‘Jack Russell terriers.’

Daisy made a mental note.

An angular woman of about fifty approached. ‘For goodness’ sake, Charlie, haven’t you got that net up yet?’

‘Almost there, Mom,’ he said.

Nora Farquharson was wearing a gold tennis bracelet, diamond ear studs, and a Tiffany necklace; more jewellery than she really needed for a picnic. The Farquharsons’ poverty was relative, Daisy reflected. They said they had lost everything, but Mrs Farquharson still had a maid and a chauffeur and a couple of horses for riding in the park.

Daisy said: ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Farquharson. This is my friend Eva Rothmann from Berlin.’

‘How do you do,’ said Nora Farquharson without offering her hand. She felt no need to be friendly towards arriviste Russians, much less their Jewish guests.

Then she seemed to be struck by a thought. ‘Ah, Daisy, you could go round and find out who wants to play tennis.’

Daisy knew she was being treated somewhat as a servant, but she decided to be compliant. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Mixed doubles, I suggest.’

‘Good idea.’ Mrs Farquharson held out a pencil stub and a scrap of paper. ‘Write the names down.’

Daisy smiled sweetly and took a gold pen and a little beige leather notebook from her bag. ‘I’m equipped.’

She knew who the tennis players were, good and bad. She belonged to the Racquet Club, which was not as exclusive as the Yacht Club. She paired Eva with Chuck Dewar, the fourteen-year-old son of Senator Dewar. She put Joanne Rouzrokh with the older Dewar boy, Woody, only fifteen but already as tall as his beanpole father. Naturally she herself would be Charlie’s partner.

Daisy was startled to come across a somewhat familiar face and to recognize her half-brother, Greg, the son of Marga. They did not meet often, and she had not seen him for a year. In that time he seemed to have become a man. He was six inches taller, and although still only fifteen he had the dark shadow of a beard. As a child he had been dishevelled, and that had not changed. He wore his expensive clothes carelessly: the sleeves of the blazer rolled up, the striped tie loose at the neck, the linen pants sea-wet and sandy at the cuffs.

Daisy was always embarrassed to run into Greg. He was a living reminder of how their father had rejected Daisy and her mother in favour of Greg and Marga. Many married men had affairs, she knew; but her father’s indiscretion showed up at parties for everyone to see. Father should have moved Marga and Greg to New York, where nobody knew anybody, or to California, where no one saw anything wrong with adultery. Here they were a permanent scandal, and Greg was part of the reason people looked down on Daisy.

He asked her politely how she was, and she answered: ‘Angry as heck, if you want to know. Father’s let me down – again.’

Greg said guardedly: ‘What did he do?’