The 3rd Woman. Jonathan Freedland

and not getting it, Leo gave what was meant as a prompt, watched by the rest of the room. There were about a dozen of them, almost all young, including those who were not interns, written off, in the brutal vernacular of the trade, as mere muffins: sugary snacks for the delectation of the older hands. Susan Patinkin, campaign veteran, was the only person present over the age of forty. ‘The clue is on the screen.’ He rewound, freezing on an image which included two Chinese men. Neither were in uniform, but both were of military age.

      Susan looked, then sighed. ‘Your point is?’

      ‘My point is that, yes, this ad is saying we can all get along. Even those guys.’ With his back to the screen, so that he could still face Susan, he gestured towards the Chinese faces. ‘But what’s wrong with this picture?’

      No answer from Susan, so now he looked around. ‘Anybody?’

      A hand went up. Young guy in a T-shirt decorated by a chimp in headphones, doubtless involved with social media. Leo had no idea of his name. He pointed at him instead. ‘You.’

      ‘They’re not singing?’

      Leo hurled his pen at him, forcing him to duck. ‘For fuck’s sake! Am I really the only person who can see the problem here?’ He turned back towards the screen, spooled to the final few seconds, halfway through the final refrain. The choir was in full voice.

      ‘… you’re my home!’

      ‘OK.’ It was Susan, sheepish at the back of the room.

      ‘Thank you!’ Leo said to the ceiling, his hands spread like a preacher at the pulpit. ‘Yes, Governor Richard Berger will bring harmony to the state of California. Yes, he will ensure the people of this state will get along with each other and even with the garrison. Yes, there will be no riots on his watch. But that doesn’t mean he wants these guys to stay forever. He doesn’t want California to be their home.’

      Susan had now abandoned the data logs on her tablet. ‘California, We Love You.’

      ‘Better.’

      She had another go. ‘California, Place of Harmony.’

      ‘Too Chairman Mao.’

      There was silence. Eventually Leo turned to the woman who had been at his shoulder, taking notes during the viewing, and who was, as it happened, wearing a tightly fitted top: knitted, cream-coloured and, Leo clocked, unable to hide a pair of very generously shaped breasts. ‘Collect four suggestions for alternative tag lines to run on this spot. Then focus-group all five.’

      He was already at the door, giving a curt nod to Susan as he passed her, when the assistant called out. ‘Focus-group five? But you said we needed four. What’s the fifth?’

      ‘Richard Berger. Bringing California Together.’

      There would be another year of this, Leo thought. All right, closer to ten months, but it would be like this every day. In fact, days like this would seem like a breeze come the fall. He remembered what Bill Doran used to say, his face cragged and scarred after more than thirty years on the road: ‘Campaigns are never tiring – unless you lose. Then they hurt like hell.’

      As Leo boarded the jet that would take him and Mayor Richard Berger to Sacramento – squaring the Democratic delegation in the state assembly, ensuring they endorsed early and often – he allowed three thoughts to circulate. First, he had no intention of losing. He would sweat from now till the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November to ensure his boss was installed in the Governor’s Mansion. Second, he already regretted his own, populist suggestion that the mayor, as the Democratic candidate, should eschew the private jet offered to him by donors and fly commercial whenever possible. Make no mistake, come Memorial Day, if not earlier, Leo would be invoking that ‘whenever possible’ clause and the wiggle room it very deliberately allowed.

      Third, he was thinking of Bill Doran. He knew that was bad form, or ‘malpractice’, to use Doran’s preferred word. It was a violation of one of Bill’s own commandments: never let them get inside your head. Normally, Leo observed that stricture without effort. But this time was different. His adversary, his opposite number on the rival campaign, was the very man who had taught him the fundamentals of political combat. If Leo were to win in November, he would have to turn his first boss and ongoing, if occasional, mentor into a loser.

      That they would clash one day, he had always known. They were on opposite sides of the aisle. It was only through a freak accident that they had worked together in the first place. It was Leo’s first campaign. He had signed up straight out of college as an unpaid volunteer for a millionaire Democrat-turned-independent, who had hired Bill Doran – the best known Republican consultant in the state – to underline his new, bipartisan credentials. It was a gimmick that had ended in disaster: the candidate was crushed, despite the expensive advice he had hired.

      But it had been the best possible education for Leo. Doran spotted him early, deeming him ‘the brightest of the bunch, no contest’. He let him sit in on strategy meetings way above his pay-grade, patched him into conference calls with the candidate, allowed him to hear Doran alternately soothe or rev up ‘the talent’ before the cue came to walk out on stage at a rally or fundraiser. ‘You can do this. You’re going to be the next senator from the great state of California.’ All bullshit, but necessary.

      Soon Doran was beckoning Leo to come forward and look over his shoulder when the data came in, the charts and spreadsheets filled with numbers gathered by pollsters crawling over every corner of California. Doran taught Leo to look first for Ventura County, specifically the 26th Congressional District. ‘That’s a toss-up seat, Leo. If you’re ahead there, you’re ahead.’

      As for TV spots, Doran was the master. There was no one with a better grasp of the visual campaign. What looked right, what looked wrong. No detail escaped him. To this day, more than nine years later, Leo could not look at a TV ad for anything – from soda pop to Depends undergarments – without seeing it through the eyes of his former mentor. When they last met for a drink, after running into each other during a straw poll event in Bakersfield four months ago, he had sat back and listened, astonished to discover that Bill Doran’s supply of political wisdom was still not exhausted. The man himself, however … well, that was a different story.

      Leo buckled up. The boss was next to him, still on a call to a radio station in Oakland. ‘I agree, Trisha. That’s one reason why I’m running. I want to be able to look every Californian in the eye and …’

      Leo made a mental note. Save the ‘every Californian in the eye’ for the tax pledge. Don’t waste it on other stuff, blurs the message.

      He gazed out of the window, the candidate having been placed in the aisle: ‘No point flying commercial if people don’t see you flying commercial.’ Leo thought about the Mail Room last night, enjoying the images his memory reflexively served up for his perusal. He caught himself as he realized it was not Jade or her long neck and backless dress that he was picturing but the maddening, repeatedly insulting Maddy Webb. His reflection in the porthole told him he was smiling.

      ‘Trisha, I’m glad you asked me that. I know in my own area …’

      Good. Berger was learning. Leo had told him: fight the habit of the last years and stop mentioning Los Angeles by name. It only turns off voters upstate. Downstate too, for that matter. Anywhere but LA, in fact.

      He could see the mayor was on his last question. Quick check of the phone before take-off. He scrolled through his messages. One from an old friend.

       Just heard. Can’t believe it.

      Just heard what? He couldn’t stand it when people played enigmatic. Total power trip, lording over you the fact they had caught some nugget of knowledge that you lacked. He would not succumb. He would not send the words his pal wanted to hear: ‘Can’t believe what?’

      It was bound to be about the food export story. There were new figures showing Californians were exporting so many of their staples – oranges, strawberries and avocados among others – they