‘Coast-to-coast, as far as we know.’
Ed nodded. ‘That sounds okay.’
There was a silence, and then he said: ‘What’s a pretty girl like you doing with a character like Shearson Jones anyway? He’s a major-league heavy, isn’t he? And not just politically, either. From what I’ve seen of him on television, he’s not exactly the world’s skinniest man. How come you’re working for someone like that?’
‘I wasn’t, until Wednesday.’
‘But why? I don’t know much about him, but from what I’ve heard he’s pretty hard to g. t near. The only way I got through to him in the first place was because my daddy helped him with some wheat-dumping deal. I don’t understand why you’re hanging around a man like that.’
Della shrugged. ‘It’s the power, I guess. The influence. It’s very intoxicating.’
‘Even more intoxicating than good country air?’
She looked up at him. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Whatever you want it to mean.’
‘You’re a married man, aren’t you?’ she reminded him. ‘A married man with a young daughter of six.’
‘You want to talk about families?’
Della held her glass of brandy up to the light. An amber reflection curved across her cheek. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not particularly.’
They sipped their drinks in silence for a few minutes and then Ed said, ‘What does Shearson Jones want out of this fund? Can you tell me that?’
‘Prestige,’ said Della. ‘Votes. It’s all very good for the public image.’
‘Is that why he’s working so hard to suppress the truth about this blight? How serious it is, and how wide it’s spread?’
Della blushed. ‘I wasn’t aware he’d done anything like that.’
‘Wouldn’t you, if you were in his position? Let’s face it, the moment the public realises how many crops have been destroyed, they’re not going to worry about Ed Hardesty and Walter Klugman and all the other poor jugheads of Kingman County, are they? They’re going to start worrying about themselves.’
Della said, ‘I think this blight’s spread much faster than Shearson expected it to. He thought he’d have two or three clear weeks at least. Now it looks like a matter of days. But he’s collected something like eleven million dollars already, and if you do well on the television on Saturday – well, that could jump to twenty or thirty million.’
Ed set down his glass. ‘He’s got eleven million already?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, that explains a lot,’ said Ed.
Della leaned over towards him. ‘Don’t think too badly of Shearson, Ed. He’s all kinds of things, but he’s also a very professional and dedicated politician.’
Ed found himself looking into Della’s eyes, very closely. ‘You’re an interesting woman,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know they bred them as interesting as you in Oklahoma.’
‘We’re not all hayseeds,’ she said. ‘And my mother was Miss Oklahoma City, nineteen fifty-one.’
‘You’re aiming higher than that, huh?’
‘I could be.’
They had known what was going to happen from the moment Ed had invited her to stay over. All through dinner their conversation had been leading inevitably to this one moment. Ursula had helped it to happen, too, by her active approval of everything that Della had said and done. She had smiled at Della with a toothy expression that could only be interpreted one way: wouldn’t I have loved to have you as a daughter-in-law?
Ed said, ‘You must be tired.’
‘Not too tired,’ said Della, throatily.
Ed stood up, walked across to the drinks cabinet, and poured himself another brandy. ‘Like you said,’ he told her, ‘I’m a married man with a young daughter of six.’
‘I’m not forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do,’ Della said.
He turned, and looked at her, and then gave her a wry smile. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I know you’re not. But you must have guessed where my marriage is at, right now. And at times like this, I guess everybody’s looking for a little reassurance, and a little consolation, and maybe a little excitement, too.’
‘You think I’m exciting? Miss Kansas City Herald-Examiner, as was? Shearson Jones’s private messenger lady?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘What about your mother?’
‘She takes enough sleeping-pills to knock out a rhinoceros. Apart from that, she likes you.’
‘She likes me that much?’
He walked back to the sofa, and stood close beside her. ‘Does it matter?’ he asked her, quietly.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t.’
Ed leaned forward and kissed Della on the forehead, just below the line of her bright coppery hair. It started off as a chaste kiss; as a kiss of friendly affection and nothing more. But she put her arm around his neck, so that he couldn’t break away from her, and she raised her lips to him, very soft and very moist and very willing. He hesitated for a moment, and then he kissed her again, and this time it was a long, searching, devouring kiss, a kiss that meant I want you, however wrong it might be. A kiss of lust, and shared frustrations, and sheer excitement at making love to someone new.
‘Let’s take a bath,’ whispered Della. ‘I’ve been flying, and taking a look around your farm and I’ve been looking forward to a bath all afternoon.’
‘All right,’ said Ed. ‘A bath it is.’
They went upstairs together, Ed leading Della by the hand up the galleried staircase, until they came to the rococo bedroom. Della said, ‘Quite a place,’ as Ed showed her through to the bathroom.
‘Season designed it. She visited the Palace of Versailles once, on a trip to France, and I think it made a lasting impression.’
They went into the bathroom. The tub itself was midnight blue, and the wallpaper was an Osborne & Little design from England, blue peacocks strutting across a white background, like a Rorschach print of stately elegance. Ed ran the faucets, and sifted Swiss herb salts into the water. Della stood before the mirror, tidying her hair.
‘I’m surprised you took this farm on,’ said Della.
‘Oh?’ asked Ed. ‘Why?’
She turned away from the mirror. ‘You seem to like classy living as much as the next man. You’re not dumb. So why maroon yourself out here in Kansas, away from civilisation, and theatres, and anything that’s anything?’
Ed unbuttoned his shirt. ‘Land, and growing things, they’re as much a part of what makes this country worth living in as theatre and smart restaurants. And, in any case, I guess every actuary’s a dumb hick at heart.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘Well, I hope you’re not too dumb and hickish to unzipper my gown for me.’
She turned around, lifted her hair up from the nape of her neck, and presented her back to him. He stood right behind her, watching both of their faces in the bathroom mirror. The steam from the hot water was already misting the edges of the glass so that it looked like an old and romantic photograph.
Ed tugged the zipper right down the curved small of her back. Then he gently slipped the straps off her shoulders, and pulled down the front of her gown, baring her breasts. In the mirror, he could see how large and rounded they were, and how wide her pink areolas spread. He watched his hand reach around her, and clasp her left breast as if it were a heavy, ripe fruit.
Della stretched her neck back, and kissed him. He pulled her gown right down, and she was standing in front of the mirror naked. The shape of her pale body was punctuated only by the petal-pink spots of her nipples and the gingery plume of her pubic hair.