He parked outside Walli’s house in Haight-Ashbury. The front door was unlocked, as always. The living room on the ground floor was empty, but littered with the debris of the previous night: pizza boxes, dirty coffee cups, full ashtrays, and empty beer bottles.

Dave was disappointed not to find Walli up. He was itching to discuss Daisy Farm. He decided to wake Walli.

He went upstairs. The house was quiet. It was possible Walli had got up earlier and gone out without cleaning up.

The bedroom door was closed. Dave knocked and opened it. Walking in, he sang: “We’re all going to Daisy Farm,” then he stopped dead.

Walli was in bed, half sitting up, clearly startled.

Next to him on the mattress was Beep.

For a moment Dave was too shocked to speak.

Walli said: “Hey, man . . .”

Dave’s stomach lurched, as if he were in an elevator that had dropped too fast. He suffered a feeling of panicky weightlessness. Beep was in bed with Walli, and there was no ground beneath Dave’s feet. Stupidly, he said: “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s nothing, man . . .”

Shock turned to anger. “What are you talking about? You’re in bed with my fiancée! How can it be nothing?”

Beep sat upright. Her hair was tousled. The sheet fell away from her breasts. “Dave, let us explain,” she said.

“Okay, explain,” said Dave, folding his arms.

She got up. She was naked, and the perfect beauty of her body brought home to Dave, with the force and shock of a punch in the face, that he had lost her. He wanted to weep.

Beep said: “Let’s all have coffee and—”

“No coffee,” Dave said, speaking harshly to save himself from the humiliation of tears. “Just explain.”

“I don’t have any clothes on!”

“That’s because you’ve been fucking your fiancé’s best friend.” Dave found that angry words masked his pain. “You said you were going to explain that to me. I’m still waiting.”

Beep pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Look, jealousy is out of date, okay?”

“And what does that mean?”

“I love you and I want to marry you, but I like Walli too, and I like going to bed with him, and love is free, isn’t it? So why lie about it?”

“That’s it?” said Dave incredulously. “That’s your explanation?”

Walli said: “Take it easy, man, I think I’m still tripping a little.”

“You two took acid last night—is that how this happened?” Dave felt a glimmer of hope. If they had only done it once . . .

“She loves you, man. She just passes the time with me, while you’re away, you know?”

Dave’s hope was dashed. This was not the only time. It was a regular thing.

Walli stood up and pulled on a pair of jeans. “My feet grew bigger in the night,” he said. “Weird.”

Dave ignored the druggy talk. “You haven’t even said you’re sorry—either of you!”

“We’re not sorry,” said Walli. “We felt like screwing, so we did. It doesn’t change anything. No one is faithful anymore. All you need is love—didn’t you understand that song?” He stared at Dave intently. “Did you know you have an aura? Kind of like a halo. I never noticed that before. It’s blue, I think.”