Pillow Talk (28 page)

Chapter Forty

Late the next morning, Arlo was in the shower, singing his teenage soft-rock version of “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”, alternating between gravely bass and surprisingly sweet falsetto. Petra sat up in his bed, her knees under her chin, grinning to herself as she listened to him. If music be the food of love – and all that jazz, she thought to herself. Play on. And on and on.

There was knocking at the folly door. Arlo was belting out his anthemic chorus. ‘Tread softly! Tread softly! You tread upon my dreams, oh baby. Oh yeah. Yeah yeah! Don't go treadin' 'pon my dreams, baby.’

So it was up to Petra to tread softly to open the door. And have Miranda Oates hurl her dreams into a nightmare.

‘Who are you?’

‘I'm Petra.’

‘But who
are
you?’

‘Oh! I'm Arlo's girlfriend. Can I help you?’

Petra watched as the woman on the threshold looked momentarily baffled before an expression of utter disdain replaced it. The woman laughed and, for the first time in her life, Petra truly knew what it was like to have someone laugh in her face. It was a sound that felt like being spat at.

‘Arlo Savidge has a
girlfriend
?’ the woman ridiculed. ‘Since when!’

Petra felt affronted, so much so that she added extra time for good measure. ‘Three months or so.’

‘Well, I'm Miranda Oates,’ the woman said, proffering her hand like royalty which Petra automatically took and shook. ‘I teach here too. And I've been gamely fucking your so-called boyfriend.’

Petra started silently screaming at herself; a desperate and deafening scramble of instructions: Don't believe her! Don't show you're upset! She's lying! He hasn't! Wake up!

‘I don't think so,’ Petra said at length.

‘
I
rather do,’ Miranda countered. ‘
Girl
friend? Don't you know, Arlo doesn't
do
girlfriends. Fuck-buddies maybe – but not girlfriends. Hasn't he told you? Commitment is a Savidge anathema.’

‘No, it's not,’ Petra protested. ‘Anyway, he's told me he loves me.’

Miranda made much of being unable to suppress a patronizing giggle. ‘You're deluding yourself!’

Petra felt panic starting to rise like bile. ‘Look, what do you want?’

Miranda sighed breezily. ‘Oh, I came back to school early – so I was just calling by on the off chance of a shag.’ She looked Petra up and down. ‘Busy boy. I didn't think he'd have company. I didn't think I'd have to queue.’

Petra wanted to yell, Fuck off. She had a strong urge to scratch Miranda. But while she dug her nails hard into the palms of her hands she also had a perverse desire to hear more.

Miranda twitched her lips. ‘Did he spin out his celibacy yarn? Is that how he got into your pants? Did he make you melt with tales of his broken heart? His self-imposed exile from the joys of the flesh? Years and years of abstinence and then wow! along came you? I wouldn't get too excited about the “love” thing,’ Miranda mocked, ‘Arlo doesn't believe in love.’

‘Yes, he
does
,’ Petra said. ‘He has told me, unprompted, that he is in love with me.’

‘Drunk.’

‘Sober.’

‘And let me guess – you then sucked his cock, you were so delighted.’

Petra found herself silently racking her memory as to whether a blow-job had followed Arlo's declaration.

‘Look, just tell him I'm back,’ Miranda said, as if she was suddenly bored. Then she gave Petra a patronizing wave with her fingers as if she was taking leave of a child.

Petra closed the door. Beneath the thundering beat of her flailing heart, she could just about hear Arlo still singing his heart out about cloths of heaven. You tread upon my dreams.

You've stamped mine out.

‘Hey! Sleepyhead,’ he was calling, ‘fancy getting all soapy? Come and join me.’

You must be bloody joking, Petra thought as she scrambled into her clothes. Then she left. Cycling fast down the drive, watched by Miranda, unseen. Dog in a manger.

Chapter Forty-one

All Petra wanted to do was run away. As she pedalled for all she was worth back to Stokesley, chanting, Bastard, bastard, bastard, to maintain rhythm and scramble for power, she worked out that she could pack up the Old Stables, blow some money on a taxi to Northallerton and be back at King's Cross by tea-time. Proper tea-time – biscuit-and-cuppa Southern tea-time – not Yorkshire tea-time of having one's sodding supper at six o'sodding clock. Sod Yorkshire. Sod bloody Arlo. Bloody men. They're all the sodding same. What an idiot for thinking that Arlo was any different. For fooling herself that, for the first time, she was truly in love with a very real person and not some ideal she was hoping to create. She'd done it again. Idiot girl.

Fuck-buddy. Do all men have one then?

Celibacy. Not such a bad idea. She might try it.

Savidge. Savage.

Safely inside the Old Stables, Petra tried not to stop to look around or think: immersing herself in packing, tidying and cleaning instead. And she was on her hands and knees, scrubbing the hearth with a bristle brush and scalding hot water, when the doorbell sounded.

Sod off, she said under her breath without looking up.

The knocking continued. ‘Sod off.’

‘Petra? It's me, it's Arlo.’

I bet it bloody is. ‘Sod.
Off.
’

Silence.

Knocking. Slower.

Petra stomped to the door, opened it a fraction and said, Sod off. Closed it. But not before Arlo had pushed his foot through to stop this.

‘What on earth is this all about?’ He seemed genuinely incredulous. ‘I come out of the shower, the place looks like a bomb has hit it and you're nowhere. You'd gone.’ He tried to push the door, but Petra pushed back. ‘You left your phone. Here. Petra, what's going on?’

She looked at him. That beautiful, handsome face, those eyes, these lips that have kissed her and spoken false promises. Desperate sadness engulfed her.

‘Petra?’ So softly. That lovely lovely voice. ‘What is it? What happened?’

She looked at him, her tear oozing oily and hot. ‘Ask your fuck-buddy Miranda what happened.’ And, from the sudden pallor hijacking his face, Petra read guilt writ large and she knew unequivocally that he had lied to her. It was irrelevant how much was true, he had lied to her. He needn't say a word, really. As pale as he was, the blood draining from his face, so Petra pledged to herself that he'd pale into insignificance in her life. He let her push the door shut. He let her lock him out.

There was more knocking at the door an hour later, just as Petra was doing her double-checking.

‘Oh, will you just fuck off!’

Silence. Then: ‘What kind of talk is that, you stroppy cow! I've called by to see if you fancy lunch.’

It was Jenn. Suddenly, the proximity of a hug from a girlfriend was enough to have Petra open the door wide. Jenn took one look at her. ‘What's he done? I'll kill him.’ She sounded a bit like Kitty, and Petra loved her for it. She told Jenn who pondered the facts.

‘The thing is, you're telling me what this Miranda Oates told you,’ Jenn said, ‘and I have met her – she's a bit of an old slink, if you ask me. But Petra, you're not telling me what Arlo actually
did
– because you've not given him the chance to speak for himself.’

This didn't work for Petra. All the manic cleaning and packing – she didn't want to stand still and think about it all. She had a train to catch, she didn't have the time or the inclination to workshop.

‘She's jealous, I'll bet,’ Jenn steamed on, ‘wants to wind you up. You've got what she wants.
She
wants him – he wants
you
. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and all that. She's probably made half of it up – including the timing.’

Petra shook her head, her face flinching at a reflux of acid scorching her throat.

‘There's often an overlap – at our age, in relationships,’ Jenn said evenly. She raised her hand. ‘I'm guilty – but don't tell Nige. He's probably guilty too, the stud. But I don't want to know – it's enough for me to know that it's me who he wants, who he loves.’

‘But that's the point, you
don't
know about any so-called overlap,’ Petra stresses, ‘and you wouldn't want to, would you? But I can't rewind Miranda's words. I can't erase them from my memory.’

‘If it feels like you can't forget – do you think you can forgive?’

‘No!’

Jenn was visibly shocked at Petra's vehemence.

‘It's happened to me before, remember?’ Petra said. ‘Once bitten, twice shy.’

‘You can't tar Arlo with the same brush,’ Jenn said.

‘Anyway, I think the lying is actually a far greater crime than the overlap. He
lied
, Jenn. He seduced me with a big fat lie. That's no basis for lasting love. What else has he lied about?’

Jenn looked crestfallen. She glanced around the Old Stables. ‘Is that it then? You're all packed up? Back off home with you?’

Petra shrugged. ‘I can't see how I can stay.’

‘But you love it here – you're always telling me so. Won't you stay anyway? Forget His Nibs, we'll get you a nice Boro Boy – dear God.’ Jenn laughed and raised a smile from Petra. Jenn took her hands in hers. ‘I'll miss you, pet. You're my friend. My fab new friend.’

‘Well, stay in touch.’

‘But I love having you close by.’

‘I liked being here. It was – wonderful.’

‘Can I just say – don't be too rash to use the past tense. Promise me?’ Jenn put her hands on Petra's shoulders. ‘So go down to London – let it all settle. See the wood for the trees. But if he comes hammering at your door, hammering at your heart, please let him in.’

Petra shrugged. She didn't want to tell Jenn, He doesn't actually know where I live, thank God.

‘I'd best be letting you get on, then.’

Petra nodded.

‘Can't tempt you to lunch at the Deli – my shout? Drown your sorrows with a bottle of their finest vino?’

Petra shook her head.

‘A lift to the station?’

Petra smiled but declined.

‘Give us a hug, love,’ Jenn said, audibly choked.

* * *

All packed up and ready to go. Cab should be here any second.

A knock at the door.

Here it is.

No, it's not. It's Arlo.

‘There was a cab waiting,’ he says, ‘to take a Miss Flint to Northallerton Station. I've sent him away.’

‘Arlo!’ Petra looks livid.

‘For fuck's sake, Petra – am I not allowed my version of events?’

‘What does it matter,’ Petra says. ‘It happened.’

Arlo sighs. ‘Look, can I just come in. Let me speak. Listen or don't listen – just let me talk.’

Petra looks at her watch as if she is giving him five minutes. Then she folds her arms and focuses on his collar bone because eye contact is not an option.

‘I did sleep with Miranda.’

It cuts Petra to the quick far more harshly than when Miranda had said the same. ‘You fucking lied!’

‘I'm not lying now.’

‘All that bullshit about not having had sex for so long.’

‘Sex is one thing. Making love is something else.’

‘Bollocks. It's fucking semantics. Or should that be semantics of fucking.’

‘Christ, you don't half swear when you're angry,’ Arlo says softly, loving her even more. ‘I've never heard you say anything more abrasive than “sod” and “sodding”.’

Petra jabs her finger at his chest. ‘You made me believe you. I don't want to be involved with someone who has fuck-buddies. Someone who lies. I know your type and you're not
my
type.’

‘Petra – this is complicated.’ Arlo is fidgeting for words. Trying to use his hands. He can't think what to say or how to say it. ‘We met each other, out of the blue, you and me, after years and years. It was magical. Then you disappeared. And all the while Miranda had been coming on to me. And I didn't make a play for her. I just let her. Perhaps it was weak. But after so long – to suddenly feel what I was feeling for you. I don't know – it freaked me out. It was unnerving. I'd got used to the idea of not having anyone in my life. It had felt safe that way. Then Petra's back. The girl who, it occurred to me, had always been
there.
’ He touched his heart for emphasis. ‘I didn't know what to do with the feelings. OK – and my body was in overdrive.’

‘So you fucked Miranda? Doesn't that make me feel special.’

‘It's not even about Miranda – it's about the feelings that flooded me when I saw you again. They were massive. And I chose not to tell you about Miranda Oates – firstly because it was of so little consequence to me, personally. And secondly, because I didn't want anything to complicate this immense purity of what we have.’

‘Well, it's all nice and sullied now.’

Arlo bites his tongue because he wants to say, Christ, Petra, will you stop all this aggression. ‘There must be something I can do.’

‘There isn't. I'm going back to London. I'm going to forget all about you. We didn't even have much in the first place – way back when. Sitting in a school playground every now and then, saying not that much? All we've done is look back on those days as some halcyon fairy tale. It was stupid. Nothing happened anyway. We've reinvented the past.’

‘No, we have not. We may not have said much, we may not have seen each other all that often, but what we said and the time we shared was absolutely enough because I remember the feelings vividly. More vividly than I remember your Dunlop Green Flash and your mad bouncy bob – and they're pretty clear in my mind too.’

She wishes he'd stop talking because she's getting flashes of seventeen-year-old Arlo in her mind's eye and how she felt and it's all crystal clear and in bright colour.

‘Petra, I've never felt this way before.’

‘Cliché.’

‘It's true.’

‘It's bollocks.’

‘It isn't.’

‘And what about Helen? The great mystery that is Helen? The very reason for your self-prescribed so-called bullshit celibacy? You and Cliff bloody Richard.’

She sees Arlo flinch. ‘I don't want to talk about Helen.’

‘Well, I want to hear about Helen.’

‘I'm telling you, Petra, you really don't.’ Arlo chews his lip. He squares his shoulders. He comes up very close, cups Petra's face in his hands. A tear films over his left eye. It sounds as though shards of glass have spiked his throat, lacerated his voice. ‘I love you, Petra Flint. God, I love you. Like I've never loved another.’

‘But how can you expect me to skip hand in hand into our future when your past is so full of secrets and lies?’ Petra is definite. ‘Little by little I find stuff out and it stinks. If Miranda was a fuck-buddy, what was Helen? Your wife? The First Mrs Rochester – is she mad in some attic somewhere? Who
is
she? Your undoing? Your true love?’

‘I
can't
talk about it.’

‘I
need
to know.’

As he shakes his head, Petra thinks she sees shame rather than secrecy crumple him.

Whether he can't speak, or whether he has chosen not to say another word, is unclear. He leaves the Old Stables and walks away, trampling his dreams underfoot. Petra stands, shocked and immobile, for a few minutes more. But no one comes knocking. She calls for another cab. She catches a later train to London. She is back in North Finchley at way past supper-time. With nowt for our tea.