"It sounds almost beautiful."

"It is beautiful, in a sense. But that isn't the point."

Nick felt he had been given an explanation which he was too stupid, or unimaginative, to follow. "It must be horrible as well," hesaid, "obviously…"

"Well, it's poisonous, you see. It's glittering but it's deadly at the same time. It doesn't want you to survive it. That's what it makes you realize." She stepped away from Nick, so as to use her hands. "It's the whole world just as it is," she said, stretching out to frame it or hold it off: "everything exactly the same. And it's totally negative. You can't survive in it. It's like being on Mars or something." Her eyes were fixed but blurred. "There you are, that's the best I can do," she said, and turned her back.

He followed her. "But then it changes back again…" he said.

"Yes, Nick, it does," she said, with the offended tone that sometimes follows a moment of self-exposure.

"I'm only trying to understand." He thought her tears might be a sign of recovery, and put an arm round her shoulder-though after a few seconds she made another gesture that meant freeing herself. Nick felt a hint of sexual repudiation, as if she thought he was taking advantage of her.

Later on, in the drawing room, she said, "Oh, god, this was your night with Leo."

Nick couldn't believe that she'd only just thought of that. But he said, "It's all right. I've put him off till next week."

Catherine smiled ruefully. "Well, he wasn't really your type," she said.

Schumann had given way to The Clash, who in turn had yielded to a tired but busy silence between them. Nick prayed that she wouldn't put on any more music-most of the stuff she liked had him clenched in resistance.