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without one of us being summoned to the White
     House for an informal chat, and most of them came back shaking their heads and apologising. He sent for me last of all. All teeth and smiles. Told me he’d got the votes, didn’t
     need mine – made that perfectly clear – so why didn’t I roll with it and vote with the majority instead of looking like a ‘stubborn maverick’? I told the
     sonovabitch that if so much as a plugged nickel of that money got through to Communists in Russia I’d see him impeached. . .
    Cal skipped on – this kind of complaint usually went on aimlessly for paragraph after paragraph. Cal did not doubt the honesty of his father’s conviction – he’d fought
the bill tooth and nail – nor the honesty of his actions – if he said he’d told FDR he’d see him impeached, then he’d done it. It had simply ceased to interest him
long ago. He found the chat, what really mattered, the family news.
    Your Grandfather’s in a lot of pain from sciatica. I think he washes it away with bourbon . . . Your Mother’s worried about the house
     – we had a wet spring this year, the columns at the front are splitting open – cement and plaster over cast iron, would you believe, and the iron’s well rusted . . . Good
     God, is nothing what it seems?
    Cal loved the house – a modest mansion (if there were such a thing) on a hilltop in Fairfax County, looking out across the Potomac to Maryland, dating from the time of
Andrew Jackson. It had stood a hundred years. In American terms it was old – and if it was splitting open it would not be the only thing in his native land to burst like rotten fruit before
this war was over. It seemed all too symbolic to Cal. He knew this was no worry to his father. It was only a matter of money and they’d money aplenty – but it was change, and his mother
hated change. He’d left home, for good as it turned out, when they sent him to a military school prior to West Point. His mother kept his room just as it had been in 1925. His childhood in
aspic.
    A thump-thuddy-thump brought him back to the present world, the present continent. It was coming from his outer office. He pulled the door open and looked out. Corporal Tosca was bouncing a
half-size basketball off the wall and occasionally dropping it into a half-size net tacked up above the President’s photograph. She bounced with it, breasts rising as she stood on tiptoe and
pitched. It was all but impossible to balance well. Her next throw went wild, the ball roared back over her head and Cal caught it neatly. She turned to him. Snatched the ball back.
    ‘You can’t play,’ she said through a mouthful of gum. ‘You’re taller’n me.’
    Most people were, Cal thought.
    ‘Where’s Janis?’ he said.
    ‘Who’s Janis?’
    ‘My regular woman.’
    ‘You have a regular woman?’
    ‘I mean . . . I meant . . . my regular assistant.’
    ‘Oh. Her. She flew home. Pregnant. [Pause.] Wasn’t you, was it?’
    ‘No, it wasn’t!’
    ‘Guess not. You don’t look the type. Still, she’s gone now. I’m your regular woman.’
    ‘You are?’
    ‘You bet.’ She chewed vigorously and bounced the ball off the floor with the flat of her hand. She dribbled better than she threw. ‘Tell you what, you can play if you take a handicap.’
    ‘Handicap?’
    ‘You have to stand on one leg.’
    Cal was a lousy player, but even standing on one leg he beat her five times out of five. Every time he dropped the ball through the net she chewed furiously on her gum. At six out of six, he
said, ‘I have to go to England.’
    ‘Lucky you.’
    ‘I hesitate to say this, but if you’re my clerk you’ll be in charge of the office while I’m gone.’
    ‘Okey-dokey. I’ll dust your spook files and darn your spy’s outfit, and knit little covers for your tommy guns.’
    ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Cal. ‘Is nothing serious?’
    Tosca stopped chewing, blew out a bubble of pink goo to the size of a cue ball and then burst