Pillow Talk (24 page)

Finally he felt sleepy and appeased. He thought how if he had left the loo rolls and the mugs as she'd arranged them, had he not returned the toothpaste or the shoes, perhaps it would have elicited a revelation, a disclosure of a private side to Petra, intimate details. Didn't he want to know everything about her? Of course he did, passionately. And yet, he'd chosen to safeguard her privacy. He'd actively destroyed all her evidence by returning everything to normal. This wasn't so much to save Petra any humiliation (
I stopped you wetting yourself
is not the thing to say to a brand-new lover) but that, by affording her her own secrets, he could keep hold of a couple of his. Even if not secrets, per se, surely everyone is entitled to have things they'd rather not talk about. Things you keep to yourself. No harm done. Things which, if left unspoken, don't in any way lessen the love.

Chapter Thirty-six

As Arlo buttered toast and hunted for jam in the staff common room, he had to laugh at himself. Though he had anticipated fending off a barrage of insinuations and merciless probing from Nige, it never came. Nige hadn't even told the others, Hey, I came across Arlo with a fit bird but she's just an old friend. Nor had he taken Arlo to one side to say, Your mate Petra's pretty, isn't she? Nige hadn't asked him a thing, hadn't mentioned it all. And it was now midway through the week. But what caused Arlo to laugh at himself most was that he was strangely put out, rather than relieved. Isn't it written all over my face then? Does it not illuminate me like an aura? Does everyone truly have me written off?

‘Nige says hi, by the way,’ he told Petra over the phone. And then he wondered why he'd lied to her again, no matter how anodyne it was.

‘Say hi back,’ said Petra and he cringed.

Petra was having a wonderful week. A fat cheque arrived from Charlton and two of her clients commissioned work direct. With her London rent helped by a friend of Eric's desperate for a place for a week or so, and with Charlton's blessing to stay on in Stokesley for May and June at least, she was able to pay off her tab with her gem merchant and still have a pleasing balance in her bank account. The more she acknowledged her good fortune, the more seemed to come her way; it appeared one wasn't remunerated for simply counting one's blessings, one had to appreciate them sincerely. And Petra certainly did. She had started to feel very, very lucky. And high. Day-to-day life was good enough – but that each day began and ended with lengthy phone calls from Roseberry Hall, each one seminal in some way, had Petra positively floating.

She loved to hear all the anecdotes from Arlo's day at school and he loved to listen to her enthuse about her work and they still loved to regularly marvel at the fact that they had found one another again. It had to be way more than a coincidence, there had to be forces at play! Time and distance couldn't keep us apart! We were meant to be! I feel good – don't you? They also rediscovered forgotten events and people over which to reminisce and neither of them were shy about revealing just how much they were looking forward to the coming weekend and the weekend after that, then half-term. And then more. There was no game-playing, no playing hard to get; there was no point whatsoever in doing that. There was simply affection and hope.

They could have snatched half an hour together, mid-week, if Petra had cycled over to the school, but they were both quite enamoured with the old-fashioned aspect of a courtship.

‘It's like having a boyfriend at the fancy boarding school down the road.’

‘It's like having a bit of totty in the village.’

‘Sod off!’

‘I'll phone you first thing tomorrow – sweet dreams, Petra, sleep well.’

Arlo always said, ‘Sleep well,’ he always asked her how she'd slept. She loved that. She thought him most intuitive.

‘You're not a normal bloke, Arlo. Normal blokes don't usually do chatting by phone – they mostly grunt, in my experience.’

‘Am I abnormal, then?’

‘No. No. Actually – you're lovely, Arlo, really lovely. In my experience.’

‘You're not so bad yourself, honeychild.’

At first Kitty, Eric and Gina had kept Petra's bench clean and empty, as if she might walk into the studio at any moment and pick up her tools. But there again, she'd taken her tools with her and though they certainly would not entertain working at her bench, it did quite quickly become a useful extra surface. Initially, Petra had been a daily topic of conversation, talked about if she had been in touch, worried about if she hadn't. But their growing sense of Petra being quite able to look after herself came directly from Yorkshire, from the type and frequency of her contact. Strangely, it was that she phoned and texted less and less that helped them miss her less and less. Now, when she phoned them it was like Lucy phoning her – a friend who lives far away, always a pleasure to hear from them, to catch up and chat. Petra hadn't inundated them with the ins and outs of her first weekend with Arlo – that was for her texts to Hong Kong. But Petra had sent a text to Gina, Eric and Kitty straight after, saying bingo! me happy bunny! ;) Pxxxx

Hurrah! Gina replied.

Gory details required … Eric texted back.

If he hurts u I'll kill him sent Kitty.

Petra loved her mobile phone. Life was good when one could stroll around miles from home with a pocketful of friends.

Fone u 15 mins Lxxx beamed through to Petra's phone when she was in the queue at the Co-op, giving her just enough time to finish her shopping and return home, make a cup of tea, before her phone rang.

‘Hong Kong calling,’ Lucy said, sounding as though she was around the corner.

‘Stokesley answering,’ said Petra, feeling as though she might as well be in Hong Kong.

‘How are things? How's
the boyf
?’

‘Wonderful – it's all wonderful.’

‘You have to sneak a photo of him – you said he's a techno-phobe so just point your moby at him and pretend you're looking for a signal or something but take a picture. He won't know. But I need visual evidence. I need it!’

‘OK, I'll try. He's lovely, Lucy. He really is. Am I mad for saying that out loud? Will I jinx it if I do?’

‘How lovely? Lovely for the moment? Lovely for the time being? Lovely after Rob – though anyone would seem lovely after
that
?’

‘I think he may well be lovely in a forever kind of way,’ Petra said quietly. Lucy heard it the first time but pretended she hadn't and made her repeat it.

‘Petra!’ And the way Lucy cooed her name, with such affection and joy, made Petra surge.

‘It
is
love,’ Petra said, ‘and I'm really happy, Luce.’ And she told her old friend about holding hands on a three-hour walk, about kissing in a moonlit garden, about candlelight and hot chocolate, about phone calls first and last thing, about sitting by a river while the weir tumbled and the ducks chattered.

‘Sex, Petra – you have to tell me that there's been lots of good squelchy sex alongside all this romantic guff.’

Petra paused. ‘Not just lots of it,
lashings
of it.’

‘Thank Christ for that. And you have to tell me that you don't permanently wax lyrical in purple prose and only make love by candlelight. Is it real? Do you talk and walk and joke and jest and hump and shag?’

‘Well – it's early days. But we're certainly on that path. And we spend ages nattering about bollocks. And of course we walk – this is North Yorkshire.’

‘Has he introduced you to the headmaster?’

‘Don't be daft.’

‘His friends?’

‘Give him a chance.’

‘His mother?’

‘Sod off! Anyway, she's down south.’

‘Down south!
Down south?
Listen to you, Yorkshire lass!’

‘Oh, but I love it here, Luce.’

‘That's because it's all a bit of a fairy-tale honeymoon at the moment – you need to do a winter, Petra. You need to see Arlo when he's in a strop, you have to allow yourself to get on his nerves – you need to weather a few down times, even bad times, before you can truly say that.’

‘Don't pop my bubble, Lucy.’

‘I'm not – honestly, I'm not. I'm so happy for you – I have a really good vibe, too. But I know how you can be easily swept along so it's my duty, as your friend, to be a voice of reason.’

‘OK. OK. I hear you. I do.’

‘Good. Now tell me everything, and not about the ducks and the moors and the hand-holding – I want the other stuff, girl. The rude bits. In glorious Technicolor. With sound effects.’

‘I so want you to meet him.’

‘Have a great big wedding then – I'll be your bridesmaid.’ And Lucy thought that her friend would probably take this as a sign to spend the rest of the afternoon daydreaming about such an event. If she knew Petra, she wouldn't be practising her signature with Arlo's surname replacing hers, she'd be in the studio designing her wedding ring. But there again, from what Lucy deduced, maybe it wasn't so farfetched after all.

Actually, Petra didn't daydream the afternoon away. She didn't practise
Petra Savidge
and she didn't design any ring. Not because she feared she might jinx anything, but because Arlo was simply so real. He really was. He wasn't an idea. She didn't have to dream up scenarios or imagine his personality for him. She felt she knew him pretty well already and, day by day, she was enjoying coming to know him even better.

Arlo was due to spend the weekend with Petra as soon as his duties were done on Friday evening. Petra worked productively from the crack of dawn so that she could pack up by lunch-time and prepare. Fresh chicken. Veg. Flowers and fancy bubble bath. Nice cheese. Her list was long and she was fairly confident she'd be able to find everything in Stokesley. It was truly T-shirt weather at last, which just served to increase her good mood.

‘Hiya!’

Petra was just about to go into the homewares boutique, telling herself that she wouldn't linger, let alone buy anything else, if they didn't have fancy bath oil. She turned at the greeting. At first, she didn't recognize the woman. About her own age, smart in a great suit, killer heels, blonde hair slicked back into a classy chignon.

‘Hiya!’ the woman approached. ‘Imagine jeans and a T-shirt and a pony-tail? But I'm not shaking my hair out – I'll never get it back.’

Petra clicked. It was the girlfriend of Arlo's colleague. Jenn. Last seen, and briefly at that, in the ice-cream queue, in jeans, T-shirt and a pony-tail. ‘Hullo.’

‘Thought I recognized you – Petra, isn't it?’

‘Yes. Great to see you – Jenn. You look fantastic.’

‘Thank you – I like to think I scrub up well. Do you work around here, then?’

‘I do – in a studio,’ said Petra, moving away from the steps of the shop.

‘I like the sound of that – are you an artist?’

‘A jeweller.’

‘Oh my God, I like the sound of that even more – you can be my new best friend! Oh – as long as we're talking proper jewellery and not hippy beads or friendship bracelets?’

‘Fine jewellery,’ Petra laughed. ‘Platinum, gold, silver – precious gems.’

‘Oh. My. God.’ Jenn clasped her hands to her heart. ‘Am I
loving
you.’

Petra laughed. She sensed she was going to like Jenn a lot.

‘Did you make this?’ and Jenn touched Petra's necklace. Petra nodded. ‘It's gorgeous.’

‘Thank you. Do you work here, then, too?’

‘I do – over there.’ Jenn chucked her thumb towards a Georgian townhouse as if she was hitchhiking. A florist on street level, a solicitors occupying the two storeys above, the firm's name in staid gold lettering on the windows. ‘Now you're thinking to yourself, Does she arrange flowers or does she press the law?’

‘I am,’ Petra laughed, ‘but I think I can guess by how soil-free your manicure is.’

‘Yeah, I'm the florist,’ Jenn said, then she grinned, ‘or I would be if I could tell a lily from a lisianthus. I'm a boring old lawyer, I'm afraid.’

Petra regarded Jenn, thought for a split second before she spoke. ‘Are you just popping out – I mean – if you are, shall we get a quick coffee? You know – if you've time. If not, another day, perhaps?’

‘Bugger coffee, love,’ Jenn laughed, ‘I'm off for my dinner – come and join me.’

Petra forgot about fancy bubble bath and her shopping list in general and eagerly joined Jenn at the Deli where soon enough they dared each other to say yes to sharing a bottle of wine.

‘I shouldn't, I have clients this afternoon.’

‘I shouldn't – I have a hot date this evening.’

‘Do you now! The chappy Nige and I saw you with?’

‘Yes,’ Petra said, ‘Arlo.’

‘These poncey teachers,’ Jenn rolled her eyes. ‘Arlo! Nigel! Mind you, it's nothing compared to the kids' names – poor sods. Troy! Lars! What happened to Tom Brown's schooldays? I knew you and he were an item. I knew it! You were both radiating that first flush. But Nige wouldn't have it – he said you were just old friends because that's what Arlo had said.’

‘Well, we are old friends too,’ Petra said, more to defend Arlo than Nigel.

‘And new lovers?’ Jenn came in close, filled up their glasses, gave Petra a conspiratorial wink. She reminded Petra a little of Lucy in her larkiness, her ability to chatter nineteen to the dozen yet be keen to listen, a boisterousness underscored with warmth.

‘Yes,’ Petra said, ‘we are.’

‘Tremendous. Here's to you – to a night of passion tonight and to a long and healthy happy-ever-after. Cheers.’

‘Cheers, and here's to you – and to Nige obeying the law.’