Pillow Talk Part 26

'Detention again, sir?'

'Detained at my pleasure, Flint.'

The lawns undulated in deep green velvet wafts, rolling towards the brighter hued playing fields which plotted and pieced the land until the distant moors claimed it back. With the sunlight eliciting the cream in the stone at the expense of the grey, the fine buildings sat stately and sedate while a network of pathways snaked circ.u.mfluous routes this way and that.

'G.o.d, it's spectacular. You are a lucky bunch. We can pretend we have some huge private estate to ourselves.' Petra stopped and took it all in.

'Not quite to ourselves,' said Arlo. 'A few odds and sods will be lingering, a few odd sods lurking.'

'A strange humpback guarding the tower? Quasimodo ringing the bells?'

'No that'll be the Walley Brothers.'

'The Who?'

'I can't explain.'

'I can see for miles,' Petra said, standing still and gazing about her.

'Come on this is me. This is my folly.'

'Folly. Walley,' Petra said, more to herself than to Arlo. 'I'm going to love it here.'

Arlo let Petra enter first. He sat, quietly following her round with his eyes. It was something of a novelty; having a house guest, being a host. Having a girlfriend at all, really. Nothing too weird about any of it. Just new. Nice, actually.

Petra's circ.u.mnavigation of Arlo's abode was methodical and slow. She ran her fingers lightly along the furniture, the door frames, the spines of his books; glanced in the mirror and then changed her focus to give him a quick, shy smile. She looked up and she looked down, she looked into corners and crannies. She lingered in front of his record collection, vinyl and CD, slightly in awe, a little intimidated. Haven't heard of half of these do I say I actually quite like Robbie Williams or is that naff?

She touched a string of Arlo's guitar, wondering if he'd play for her again. She was charmed by the tiny, well-appointed kitchenette and was pleased by the bedroom, surprised that the bathroom was sparkling, that the loo seat was down. Time will tell, she thought to herself, whether this is in my honour or indeed another string to this man's bow.

'Small, but perfectly formed,' Arlo said suddenly, too shy to say, And the same can be said about you.

'It's very nice,' said Petra. An understatement she thought there was something sublime about the place. 'You have some interesting stuff.'

'Choose some music,' Arlo invited her.

'No, no,' she said, a little fl.u.s.tered, 'you choose.'

'Bob Seger? Steve Earle?'

She shrugged hoping it looked like nonchalance rather than ignorance. He chose. She wasn't quite sure whom but she intended to find out because the music was amazing. Arlo came over to her, cupped her face in his hands. He was so pleased that she was here, in his place, filling his s.p.a.ce, at his invitation. He kissed her. 'I don't know whether to take you to bed right now or give you the guided tour of the school or just get going and go out. It's a beautiful day. It's your call.'

Petra pretended to deliberate. 'We could have a quickie and then make tracks?'

Arlo laughed. 'Saucy minx.'

Petra feigned to look put out but couldn't maintain it. She watched Arlo's face change as he started to kiss her, to caress her. She put her hands flat against his chest and gave him a little shove. 'On second thoughts, there's plenty of time for indoor sport. But as you say look at this glorious day.'

'You can't leave me in this ' he paused and glanced down at the protuberance holding aloft the crotch of his trousers, ' at this angle.'

'I'm not leaving you,' Petra said, 'I'm just putting you on pause for a couple of hours.'

He shrugged. He'd kind of just done the same thing to Bob Seger.

'We have wheels,' he told her as they strolled out, his hands in his pockets, her arm linked through his.

'Of course we have wheels,' Petra laughed. 'My bike is now like an extra limb.'

'Two wheels good, four wheels better,' he said and he led the way along the path towards the main buildings of the school. 'Stay here a mo'.' He went in, came out swinging a set of keys. 'Your carriage awaits.'

'La di da,' Petra said.

Then she burst out laughing.

'It's a mini-bus!' Petra exclaimed.

'It's a spanking new Mercedes-Benz Sprinter,' Arlo objected after a surrept.i.tious glance to see what it actually was.

'It's still a mini-bus.'

'Get in, woman,' Arlo said in a tone of voice that implied if she didn't behave, he'd send her to sit at the back on her own.

Nustled between two soaring cliffs, at the foot of a demanding hill with a broad sweeping horseshoe bay looking out easterly across the North Sea, the old and tiny fis.h.i.+ng village of Runswick Bay was postcard perfect whatever the weather but on a sunny day it was truly idyllic. Petra loved it in an instant. The vertiginous approach, the meandering narrow streets, the magnificent setting, the poetic divergence in scale between nature and man. Like barnacles clasped to the side of a whale, Runswick's brave little fisherman cottages with their rosy red roofs appeared to cling on determined, while the land dropped in a fast twist down to the sea. The thatched coastguard's building, the lifeboat station with its causeway, the tiny chapel, all standing proud and brave like little beacons of faith for the men of yore who had taken their chances with the ominous grey swell of the North Sea.

She turned to Arlo, her eyes sparkling.

'I want to live here!'

'You'd need to see it with a bit of winter first,' he laughed and he took her hand and led her to the beach.

'But I'd love to see it all stormy and bleak thundering waves roaring up at the cliffs! Spume smarting the buildings! Lightning spearing the sea! Cliffs crowned with snow! Me a tiny speck in the midst of it all!'

'You're a shameless romantic, aren't you?' Arlo said, picking up a small clay rock and bas.h.i.+ng it down to split it. Trying another. And another. 'Look fossils,' he said finally. 'Only don't ask me what of.'

'I know I am,' Petra said quietly.

'Sorry?' Arlo was busy with his palaeontology.

'A romantic.' Petra shrugged and smiled, feeling strangely emboldened by her surroundings. 'Absolutely.' In the face of such natural beauty, what in the world was there not to be honest about? Arlo looked at her quizzically; a rock in each hand as if he was balancing some great metaphysical equation. 'I am a romantic,' Petra reiterated. She turned to the sea. 'It's got me into trouble in the past,' she said over her shoulder, 'but I wouldn't be any other way.'

Arlo came to stand alongside her, put down his fossils so he could slip his arm around her waist. 'And did you want to be a princess when you grew up?'

'Not exactly,' Petra said, happy to be teased, 'though hoping for a handsome prince has certainly thrown a slimy toad or two my way, but that's not to say it's damaged my belief in happy-ever-after. It would be plain silly not to believe in happy-ever-after.'

Arlo looked out to sea as he considered what she'd said. Kissed her gently on the cheek. 'It's one of the qualities I love most about you.' He stopped; she was all eyes, all ears, even the curls of her hair which had spun loose from her pony-tail seemed to bounce with expectation. His smile was broad. 'And yes, Petra, I did just say that I love you.'

She was grinning and then frowned and fidgeted. 'But now you'll think I'm just being polite if I say that I love you too.'

Arlo shrugged.

'f.u.c.k s.h.i.+t b.o.l.l.o.c.k w.a.n.k,' she laughed and stuck two fingers at him. 'I love you, Arlo Savidge.'

'She's certainly not being polite so she really must love me,' Arlo proclaimed to a dog who had bounded up to sniff around his legs before belting off again. Arlo took her hand and they walked to the seash.o.r.e. 'Blimey aren't we getting deep and meaningful,' he said rather brightly.

'Deep and meaningful is good,' she said at length.

Arlo nudged her, then slipped his arm through hers. 'I know it is.'

'And actually, I'm quite proud of myself,' she told him, 'because you know, I grew up amidst all that c.r.a.p and unpleasantness where love had been lost but it never made me cynical and I emerged relatively unscathed.'

'Odd, isn't it my folks set an example I've aspired to follow. Yours set one which has made you crave the polar opposite but we're both on the same track,' he said carefully. 'It's strange, Petra. But we're peas in a pod, really, you and I. From two very different sources.'

'Non-identical twins.'

Arlo laughed. 'Not quite sure about the incestuous connotations there.'

Petra laughed. 'Me neither.' Then she paused. 'Are you like me in feeling that cruel blows from past love don't dent your belief in future love?' Helen Helen Helen won't you please tell me a little more about Helen?

'Mostly,' he said and then he kissed her so tenderly that the ambiguity of his answer, the tinge of hesitancy in his voice, were swiftly swept out to sea.

'Rivers flow into the sea

yet even the sea's not so full of me,'

Arlo sang.

Petra looked at him. 'I love your voice.'

'There's a hole in my heart

that can only be filled by you.'

'I love you,' she said, walking on, winking gratefully at the sea as if it had empowered her to reveal her feelings.

Arlo stood for a moment, looking far out to the horizon.

'And this hole in my heart

Can't be filled with the things I do.'

For a moment, he couldn't see a thing.

Bed-time loomed. And the closer it came, the more of an issue it became for Petra. She knew from humiliating experience how her sleepwalking was often at its worst when she stayed in a new place. While Arlo washed up coffee cups, she slipped away to the bedroom and a.s.sessed it carefully. She lay on the bed, flung out her arm to see where it reached. Nothing. It would be better if there was something. Something to clonk against or tumble over or to trip her up and wake her. Next, she counted the steps from the bed to the window, to the wall, to the door; she gauged what furniture jutted out, whether there were any rucks in the carpet. As quietly as she could, she closed the door. She wanted to see how easily it opened and, as she closed her fingers around the handle, she prayed it would be tricky surely the door of a folly would be a little warped, stick in the frame, need a lot of pulling at some idiosyncratic angle. It opened soundlessly, however, and with ease. She closed it again, turning the handle slowly and fully until she heard an encouraging click, then she pushed her weight against the door to ensure it was shut tight. She went back to the bed and walked over again, put her hand around the k.n.o.b. She didn't even know how much force she exerted when sleepwalking, or whether twisting a handle this way and that came instinctively. She'd had no trouble pus.h.i.+ng aside a st.u.r.dy old armchair she'd wedged up against the door at Eric's parents' house even though she'd loaded it with the Encyclopaedia Britannica. She'd then gone into his brother's room and got into bed. With him in it.

But there was no armchair in Arlo's bedroom. Nor were there any st.u.r.dy books. Just LPs, thousands of LPs stacked together like a long, rectangular caterpillar. Petra tried the door. Again, it opened easily. She closed it again. Took off her shoes, placed them in the path she thought she might walk. This time she closed her eyes, hoping to best emulate the way she walked when asleep. Shoe. Ouch, corner of bed. Shoe. Where is the door? Where is the sodding door? She opened her eyes. The door was open and Arlo was standing there, staring at her.

'What are you doing?'

Petra was mortified. 'Oh! Nothing. Nothing. I'm just tired. I kicked off my shoes and practically fell asleep on your bed in an instant! So I was coming to say I'm going to bed. I can hardly keep my eyes open! Actually, maybe I have something in my eyes perhaps that's why they feel so tired.'

From the way Arlo was looking at her, it was obvious that either he didn't believe her, or else he thought she was nuts. But she just didn't want to tell him about it. Her sleepwalking had irritated Rob supremely, frustrated her parents, amused her friends. No one really took it seriously, that was for sure. Petra just didn't want Arlo to know. At least not yet. Not when love had so recently taken wing, as fragile in its newness as a b.u.t.terfly just unfurled from its chrysalis. On a deeper level, Petra felt embarra.s.sed: she didn't know why she sleepwalked and she had no idea how to stop it. n.o.body did. All she wanted was a good night's sleep in Arlo's arms; night after night safe in bed with him. Surely the more of those she had, then the bad spell would be broken at last? Just then she thought she was going about it the best way she could.

'I'm just tired. Just about to put my shoes away.'

'Oh,' he said, still looking puzzled. 'OK, well, I'll join you in a minute or two.'

'OK!' she said with an oversized grin, giving him a quick, unnecessary thumbs-up which she regretted instantly. Stop it! Act normal. It's Arlo. It's Arlo. It's love. Don't worry.

But of course she walked. Arlo was still awake as was so often his wont in the small hours when Petra sat up quickly and left the bed. She banged into the corner of it, made her odd, stilted pa.s.sage to the door regardless, opened it easily, went through to the sitting room. Arlo followed her. She was standing very still. He walked right in front of her.

'Earth to Planet Petra,' he said, with a little wave in front of her eyes. She pushed his arm down with surprising force and shuffled a few steps forward. He stayed in front of her. 'Arlo to Petra,' he said gently, 'come back to bed, sweetheart.' As gently as he could, he turned her shoulders, letting her do the walking while he did the guiding. Back to bed. Snuggled up close. Holding her against him. Don't go. Don't leave. Stay.

'Where is it that you go, Petra?'

She said something. In a flat monotone mumble.

'I go looking,' he thought she said.