‘Well, who is it who’s so burningly fascinating that you’re prepared to break off right in the middle of courting your favourite newspaper lady? Usually, my darling, you’re not even prepared to answer the phone for the President.’

‘The President’s a Democrat,’ growled Senator Jones. ‘Apart from being an uninteresting asshole.’

‘And was this a Republican? An interesting asshole?’

‘If I told you who it was, and why he’d called me, you’d rush back to the office and print it,’ said Senator Jones.

‘It’s as scandalous as all that?’

‘It’s no more scandalous than anything else that happens in American politics. Tell me one worthwhile political achievement since seventeen seventy-six that hasn’t been scandalous. It was scandal that made this nation great.’

Senator Jones lowered his bulky body into a large carved-oak armchair, upholstered in a zig-zag fabric that resembled camel blankets. He crossed his legs by tugging at his left ankle with his right hand and he puffed at his cigar for a while reflectively. He had always been a big man. There were photographs upstairs in his study which showed him as a linebacker for the Washburn University football team. A serious, solid young man with thick lips and eyebrows that looked as if they had been drawn across his face with a black felt-tip pen. He had remained reasonably athletic while he worked in his father’s law firm in Topeka; but when he entered politics, in the Eisenhower landslide of 1956, as one of the state’s youngest-ever representatives, he quickly learned to enjoy the fruits of political success, as well as the steaks and the lobsters and the truffles and the fine vintage wines. By the time Ike’s term was over, Shearson Jones weighed over 250 pounds, and Washington wags were calling him ‘Shearson Jones, Incorporated.’ Time magazine printed a famous picture of him sitting in a committee meeting with his belly protruding so much that they captioned it ‘Kansas Representative and Friend.’