While half his mind wrestled with the complicated finances of one of the fiercest take-overs Wall Street had ever known, his eyes ran over Chessie. She was as flushed as a peony, that pink dress emphasized every curve like a second skin. As the waiter laid a dark green napkin across her crotch, it was as though he was putting on a fig leaf. Bart wanted to take her upstairs and screw her at once.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said as he came off the telephone.

‘Aren’t you drinking?’ asked Chessie, noticing his glass of Perrier.

‘I’m driving.’

‘Perrier don’t make you merrier,’ said Chessie idly.

‘Just looking at you makes me drunk,’ said Bart. ‘Where does Ricky think you are?’

‘At home. I was terrified the match might be cancelled.’

‘It isn’t. I checked it out,’ said Bart. ‘How is he?’

‘Preoccupied. Mattie’s deteriorating; Kinta won’t stop.’

‘Sure he hasn’t got a bit on the side?’ asked Bart as they studied the menu.

Chessie laughed sourly. ‘The only bits Ricky’s interested in go in horses’ mouths.’

‘How was he when you got home after Lady Waterlane’s reception?’

‘Asleep in the hay beside Mattie.’

‘That figures. He thinks he’s Jesus Christ anyway.’

The telephone rang.

‘Choose what you want to eat,’ said Bart picking up the receiver. ‘I’d like poached salmon, zucchini and no potatoes,’ he told the waiter.

‘Why are you so keen to take over this company?’ asked Chessie, as he came off the telephone five minutes later.

‘Chief Executive, Ashley Roberts, blackballed me at the Racquet Club ten years ago.’

‘You are into revenge,’ said Chessie, taking a slug of champagne.

‘Never forget a put-down. That all right?’ He brandished his fork in the direction of Chessie’s fish pâté.

‘Fraction too much fennel,’ said Chessie. ‘OK, OK, that wasn’t a put-down. I used to cook for a living before I got married. I’ll cook for you one day.’

Bart massaged her arm. ‘I sure hope so. I’m sorry about Grace.’

‘Did the Bloody Mary come out of her shirt?’

‘No. She called Ralph. He’s making her another one.’

‘I suppose that’s what shirty means. How was the wedding? Is Grace still Biddling while Rome burns?’

Bart tapped her nose with his finger. ‘You must not take the piss.’

‘How did you two meet?’ asked Chessie as the waiter took away her hardly touched pâté.

‘I was a test pilot at NASA. Great life, none of us thought we’d live beyond thirty. You can’t imagine the joy of testing an airplane, learning its personality, talking to it, poking and probing, finding new things. I was a little boy from nowhere, but when I flew I felt like a god.’

He blushed, ashamed of betraying emotion. ‘Grace came to visit the plant, and that was that. She grounded me but she backed me.’

Chessie was fascinated: ‘How come you got so rich?’

Bart shrugged. ‘I build the best airplanes and helicopters in the world and I bought land when it was worth $300 an acre. Now it’s going for $10,000. All markets go in cycles, the skill is knowing when to get in and when to get out.’

Chessie breathed in the sweet scent of white freesias and stocks in the centre of the dark green tablecloth.

‘How were your children when you went back?’

‘OK.’ Quite unselfconsciously Bart got photographs out of his wallet.

‘That’s Luke. He’s twenty-two.’

‘Nice face,’ said Chessie.

‘Comes from my first marriage. Doesn’t live with us. He’s been working his way up as a groom in a polo yard. Very proud. Won’t accept a cent from me.’

‘Sounds like Ricky.’

‘More sympatico than Ricky,’ said Bart flatly. ‘This is Red.’

Chessie whistled. ‘Wow, that’s an even nicer face. He really is beautiful.’ Then, sensing she’d said the wrong thing: ‘Nearly as good-looking as his father.’

Bart looked mollified: ‘All the girls are crazy for Red. He’s kinda wild. He got looped at the wedding, and threw his cookies all over his granny’s porch. Plays polo like an angel. If he’d quit partying he’d go to ten. And here’s my baby, Bibi.’ Bart’s voice softened.

‘Now she is like you,’ said Chessie. ‘What a clever, intelligent face.’

No one could call her pretty with that crinkly hair and heavy jaw.

‘Bibi is super-bright. Harvard Business School, only one interested in coming into the business. She’s Daddy’s girl. Doesn’t get on with Grace. She might relate to a younger woman,’ he added pointedly.

He is definitely putting out signals, thought Chessie, as their second course arrived.

‘D’you often have affairs with men who aren’t your husband?’ said Bart, forking up poached salmon.

‘Not since I was married. And you?’

‘Occasionally. They weren’t important.’

Chessie examined the oily sheen on a red leaf of radicchio.

‘Is this?’

‘I guess so. That’s why I didn’t call you before.’

Elated, Chessie regaled him with scurrilous polo gossip, knowing it would delight him to know how other players ripped off their patrons. Aware she was dropping the twins in it, and not caring, she told him about them selling one of Victor’s own horses back to him.

‘Are you going to Deauville?’ asked Bart as he came off the telephone for the third time.

‘Not unless Ricky forks out for a temporary nanny. The grooms get so bolshy about baby-sitting and Deauville’s no fun unless you can go out in the evening. We haven’t had a holiday since we were married,’ said Chessie bitterly and untruthfully.

Bart traced the violet circles under her eyes.

‘You need one. Don’t you ever get any sleep?’

‘Not since I met you,’ said Chessie, who had drunk almost an entire bottle of champagne.

It excited her wildly that this man at the same time as dealing in billions of dollars could give her his undivided attention. All her grievances came pouring out: ‘Having been dragged up by a succession of nannies himself, Ricky thinks Will ought to be brought up by his mother.’

‘Will’s a nice kid,’ said Bart. ‘He’s only whiny, over-adrenalized and super-aggressive because he’s picking up tensions from your marriage. You’re both too screwed up to give him enough attention.’

‘That’s not true.’ Chessie dropped her fork with a furious clatter. ‘If you’re going to talk to me like that, I’m going.’

Bart caught her wrist, pulling her back.

‘Stop over-reacting,’ he said sharply. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong. Will’s playing up because you’re miserable.’

‘Does your son Red throw up in porches and no doubt in Porsches because you and Grace aren’t happy?’ spat Chessie.

‘Grace no longer excites me. Let’s go upstairs,’ said Bart calmly and he opened a door hidden in the romping nymphs behind him which led straight into a lift. ‘The beauty of this place is you don’t have to go through Reception to get to the bedrooms.’

It was a most unsatisfactory coupling. Bart was too anxious to get at her. Chessie was too angry and uptight to get aroused. Despite her moans and writhings, Bart knew she hadn’t come. Sick with disappointment and frustration, she got dressed. Here was just one more failure because she was not able to tell people what she liked, that she never came from straight screwing, and never with Ricky.

‘Poor little Rick’s girl,’ said Bart, kissing her forehead.

It’s all over, thought Chessie miserably.

As they went outside, Bart’s telephone rang again. He talked so long that Chessie was about to wander off without even saying goodbye when he hung up in jubilation.

‘I’ve got forty-nine per cent. By tomorrow lunchtime I’ll have nailed him.’

‘What’s your next take-over target?’ asked Chessie sulkily.

‘You are,’ said Bart. He glanced at his watch. ‘They’ll just be throwing-in. We’re going for a ride.’

Like all polo players, he drove too fast, overtaking with split-second timing, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on Chessie’s thigh. As the limo swung round the hangar, the helicopter standing on the apron was as blue as the Flyer’s polo shirts and as the sky above. On its side in dark blue letters was written: ‘Alderton – your friend in high places’.

Chessie sat in the passenger seat with the full flight harness biting into her pink dress. Having gone round turning on switches and tightening screws as a pre-flight check, Bart had taken off his jacket and his green silk tie, and was secured by just a seat belt round his waist.

Satisfied everything was in order, he started up the engine. There was a thrilling roar as the jets took a grip on the rotors which quickly accelerated to their operating speed. With a last look round to see everything was clear, Bart alerted the control tower, who asked for his destination and initial reading.

‘We’re going to do local flying towards the south-east, not above a thousand feet,’ said Bart.

As they flew over yellowing fields and rain-drenched woods and villages, Chessie gave a scream of joy.

‘Isn’t it heaven, just like a child’s farm? If you picked up the houses they’d be hollow underneath.’

She longed to run her hand up and down Bart’s pin-striped thigh, hard as iron like Ricky’s.

‘There’s David Waterlane’s place,’ said Bart. ‘You can see them stick and balling.’

Down below Chessie could see the dark, silken flash of the lake flecked with duck, and the dark brown oval of the exercise ring.

‘If you look closely,’ she said, ‘you may see Clemency sunbathing in the nude, or Juan getting his back brown on top of her. Talk about One flew over the Cuckold’s Nest.’

Bart laughed. The sun was beating down on the glass bubble. Oh hell, I’m getting too hot again, thought Chessie.