CHAPTER TEN
It was three o’clock in the morning. All the lights were out in the house and the moon shone brightly overhead. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted. Marie stood at the front gate getting her bearings about her. She staggered slightly as she stood. Gradually she opened the gate and made her way slowly down the path, something was different but in her muddled mind she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Carefully she went. She felt as if her feet were gradually sinking into the path. She assumed that this had something to do with the drugs.
Carefully she opened the door and crept inside, through the hall and up the stairs. She had put her foot on the top stair when she heard a voice behind her say.
“Marie!” it was her mum. She turned around and looked down. The lights went on in the hallway and she seen through bleary eyes her mother standin at the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m not drunk!” she blurted out.
“Come down here now!”
She stamped her way down the stairs and planted her feet firmly in front of her mum.
“I’m not drunk.” She repeated.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Look I’ll prove it, I’ll show you how I walked in!” in hr confused state she believed that this would work. She stormed out the house all the way up to the gate and began to walk slowly and steadily towards the house. Halfway down the path something gave way underfoot and she fell sideways into the dirt.
“Now look what you’ve gone and done!” her mum shouted. She lay stunned as she was pulled roughly up off the grass.
“You’ve broken the path!” she had no idea what she was talking about; all she knew was that she badly wanted to go to bed. Her mum held onto her arm for several minutes shouting at her, calling her unreasonable and telling her she was a nuisance.
Eventually after what seemed like hours she let her go. She struggled upstairs. In her bedroom she switched the light on and sat on her bed. Her room was a mess, clothes lying all over the floor, make up strewn across the dresser; she had a feeling that her mum would demand it be tidied up the next day, hangover or no hangover. The thought of it made her toes curl.
It had been a good night; they had listened to music and taken more of the white power which she now knew to be called cocaine. She had heard of it before but had never been sure of what it was. But now that she had tried it she decided that she liked it, she liked the effect that it had on her. It seemed to lift her mood and free her of any inhibitions that may have been plaguing her.
She had spent the evening talking openly to Kevin. They had talked about all manner of topics, from their favourite music to more intellectual topics such as literature and politics. She had impressed him with her knowledge on both these topics. Nothing had been mentioned about her previous attempt to kiss him and now she was in a mood for forgiving him for laughing at her.
She lay on her bed and lit a cigarette, usually she would have gone to the window but at the moment she was too drunk and tired to move. She smoked it down to the butt, inhaling properly and using an empty coke can as an ashtray. When she was finished she closed her eyes, to be taken by sleep almost instantly.
She awoke the next morning to the voices of her parents outside her bedroom door.
“She came in at three o’clock last night!” her mum was saying.
“Bloody hell!”
“When I called her do you know what she did? She came storming down the stairs telling me she wasn’t drunk!”
“Hmm.”
“Well I could smell it off her a mile away. Then she goes into the garden to “Show you how I walked in” and she goes and breaks the bloody path!”
“What! I only just laid that!”
“I know.”
“The girls out of control.”
“What are we going to do with her?”
“Well we’ve already grounded her.”
“And she just sneaks out.”
“We’ll have to start locking the doors.”
“Hmm.”
Marie groaned, rolled over and went back to sleep.