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‘Acid,’ he told her, looking pleased with himself. ‘Put it in your coffee…Come on…’
He was pulling her to her feet, dragging her along in his wake as they went through empty rooms in which the windows and the fireplaces seemed to take on gargoyle expressions of frighteningly leering hostility that clashed with the mind-blowing beauty of the grass and trees she could see beyond the windows.
A fierce compulsion gripped her. She pulled away from Pete, somehow finding her way outside and then throwing off her shoes so that she could walk barefoot on the grass.
She was laughing.
‘Look how beautiful the grass is,’ she demanded. Then, turning to Pete who had followed her: ‘But I’m killing it.’
Now she was crying, huge fat tears trickling down her face.
‘I love the grass,’ she told Pete mournfully. ‘It’s so beautiful. Too beautiful.’
‘Too beautiful to live,’ he agreed.
A small breeze chilled over her skin, making her shiver. She was stoned, Rose recognised, high as a kite. She’d never tripped out before. Panic filled her.
‘I’ve got to go.’ She looked round for her Mini but then she noticed that even though it was still light she could see the shape of the moon in the sky. Entranced, she stared at it.
Pete came to stand beside her, looking at it as well.
‘It’s the moon,’ he told her solemnly.
‘Yes,’ Rose agreed. ‘I want to go there.’
‘Where?’
‘To see the man in the moon.’
‘Come on then.’
They were back inside the house, shadows chasing and tormenting them, making them run until they were panting with relief in the safety of Pete’s bedroom, the door safely closed against their pursuers.
‘It’s the man in the moon,’ Pete announced. ‘We have to draw a circle all the way round the bed to keep him away. We’ve got to get on the bed and stay in the middle of it.’
Laughing dizzily, Rose complied. She was filled with the most wonderful feeling, as though she had champagne inside her veins instead of blood. She felt that if she jumped high enough she would be able to fly.
‘I can fly,’ she told Pete, fresh tears filling her eyes as she felt the most extraordinary sense of joy piercing her heart and elevating her to a place where she felt as thoug
h the true mystery of joy had suddenly been revealed to her.
‘This is the most beautiful place in the world.’ She exhaled happily. ‘It isn’t falling in love that’s important,’ she told Pete solemnly, ‘it’s flying and touching the stars.’
‘Flying and fucking,’ he agreed with equal solemnity, reaching for her.
‘Oh, I can’t wait for us to leave for St-Tropez, Max. Have you been there before?’
‘Look, how many times do I have to tell you before it sinks into that stupid head of yours that I am not going?’
Emerald opened her mouth to insist that he must, and then closed it again when she saw that he wasn’t looking at her but instead was staring at a girl sitting at another of the nightclub tables a few yards away–a brunette, who seemed more interested in Max than she was in her own dinner companion.
‘Max,’ Emerald persisted angrily, ‘I’m trying to talk to you about St-Tropez.’
He reached across the table, and grabbed her arm. ‘Now look.’
‘Max, you’re hurting me,’ Emerald protested.
‘Good. There’ll be some more where that came from if you don’t put a sock in it.’
