They did acid once a week or so for the next month, when Hamish would come over, bringing the drugs. Once they took it down by the river. This was Stephen’s best time. The late afternoon light was like a liquid, creating eddies across the darkness of the water. Like gravity-defying syrup, it slid up the trees as the sun dipped lower behind the hill. He was transfixed by the bark of the tree-trunks, how it seemed almost to glow from within. If the sun could shine on to things, maybe it could gather in them and shine back out? He couldn’t stop moving the flat of his hand over the warm rock where they were sitting, its smoothness against his palm satisfying a kind of skin-thirst. He heard trills in the sound of the river and it seemed to him that this must be where birds found their song. It was fucking amazing! It was like being a part of nature, being right inside it, hearing its secret music.

Sometimes Cass and Hamish would go off alone together and he and Georgie would sit side by side, somewhere out of doors. Time went weird: two hours could feel like brief minutes, or moments could swell into something momentous and grand. They’d sit up in the orchard or down by the river and what felt like a whole afternoon might only have been half an hour; or else dusk would pass unnoticed and they’d be surprised to find themselves out under the stars in the late summer darkness. Luckily Celia and Nick never fussed about whether people turned up to supper, but just left food out on the table. Occasionally Georgie and Stephen would lie on the two divans in the end room, playing records. You could hear things you didn’t normally notice and get very caught up in it; but music could suddenly jar, too. The mood had to fit.

The fourth or fifth time they took acid together, it wasn’t fun. Instead of leading them out into the beauty and mystery of the world, seeming to reveal its hidden connections, the acid drove them inwards. It was as if they were being propelled towards an unsuspected darkness. They all felt it. There was a sourness, a creeping sort of unease. Cass and Hamish went up to her room, saying they were going to try and wait it out lying down. Hamish muttered something about a bad batch.

‘Shall we do the same?’ Stephen asked Georgie.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Your room’s better than mine, I haven’t got associations up there. I don’t want to see my old dolls and stuff now, I think they might freak me out.’

In his room the window was shut and the air felt hot and still.

‘Oh God, I’m just going to lie on the floor actually,’ said Georgie. ‘I’d get seasick on the bed I think.’