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room. The Ambassador was out of town, but the Minister, who would chair it, liked to draw on what counselors had read to save him from the trouble of studying all the papers himself. As Charlie slumped back against the taxi’s leather seat, he desperately scanned the papers to see what questions might be directed his way.
    He pulled the remains of a crushed pack of cigarettes from his jacket and searched for a match. The trouble with Washington was that it was drastically short of drugstores, delis, bars or anywhere that he could get what he needed to start his day. One street of the inner suburb gave wayto the next without so much as a general store or a laundromat to service the residential miles. He told the driver to divert to one of the big hotels, where, while the cab waited, he ran into the overheated coffee shop. He hated American coffee; it was always dusty, boiling hot and lacked the necessary caffeine. He drank as much as he could from a heated mug, managed half a Danish pastry, took two books of matches and left some coins on the bar.
    By the time he reached the Embassy, he had flicked through the
Post
and
The New York Times
, but Morning Prayers were already under way. On hard chairs around the walls sat numerous grave-looking men, the economic and Chancery first secretaries and the usual naval and military analysts. Charlie mumbled some apologies as he took his vacant place at the table.
    “Good morning, Charlie. We were talking about Richard Nixon. Do you fancy a trip to California?”
    “Not particularly, no.”
    Charlie was feeling the exhilaration of a hangover that had not settled. A thin film had been shaved from his irises; the molecular movement of the surrounding world had increased in agitation by about half its normal speed; he could feel a slight flush in his neck and jaw, but the headache was still a distant threat. He felt bold, carefree, as he shakily rode the chemical balances of his system: he was essentially, he admitted to himself, still drunk.
    Edward Renshaw glanced at Charlie, his eyes dilating for an instant as he took in the bloodstained collar. His own capacity for recovery was legendary, and he looked as pure and dedicated as the day he had first arrived in Whitehall. He pushed back his hair. “It’s very difficult to tell at this stage, of course,” he said, clearly referring back to what was being discussed before Charlie arrived. “But our analysis still points to Nixon-Kennedy in November and to a narrow win for Nixon. That’s the assumption we’re working on.”
    “We’ll see,” said the Minister, before beginning to analyze what a Republican government under Nixon might mean.
    Charlie looked out of the window. He needed to prepare an excuse for not going to California. He dreaded the thought of having to ingratiate himself with Richard Nixon’s staff, buying drinks and lunches for various small-town lawyers who had slapped Joe McCarthy on the back, inquiring about their plans for foreign policy, as though Nixon had any policy at all beyond getting himself elected. What was decisive for Charlie, however, was not his distaste for the work itself, but the fact that he found himself unable to fly without having swallowed three sedatives and half a bottle of scotch.
    He also wanted to be in Washington to keep an eye on the stock market, to consult brokers in London and New York; it was difficult to stay in touch when you were in Santa Barbara, eight hours behind the start of dealing in the City. Charlie’s portfolio of shares was now worth less than half its value three years earlier; he had borrowed more money to invest, but although he twice changed his broker, his inexplicable run, his own private bear, had continued.
    Charlie held his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes. Sometimes he wished he had not had children. It was not that he didn’t love them; occasionally when he went into their rooms at night and saw them sleeping, he felt his stomach tighten as a feeling