‘Well,’ he said, easing himself up into a sitting position. ‘I suppose that means yes. What you did, I mean. I suppose that amounts to acceptance.’

She nodded, her head jerking like a marionette. ‘Yes,’ she said, in her briskest liberated-female-reporter manner. ‘Yes, it does. I’ll send in my resignation to the Kansas City Herald-Examiner as soon as your fund raising committee is ready to roll.’

‘You’re a sensible girl,’ he said. ‘Will you pass me my undershorts? And my cigar?’

She carried over his drooping white undershorts with as much grace as she could manage; and his cigar, pinched between finger and thumb like some kind of unpleasant dropping. He lit it again, and puffed up some figured clouds of pungent blue smoke.

‘This isn’t an easy world, Della,’ he said, as if he was trying to excuse himself for what he had just forced her to do. ‘We all have to go out and get what we want, as rough and as tough as we have to. It’s the only way.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’ll excuse me if I go to the bathroom.’ Shearson sat on the ottoman for a minute or two after she’d gone, and then heaved himself up and laboriously stepped into his undershorts. He was mopping the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief when, in complete silence, his Puerto Rican manservant Billy appeared at the door. Billy was a small man, slender and nervous and narrow-chested, with a face as oval and white as a blanched almond.

‘Peter Kaiser on the telephone for you, sir.’

Peter Kaiser was his personal assistant. Shearson waved his hand dismissively. ‘Tell him to call back in the morning. What time is it, Billy?’

‘Eleven, sir. He says it’s very urgent, sir.’

Shearson took his cigar out of his mouth and frowned at the smouldering tip. For some reason, this one wasn’t burning right. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But this is the last call tonight. You understand that? Mrs McIntosh and I have a great deal of important business to discuss.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Billy, without a single hint of insolence. Shearson waddled over to his armchair, sat down, and picked up the telephone.

‘Peter?’ he said. ‘What the hell’s so damned urgent you have to call me at this hour? I have guests.’

‘I know. Senator. Billy told me.’

‘All right,’ said Shearson, in a patronising tone. ‘You can cut out the little-league superiority. All I want to know is why you’re calling.’

‘It’s to do with this blight. Senator. You know the wheat problems they’ve been having in Kansas?’

‘I do have a passing acquaintance with the problem,’ said Shearson. ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve just been discussing a Blight Crisis Appeal with Alan Hedges. I was going to fill you in tomorrow.’