Pillow Talk (15 page)

Chapter Twenty

‘Petra Flint? Petra Petra Flint. No
way
! What are you—’

‘I know! But Arlo, I mean how—’

‘You look amazing – you look the same. But very wet.’

‘You too – just the same.’

‘But bald as well as wet.’

‘You're not bald – you're – you're. Just not as hirsute as you were when you were a teenager.’

‘I – what are you—?’

‘I'm thirty-two.’

‘No – I meant—’

‘Oh! Oh I – you know.’

‘I can't believe it.’

‘No – nor me.’

(Some time later, after Petra and Arlo had left Suggitts, the shopkeeper would remark to the customer still dawdling over the cup of tea, Did you see them? Those two – grinning away at each other like soppy idiots? Sopping idiots more like, the customer would add, finishing his tea with a Ta-ta, see you tomorrow.)

‘It's been – Christ – it must be seventeen years?’

‘Yes.’

‘Last time I saw you was half my life ago, Petra.’

‘Over half my life ago, Arlo.’

‘That car horn is for me. I have to go. He won't stop honking until I'm in the car. Can I give you a lift? It's raining.’

‘It's pouring. I have a bike.’

‘Do you live here?’

‘Not really – but sort of.’

‘I'm going to London. Today. Now. As you can hear from all that honking.’

‘I live there too. Sort of.’

‘I live here. How long a tenancy is a “sort-of”?’

‘I don't know.’

‘Will it stretch till I'm back? After Easter?’

‘I think so. I don't know. I haven't thought.’

‘Please be here.’

‘OK.’

‘Petra Flint.’

‘But how will I find you, Arlo?’

‘I'll find you.’

And, under a barrage of irritated car horns, Arlo backed out of the shop without taking his eyes off Petra. And, though he could lip-read his colleague masticating a stream of expletives, hammering on the car window and mouthing, Come-fucking-
on
, Arlo needed a moment to raise his face to the sky.

If I believed in God, I'd say the rain falling on my face feels like the fingertips of angels playing out a tune.

For the first time in years, Arlo wanted to write a song. Lyrics and notes surged around his body like the flow of blood, cascading from his brain to his soul, rooting him to the spot while the lot was transcribed to his memory.

‘Savidge – what the
fuck
?’ his colleague was yelling out of the car window, a newspaper held over his head.

Arlo wanted to say, Drive yourself to the flaming airport, I need to write a song. And he wanted to make a phone call and say, Sorry, Mum, I just can't come home today. I need to stay here – and make sure I don't lose her for another seventeen years.

‘Savidge!’

The song was safely sealed in his thoughts. It was a gift he didn't give much thought to these days – the ability to create an entire composition in seconds and commit it to memory in a moment. He couldn't afford to acknowledge it – if he did, he'd have to question his teaching career; a career that had kept him occupied, solvent and safe these past years.

He didn't care if he looked like an idiot but he felt like a latter-day Gene Kelly, singing in the rain, as he jogged to the car with a lightness of step not even he remembered having.

‘Sorry,’ he said with a beatific smile which unnerved his colleague into silence, ‘just sorting my life out.’

‘In
Suggitts
?’

‘It's as good a place as any.’

It's OK, Arlo thought to himself. I can do the airport. I can do London, I could even do another seventeen years if I had to. Because she'll always be there. She'll be there for me to find. In a crowd of schoolgirls. In a sweetshop in North Yorkshire. In the sunshine. In the rain. Among the flowers.

The shopkeeper stared at the door while Petra gazed at the small puddle which was all that was left of Arlo. She didn't want anyone to step in it.

‘He left without paying for his Easter egg – the soft lad,’ the shopkeeper remarked to his puddle. ‘Ah well, I know where he lives.’

Petra suddenly realized she was hugging the chocolate bunny in the crook of her arm as if it were a soft toy.

‘I'll pay for his,’ Petra said, ‘and mine.’

‘All this equality – it's not right, pet. Romance should be old-fashioned,’ the shopkeeper teased. ‘He's not what you'd call
the Milk Tray Man
, is he.’

‘I don't like Milk Tray.’

‘Just as well. He's not much of a Sir Walter Raleigh either – look at that puddle.’

‘Well, James Cook's my hero, he was a far superior explorer,’ Petra said primly. ‘Now, what do I owe you – for both?’

‘Six pound for yours, ten for his. Sixteen pound, pet.’

Petra paused before she left. ‘I haven't seen him for seventeen years. And now he's buggered off down to London.’

‘Well, did he not say he'll be back?’ the shopkeeper said, reddening at the disclosure of her eavesdropping.

‘He said he'll find me – but I don't know how. We didn't swap numbers – we just talked about, I don't know, each other's
hair
.’

‘Well, if Captain Cook could find Australia, then I'm sure that lad'll find you.’

Chapter Twenty-one

‘Darling!’

‘Happy Easter, Mum.’

‘It's huge.’

‘I stole it.’

‘You what?’

‘I walked out of the shop without paying.’

‘Good God, darling.’

‘They know me there.’

‘For shoplifting?’

‘No, not for shoplifting, Mother. I just had a moment. I'll settle up next week.’

‘I don't think I ought to eat stolen goods, darling.’

‘Bollocks, Mum. It's finest Swiss chocolate. You enjoy it.’

‘Do you talk to your students with that mouth?’

‘No, but I kiss my mum with it. Hullo, Mum. It's good to see you.’

Arlo wrapped his arms around his mother and gave her a long hug. It never ceased to surprise him that he was a head and shoulders taller than she. Though his upbringing had been liberal, lenient and laid back, the demarcation of parent/child had never been compromised. So, though Arlo had been allowed to say ‘bollocks’ and ‘bugger’ and ‘bloody Nora’ at home, to him his mum was his mum and he was her child and it always felt funny that he was grown-up enough to see over the top of her head.

‘Go and unpack and check all your Action Men are where you left them,’ his mother said brusquely and Arlo knew he wasn't to comment on the tears in her eyes.

‘I haven't really got anything to unpack – your Easter egg took up all the room.’

‘Arlo, you're dreadful. I'm going to make a pot of tea.’

When she came back into the lounge, with tea for two on a tray, Arlo was revisiting all the family photos on the mantel-piece. She loved to see him do this; it was his little routine whenever he came back, saying a silent hullo to his family through the years. Hullo, Grandma. Hullo, Mum and baby Arlo. Hullo, Arlo aged six with the orange Space Hopper and terrible haircut. Hullo, Dad. And hullo, Dad and Arlo flying kites, hair and flares flapping cheerfully in some summer breeze thirty years ago. Hullo, Mum and Dad on your silver wedding anniversary. Hullo, Dad the Christmas before you died.

‘Ten years – next year,’ his mother said quietly, knowing instinctively that her son was thinking the same thing.

‘I know,’ Arlo said, ‘good old Dad.’

‘You always called him “good old Dad”.’

‘I know – it used to wind him up.’

‘Not really.’

‘I know.’

She poured the tea and they drank, wistful smiles easing the loaded absence of father and husband.

‘Mind you, it used to really wind
me
up when you'd call me Mum
my
, good and loud in public. Especially as you were in your twenties at the time. I'm glad you've outgrown that, Arlo.’

‘That was to even the score for the period when you wanted me to call you Esther.’

‘You were a teenager,’ she shrugged. ‘I thought you'd like to.’

‘You were a dippy hippy,’ Arlo laughed. ‘You still are, a bit. I was the only one amongst my friends who never had to sneak joss sticks up to his bedroom.’

‘You never even had to buy your own.’

‘Yeah, who needed pocket money when your parents let you have all the joss sticks you wanted, Esther,’ Arlo teased.

‘Can't stand the smell of them now,’ Esther confided.

‘Me neither.’

‘I have quite a thing for expensive scented candles, though.’

‘So I can detect,’ said Arlo, thinking that the house smelt particularly fragrant and feminine and it was such a comforting and lovely ambience after weeks of eau de boys, photocopiers, floor polish, games kits and home-brew.

‘Take one back with you,’ she said. ‘Every occasion I've visited, I've noted that your folly smells of moss and stone.’

‘It's made of moss and stone.’

‘Not on the inside. Mind you, I'm sure I have a Jo Malone candle that is called Moss or something.’

‘Mum, if I start burning scented candles I'll get a reputation for being even more of a poof than they already think I am.’

‘Darling – you know it wouldn't matter to me if you were.’

‘Bloody Nora, Mother!’ Arlo declared. ‘Where's that come from?’

Esther looked mortified, though Arlo hadn't really taken offence. It had been such an Esther thing to say. Like when she'd told him she didn't mind if he wanted to be Jewish when he spent part of his gap year on a kibbutz. I think you have to be born to a Jewish mother, Arlo had told her. Well, I'll look into it myself, if you like, she'd told him.

‘I just meant—’ Esther said. ‘Oh, I don't know what I meant. Here, let's crack this Easter egg.’

‘What you meant,’ Arlo said, having sucked thoughtfully on a full mouthful of divine chocolate, ‘was, How's my love life?’

His mother feigned her mouth being too full to respond.

Arlo shrugged. ‘It's difficult, Mum. After Helen. It's still difficult.’

‘It's gone five years, darling.’

‘But I flicked off that particular switch, I desensitized myself to the merits of romantic love. I can live without it. Quite happily, actually.’

Esther's eyes welled. ‘But that's so sad. You're so good at it. You are your father's son – and look how happy we were.’

His mother was the one person for whom Arlo's shrugs didn't work.

‘You need to let Helen go, darling,’ she said abruptly. ‘It wasn't your fault.’

‘That's easier said than done, Mum.’

‘Letting go of Helen – or believing it wasn't your fault.’

‘You're right – it's over five years ago. Nothing left to talk about.’

‘But something to think about.’

‘What if I
have
met someone?’ Arlo said quietly, more to steer the direction of the conversation away from Helen and events of five years ago.

Esther let the information hang. ‘Who?’ she asked gently.

Arlo thought of Petra. In his mind's eye he didn't see the vision of the drowned Ophelia who'd dripped back into his life that morning. He saw Petra at fifteen, wrestling with a big clay pot in the playground of his school. Wearing Dunlop Green Flash and her summer uniform. Ringlets crying out to be pinged. Cheeky smile. Nice knees. ‘A schoolgirl,’ he said vaguely.

‘A
school
girl?’ His mother's frown knitted her brow in such a way that she suddenly looked older than her age, as she might look in another decade.

‘Someone I knew from when I was at school,’ Arlo quickly explained. ‘Someone I haven't seen or even thought of, really, for years and years.’

‘And you met again?’

‘This morning.’

Esther observed softness mingling with trepidation in her son's expression. ‘How amazing,’ she said.

‘It is,’ Arlo said, ‘but I won't say more. I don't want to tempt fate.’

‘You won't be tempting fate if you believe in it,’ Esther said. ‘If one has hope, one has the power to fulfil it.’

Arlo lies in bed, the single bed that's always been his, and he's glad to be home. In retrospect, today was a mad day; it was all a bit weird, really. Not so much the fact that he bumped into Petra Flint in Suggitts, Great Ayton, having not seen her for seventeen years. But more, the feelings – strong, soaring, unequivocal – that seeing her has incited.

And Arlo feels a bit pissed off, actually. Because he was getting on fine in life without thoughts of love. And now his mind is whirring with them. And his mind's eye is playing a slide show on a loop, of Petra now, Petra then, Petra today, Petra seventeen years ago. A drop of rain coursing down her face like a tear, this morning. Oh, to kiss it away. Dunlop Green Flash and a short summer uniform. Her legs. Her skin. The swell of unseen but imagined breasts demurely hidden by school shirts or a man's pea-green cagoule.

Arlo's hand goes to his cock, straining with pent-up spunk which he wanks away in seconds. He's been celibate, by choice, for five years, which isn't to say that he hasn't been aroused, hasn't masturbated; but for five years he's been satisfied with pneumatic anonymous fantasy women rather than anyone known to him.

He lies in the dark in his childhood bed, holding the duvet aloft while he wonders if there are any tissues. He laughs when he remembers how fastidiously prepared he was as a teenager for masturbation in this very room. Tissues. Magazines. Brilliant hiding places. Twice-, thrice-nightly eruptions of unharnessed pubescent lust. The noiseless route to the bathroom. Silent comings and goings.

Twisting, he flicks on his bedside light. There are no tissues in sight. He tiptoes fast to the bathroom, knowing which creaking boards to avoid, and cleans himself. He regards the jars of his mother's lotions and potions. This is something new, just as her penchant for expensive scented candles is new. He remembers when he was young watching her massage a little olive oil into her face, her neck. How she'd smile at him and dab a little on his nose. Good old Mum.

He's back in bed and he feels exhausted. His back is nagging. He's not used to driving such a distance. Nearly six hours from Ayton to London via Durham Tees Valley Airport. But he can't get to sleep. Which is baffling because a wank is usually a good sedative.

And though he's spent, he can't stop thinking about her, seeing her.

What are you doing now, Petra? This precise moment in time? Are you in bed too? I feel I know the exact scent of your skin. But how the fuck can I? I've never got that close to you. Is this what love at first sight does, then? Imprints all your secrets, all of you, into me, in an instant?

Shut up, soft lad.

It can't be love at first sight because that would negate how I felt for her years ago. And I did love her then. At a distance. Gently. I remember.

But if I loved her then, where's she been all these years?

Where've you been all my life?

Stop it, idiot.

Is it love at second sight, then? Is that as good?

How will I know?

How can I find out?

Do I dare?