‘Mrs Lydia Hope Caldwell phoned. She wants me to join the Daughters of Kansas. She spent twenty minutes telling me what a great privilege it was and how it was hardly ever accorded to newcomers.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘I told her I was overwhelmed, of course.’

He watched her naked body in the mirror. He wondered if it was just her nudity he found so desirable, or whether it was her nudity combined with her sharp and critical personality. He stepped closer to her and laid his hand on her shoulder and kissed the side of her forehead. She kept on brushing her hair as if he wasn’t there.

‘Then, of course, you called your sister in LA,’ he told her.

‘That’s right.’

He ran his hand down the soft curves of her back, and slipped it under the elastic of her pants, so that he was cupping the cheek of her bottom. The tips of his fingers were almost touching her vulva, but not quite.

‘You called your sister in LA and told her how sick you were of this darned farm. All these tedious acres of wheat, all these simple, honest farming folk. All these tractors and all these crop-dusters.’

‘All these down-home actuaries,’ she put in.

‘That’s right,’ he nodded. ‘And then you invited yourself to spend a few weeks in Beverly Hills, along with Sally, totally ignoring the fact that Sally has to go back to school, and that I’m going to need you this month more than I’ve ever needed you before.’

Season stood utterly still, as if she was pretending to be a statue. Their two faces were reflected side by side in the mirror, and neither face betrayed anything at all. They were playing their usual game of testing, questioning, and teasing, to see whose façade cracked first. In New York, they had played it in fun, and only occasionally. Here in Kansas, it had started to become much more than an amusement, and much more to do with the survival of their relationship.

Ed’s fingers stayed where they were.

Season said, ‘I haven’t rushed into this, you know. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.’

‘You didn’t mention it to me.’

‘Of course I mentioned it. What do you think we’ve been doing, every single night since we came here? Butting our heads together just to see how much it hurts? Ed, my darling. I’m bored with South Burlington, I’m bored with Wichita, I’m bored with the entire state of Kansas, God bless it, and I have to escape for a while.’

‘Is that it? You’re bored?’