The way Karen had heard the blight story on the news, it was nothing more than a minor seasonal problem affecting a few farms in the depths of Kansas. And who on earth ever worried about what went on in Kansas? But now, this Ed Hardesty had called to say that everything was blighted. Not just wheat, but everything. Karen suddenly felt unreal, and cold, and she read the memo over again, and couldn’t stop herself from shivering.

She was still looking at it when she heard a slight movement at her doorway. She looked around, and there was Peter Kaiser, leaning against the door-jamb, watching her. His face was expressionless, but the way he was standing, with one hand on his hip, somehow told her that he was more relaxed than usual.

‘I’m, er – I’m just starting your typing now,’ she said, looking away.

‘That’s all right,’ he told her. ‘I’ve come to tell you that

I’m sorry.’

‘You’re sorry? Why should you be?’

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’re Peter Kaiser, nicknamed “The Machine”, and you’re the most efficient administrative executive in the whole of the Republican party organisation, bar none, and any stupid chit of a secretary who wastes your precious time by asking fatuous questions about coffee and time off – well, she hardly deserves an apology, does she?’

Peter smiled. ‘I like you,’ he said. ‘You’re spunky.’

She turned and looked at him. ‘The last time anybody said that to me, I was seven years old, and I’d just come last in the egg-and-spoon race at school, and managed not to cry.’

‘You’ve changed since then,’ Peter said.

‘In some ways. I still don’t cry.’

‘All right,’ he grinned, ‘I’ll allow you that. Will you come out to dinner this evening?’

‘Where are we going? The nearest Exxon station?’

‘I don’t understand.’

She shrugged. ‘The way you’ve been acting, I thought you only fed on gasoline.’

‘Karen,’ said Peter, ‘I am a human person. I do have feelings. If you cut me, do I not bleed?’

‘I don’t know. You might ooze a little grease.’

He laughed. It was an odd laugh, strangely high-pitched. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to say I’m sorry, and I’m sorry. So will you still let me take you out to dinner?’

Karen thought for a moment. One voice said: no. tell him to go screw himself, or even his mother. But the other voice said: if Peter Kaiser likes you, he’ll introduce you to Senator Jones, and if Senator Jones likes you… the sky’s the limit. Or at least the dome of the Capitol’s the limit. It’s what you came to Washington for. You political groupie, you.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘Invitation accepted. What time do we eat?’

‘Nine, nine-thirty. That’s not too late for you, is it?’