Pillow Talk (25 page)

Jenn giggled and soon set Petra off. They sat together for a decadently long lunch (according to Petra) or dinner (according to Jenn). Telling each other all about themselves in between sips of wine, revealing all sorts of secrets in between mouthfuls, discovering various similarities and shared empathies while helping themselves to forkfuls from each other's plates.

‘Shit. I'm pissed. What will Arlo think?’

‘Don't give him the chance to think, love – if I were you I'd lay myself out on the couch wearing nothing but a feather boa.’

‘Where on earth am I going to find a feather boa on a Friday afternoon?’ Petra said, quite liking Jenn's idea.

‘I bet Boyes will have one. For about a quid,’ said Jenn, eager to help.

Ten minutes later, the two of them were giggling their way across the street and browsing the old-fashioned store. They didn't find a feather boa, but by the time they said goodbye to each other, with a kiss on the cheek and the swapping of mobile numbers, they'd each found a new friend.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Telling Petra about Miranda had been uppermost on Arlo's mind. Because he'd reasoned that if he told her, if he admitted to something that, in the grand scheme of things, was just a piffling matter anyway, then he would feel exonerated for not telling her about the other. About Helen.

But when he arrived and found Petra gloriously woozy, naked on the sofa apart from a stripy woollen scarf strategically draped, he swiftly forgot all about confessions and serious stuff. And as they lay in each other's arms, Petra rabbiting on about her lunch with Nige's Jenn, Arlo considered that Petra was so vividly his here-and-now, that to hark back to something of so little consequence to him personally or to them as a couple seemed really quite ridiculous. Storms in teacups over mountains and molehills sprang to mind. Much Ado About Nothing. He thought, I'll bet Miranda hasn't given any of it a second thought anyway. Modern girl that she is; sex for the sake of sex. He doubted whether she'd spent a single moment deliberating the finer points of morality in the modern age before she'd taken her hand to his flies.

It would be best all round when she left, though.

And he'd be asking Nigel to keep schtum for the time being, happy as he was for Petra to have befriended Jenn.

He did ask himself in a faint voice whether the fact that he had now chosen not to discuss Miranda thus meant he really ought to at least mention Helen.

But then Petra's voice pulled him from his darkened past into his glowing present.

‘Come on, Big Boy – this sofa is a bit prickly, let's go to bed.’

Soon enough, half-term came around and with it the opportunity to spend normal time together, away from the confines of school timetables, the chance for Arlo to play host, the chance for Petra to dip into his world albeit a quieter, unpopulated version. He'd held off specifying which day she should come until he'd ascertained when most of the staff, Miranda included, were leaving. Saturday evening, it seemed. So Sunday morning would be perfect.

And it was.

A misty dawn, at the crack of which Arlo had started spring cleaning his folly, soon lifted to present a day sparkling with the true arrival of summer. A cloudless sky, the land verdant and lush, the sound of summer all around: buds bursting into flower, the hum and drone of busy insects, an arpeggio of birdsong. It was as if active preparations were afoot in nature with which to welcome the tourists during the next couple of months.

Petra no longer felt like a tourist and her hope was to be classed an honorary local. But as she cycled up the drive to Roseberry Hall she wasn't sure quite how to introduce herself to the disembodied voice coming through the intercom. Visitor? Guest? Friend? Old friend? Girlfriend?

‘Oh. Hi. I've an arrangement with Arlo Savidge?’

This was good enough for the voice in the intercom; the gates swung open and Petra cycled on, a little more slowly. Was she to report to reception? Present herself to the headmaster? Where would she find Arlo? Look straight ahead, Petra. Over there. See, he's waving at you like a madman.

‘I've signed you in,’ he said, taking her bike and pushing it, his other arm relaxed around her shoulder, ‘and it'll be me who signs you out – whenever I decide that shall be.’

‘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 circumfluous routes this way and that.

‘God, 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 circumnavigation 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 flustered, ‘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 space, 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 surreptitious 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 fishing 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 bashing 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.

‘Fuck shit bollock wank,’ 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 seashore. ‘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 crap 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.’