Pillow Talk Part 17

is he there? Lx

have u found him? Lx

Gina who, in her sensible Chelsea way, felt that too much romanticized whimsy was not good for a person, was nevertheless most forthright about Petra returning. 'Even if just to see how he looks when he's dry, darling. For goodness' sake go have some fun, get it out of your system, then come back and crack on.' After all, Petra had hardly lifted a tool since her return.

Eric's att.i.tude differed. While he agreed with Gina that a fling might do Petra the power of good, he was less concerned with Arlo turning out to be some cad, than he was with Petra's sudden love affair with this far-off place.

'It's all very well falling for somebody people are generally a movable feast,' he told her over a baked potato and vegetable chilli at their favourite cafe in Leather Lane, 'but being seduced by the bucolic charms of a foreign country you hardly know is far more dangerous.'

'It's only Yorks.h.i.+re!' Petra laughed, fanning her mouth. 'You don't need jabs and a pa.s.sport to go there, you know.'

'Well, it would suit me if your fancy was tickled by someone closer to home,' Eric shrugged.

Petra shrugged back.

'It might all go horribly wrong,' Eric said, 'and you'll be miles away.'

'I'm a big girl now, Eric,' Petra said. 'It's time to look after myself.'

Kitty was busy organizing her work for a small display in the National Theatre foyer and Petra came back from lunch to find her flailing around the studio looking alarmingly like Morticia Addams.

'Petra!' she said. 'You're not busy. Can you anneal for me? I've so much to do.'

'No problem. What do you want?' Petra said, donning goggles and sitting at the flame.

'This piece, that one and this part here on this one. Where's Eric?'

'Being moody.'

'Why?'

'Because he's worried I'm going to emigrate. To Yorks.h.i.+re. Drama queen.'

Kitty laughed.

'Everyone's confronting me with their twopence-worth of advice,' Petra said. 'Thank G.o.d you're too busy to talk.'

Kitty laughed again and Petra watched her face soften. 'Well, for what it's worth and I think it's worth more than tuppence my vibe says you should go. Even if nothing happens even if you don't find him, never see him again in your life I feel you should at least go. Allow your future every chance to unfold.'

They worked quietly. Kitty wrapping black velvet around a cardboard toilet tube to make a display unit for her bangles; Petra at the burner, annealing silver for her.

'You sound like someone I know,' Petra said.

'Who?'

'Someone I knew,' Petra corrected.

'Who?'

'A lady called Mrs McNeil. The pensioner I used to visit when I was at school I've told you about her.'

'The tanzanite lady?'

'Yes. Amongst many, many other things.'

'When did she die?'

'G.o.d let me see. Sixteen years ago.'

Kitty came up close to Petra. 'I'm very receptive to voices from the other side, Petra. You know what I mean when I say the other side.' Kitty regarded her gravely. Petra nodded, hoping she wore a sincere expression, despite the goggles, despite little belief in psychic power. 'They make themselves heard, Petra. It's about contact, about shrinking the current world, about expanding life and constricting time.'

Petra was a little lost by the theory but seduced by Kitty's conviction nonetheless.

'What would she say?' Kitty asked her. 'Mrs McNeil?' She answered before Petra had a chance to think about it. 'She'd tell you to go, wouldn't she? She'd say the journey in itself would be worth it.'

Petra watched Kitty whirling around the studio like a pantomime witch. And she thought, She's right, that's just the sort of thing Mrs McNeil would have said. And then Petra thought to herself that she loved Kitty. When had this woman ceased to be just someone with whom she simply shared studio s.p.a.ce and the bills? And Gina too, for that matter. And Eric, of course Eric. Her Studio Three: colleagues yes, but friends too. Firm and fast.

The journey in itself will be worth it.

The phrase became Petra's mantra on the crammed tube home.

In her flat, she chanted the sentence under her breath as she tidied the place and went from room to room to check if she was imagining a smell of gas. Petra glanced at Mrs McNeil's paintings of Kilimanjaro. Her voice, not heard for sixteen years, was still so vivid to Petra that she decided quite categorically that it couldn't have been taken on by Kitty. It was, however, a kind idea of Kitty's. And Petra was happy to think that they spoke as one, Kitty and Mrs McNeil. Kindred spirits that would do.

The journey itself will be worth it. I bet that's what you told yourself when your husband took you to Tanzania in the 1960s. And if I asked you what I should do about this Arlo business you'd tell me the journey in itself will be worth it. So I will go. I'll give it a go.

It was Thursday: a week and a half after Petra's return from Yorks.h.i.+re. The day after Arlo and Miranda had s.e.x. The day of Kitty's display at the National. The day when Petra booked a train ticket to Northallerton for the following day, despite not knowing whether or not Charlton would let her stay at the Old Stables again. This time, her trip wouldn't hinge on his generosity. She was going. She'd find somewhere. Wasn't there a local noticeboard outside the Spar in Stokesley? The little tourist cabin at Great Ayton?

And suddenly, like details drifting back from a dream, or specifics recalled long after a trauma, Petra is transported away from her bench in the studio and straight back into the little shop in Great Ayton; Easter on its way, rain hurling outside, Arlo inside, Petra cradling a chocolate rabbit in her arms. And the shopkeeper is laughing and staring at the puddle Arlo has left in her shop and she is saying, He left without paying for his Easter egg the soft lad. Ah well, I know where he lives.

Petra was too fidgety, too preoccupied to work and after an hour doing nothing at her bench but replay the woman's words, she raced to Hatton Garden, to the Charlton Squire Gallery hoping to find him there.

He was.

Petra was breathless.

At first, Charlton was irritated he had a wealthy client perusing the platinum collection, who required his most subtle but persuasive attention.

'Can I stay at your place again?' Petra said, tugging at his satin s.h.i.+rtsleeve for attention. 'From tomorrow? For a while, perhaps? Please?'

'This one!' the wealthy client declared, jabbing at the display case before flouncing over to a leather chair by the desk.

Charlton glanced swiftly from the opulent sapphire-and-platinum ring to Petra. Caught between a rock and a hard place, he thought to himself.

'Can I stay at the Old Stables? Please? I'm in love.'

Everyone falls in love with the Old Stables, Charlton thought as he swished over to the display cabinet, unlocked it with a tiny key and plucked up the ring. He glanced at the price of the ring as he took it over to the client. Sixteen thousand pounds. Lovely.

'Of course you can, Pet,' he hissed at Petra. 'Now pipe down I'm serving.'

Petra returned home late that evening, having gone to the National Theatre with Eric and Gina to support Kitty. Gina had given them a lift in the back of her Range Rover where Eric and Petra had played like kids with the electric windows and the seat-back DVDs and the pop-out drinks holders; exasperating Gina to the extent that she jumped a red light and was flashed by a camera.

Initially, the three of them worried that Kitty's works looked frustratingly inconsequential in the echoey and capacious foyer. But then they saw how all who approached the cases were transfixed; the sumptuous filigree, the delicacy of design and the brightness of the precious metals radiating irresistible allure. Within a couple of hours, there were more red dots than not against Kitty's collection.

'I'm going to make that journey tomorrow,' Petra told her, giving her a hug. 'I'll see you whenever.'

Kitty kissed her smack on the lips. 'Bon voyage, girlfriend.'

Petra's answering machine was flas.h.i.+ng. She thought it might be Lucy following up the text message Petra had sent about train tickets and fate and fingers-crossed Px.x.xxx. But there was only one message and it wasn't long distance. It was from Kent and it was from her mother.

'Petra? Is that you? I think this is your number. Well, it's the last one I have for you. I'm coming to London! I need somewhere to stay. Can I stay at yours? I mean, I'd love to see you! Of course I would! And so I thought it would be fun to stay with you!'

But I'm meant to be going to Yorks.h.i.+re, Mum.

Glum, Petra sat and stewed. It was nearly midnight when she dialled her mother.

'Mum?'

'Yes?'

'It's Petra.'

(She wondered why her mother never quite recognized the voice of her only child saying, Mum?) 'Petra! Did you get my message? Was that your number?'

'I did. It is. So you're coming to London?'

'I am! Tomorrow oh! today. There's a hemp workshop in Hackney.'

'North Finchley is miles away from Hackney.'

'It's a d.a.m.n sight nearer than Kent. My train arrives at fourish. Just leave the keys somewhere if you'll be still at work.'

'It would be nice to see you, Mum,' Petra said slowly.

'Oh yes I'm looking forward to seeing you too, I'm sure there'll be time,' her mother rushed. 'It's been ages! I'll bring my own milk.'

'I won't be here, Mum. I'm going to Yorks.h.i.+re first thing tomorrow.'

'Oh?'

'Yes.'

'Oh. I see.' There was a pause. 'Well, would you mind if I stayed at yours anyway? Do you have a cat that needs feeding, or plants which need watering?'

'No, I don't. But you can stay, Mum, if you like. I don't mind. Upstairs have my spare keys.'

'Thanks, Petra! I'll put some eggs in your fridge for you.'

'But I might stay in Yorks.h.i.+re a while.'

'Oh, the eggs'll be good for at least three weeks. Well, thanks again, darling. I'll leave it all spick and span.'

Petra doubted it. But then she thought to herself that she'd rather not be in her flat when her mother overran it for the weekend. Then she thought how that was rather sad. However, she made herself consider how her mother hadn't asked a single thing about her not how she was, nor even why she was going to Yorks.h.i.+re. Had she forgotten that her daughter was allergic to cats? And Petra thought actually, all of that was far sadder.

Chapter Twenty-six.

Arlo kept busy. And if he wasn't actually busy, he made sure he looked as though he was. He'd been most preoccupied the previous day, das.h.i.+ng across the playing field to the main hall, or hurrying back to his folly, or racing off to his cla.s.sroom, or rus.h.i.+ng over to the b.u.t.tery for meals, hands stuffed deep into his pockets, shoulders hunched, head down as if it were raining which it wasn't. Yesterday had been a beautiful, balmy day when drifts of summer filtered through the spring air. Yesterday had been a relaxed day for all the teachers except Arlo. No meetings, no duties, no pupils; a light and liberated hinterland between one school term and the next. Time to linger with a lager over lunch, to loll the afternoon away chatting casually, have a knock-about on the tennis courts and be at liberty to yell, 'That was out, you f.u.c.ker.' But not Arlo. He was far too busy working hard to appear as though he was working hard; his main objective being to avoid Miranda. Because he feared that, if she got to him, he'd have her. And he didn't like that feeling. He preferred it when it had been easy to abstain, when celibacy was a way of life, when his mind wasn't playing on one track and his body wasn't straining out and heating up. A day after having s.e.x with Miranda, he loathed himself for thinking with his d.i.c.k instead of about the consequences and he blamed her for rocking the status quo he'd carefully instilled in his life.

Rocking the status quo.

Status b.l.o.o.d.y Quo! It gave him an idea for a lesson. GCSE group. Genius. He strode over to his cla.s.sroom to prepare.

Luckily for Arlo, there was little time for anything extracurricular today. Lager was off the menu, the tennis courts were out of bounds and swearing was strictly off limits; the staff had a packed day of meetings and memos. Even the odd few minutes of s.n.a.t.c.hed chat was done in covert whispers, in much the same way as the pupils themselves communicated when they hurried from lesson to lesson.

Tonight was Formal Dinner, an inst.i.tution held at the start of each term on the Friday evening before the pupils returned. Staff wore their scholars' gowns, drank from a heavily engraved Loving Cup and were addressed by Headmaster Pinder, partly in Latin. It was a black-tie affair, fine frocks for female staff. Miranda was having trouble with her zip and, eschewing help which was closer to hand, she snuck across the grounds, high heels in her hands, and knocked on Arlo's door.

He looked a little scared, which she thought rather endearing.

'I'm having trouble with my dress,' she said. 'Can you fiddle with my zip?'

'I'm,' Arlo began, 'just doing stuff. Ask you know.'

But she walked past him with a coquettish smirk, turned away from him, c.o.c.ked her hips and held her hair above her neck. 'Just fiddle,' she said.

She couldn't see Arlo's discomfort written all over his face, but she could hear him sigh which she read as a breath of desire, rather than the unease which was closer to the truth. With a wriggle and a twist, she made the dress drop down a little and gape a lot. 'Fiddle!' she whispered.

Arlo was in his dress s.h.i.+rt and trousers but had been hunting for his bow-tie and any socks which were black, even if they weren't a pair, when Miranda arrived. He glanced at his watch: half an hour until they were expected. His gaze was lured over to the swoop of Miranda's shapely back, the rich crepe of her midnight-blue dress accentuating the softness of her flesh as it clung to the curves not already revealed. Arlo knew that he had an erection but he refused to look at it; mind over matter, ignore it and it will go away. It's only a zip. It's only a woman. Don't look at her bare legs, her toenails glossy and red. Don't look at the high heels in her hands. Do up the zip. It's only a zip. She's not asking you to lace her into a basque or hook her bra strap. Zips were invented to expedite the closing of clothes. What's gone down can come up again. Zippity doo dah. Whistle.

He whistled, a jolly, inane, childlike tune made up on the spot. He took the fob of the zip and it glided upwards, fast and smooth, a layer of dark blue fabric covering up Miranda's flesh. The zip stuck a few inches from the top and Arlo felt enormously relieved. In an instant, he believed that Miranda really hadn't come to him to seduce him, but only because her dratted zip was stuck and she was hardly likely to ask the ever-lecherous Glasper, whose folly was nearer to hers.