in a roped-off area.

Buzz and Lew had arrived, but there was no sign of Walli. Dave was relying on Beep to get Walli here on time. He wondered anxiously where they were.

Soon after Evie left, Beep’s parents came backstage. Dave was again on good terms with Bella and Woody. He decided not to tell them what Evie had said about Cam stirring up the press against her. Lifelong Democrats, they were already annoyed that their son was working for Nixon.

Dave wanted to know what Woody thought of McGovern’s chances. “George McGovern has a problem,” Woody said. “In order to defeat Hubert Humphrey and get the nomination, he had to break the power of the old Democratic Party barons, the city mayors and the state governors and the union bosses.”

Dave had not followed this closely. “How did he manage that?”

“After the mess of Chicago 1968 the party rewrote the rules, and McGovern chaired the commission that did that.”

“Why’s that a problem?”

“Because the old power brokers won’t work for him. Some detest him so much that they started a movement called Democrats for Nixon.”

“Young people like him.”

“We have to hope that will be enough.”

At last Beep arrived with Walli. The Dewar parents went off to Walli’s dressing room. Dave put on his stage outfit, a red one-piece jumpsuit and engineer boots. He did some exercises to warm up his voice. While he was singing scales, Beep came in.

She gave him a sunny smile and kissed his cheek. As always, she lit up the room just by walking in. I should never have let her go, Dave thought. What kind of an idiot am I?