Pillow Talk Part 32

They left the shop and Kitty set off at a fast walk.

'Hold on,' Arlo called after her, 'you'll have to wait up a minute. I'm not quite ready.'

She stopped, turned, took a long look in Arlo's direction, couldn't quite believe what she was seeing and burst out laughing, which eventually lessened into a surprisingly feminine giggle. It softened her face, as if giving voice to the natural prettiness beneath the hair dye and the Halloween make-up and the piercings.

Arlo shrugged as he approached. 'What could I do?' he said to her. 'It's the middle of term. I am a b.l.o.o.d.y teacher.'

He was told to wait on the pavement but as Kitty disappeared into the building, she cast a fleeting wink over her shoulder, which Arlo caught gratefully. The door shut. It was a shabby door painted in flaking undercoat, a variety of locks which had obviously been changed a number of times, a small pane of gla.s.s so dusty it was opaque, a rusting metal grille behind it. That d.a.m.ned b.u.t.terfly was caught in Arlo's throat again. He thought about The Silence of the Lambs, remembered something about b.u.t.terflies in victims' throats. Incongruous but it kept his mind off the fact that Petra was just inside the building and he had no idea what was going to happen next.

Inside: 'Petra someone downstairs for you.'

'Ta, Kitty.'

Nothing unusual in that. The Studio Four often had deliveries to be personally signed for.

As Petra descended the stairs, she wondered if she just heard Gina say, Good G.o.d; and did Eric just say, f.u.c.king h.e.l.l? But her conclusion was, Oh Kitty, not another tattoo.

Petra is wondering, What have I ordered? Didn't I tell Dan I'd come into Bellore early next week for the platinum? I won't be able to pay him until then, anyway.

And Arlo is wondering, What the h.e.l.l was it that I was going to say? I had it all planned. My mind's gone blank.

The door is opening.

Out into the bright light of a summer's day.

'Hullo, you.'

She can't answer. She can only stand and stare.

He can't say another word. All he can do is gaze back.

So they stand and they gawp in the middle of the pavement and they are tutted at, knocked into, by people bustling between Leather Lane and Hatton Garden. Life is going on. It's just a Thursday afternoon in June. It's only Petra and Arlo who feel that they are standing at the still point of the turning world.

'What are you-?'

'-so I could see you.'

He gives her the sketchbook. But it is the enormity of Arlo's complete gesture, that he is here, which is the immediate salve, and in itself it has more resonance than any soliloquy. Whatever he says, wherever this goes, the point is he came. He found her.

'You sod,' she says, 'I can't hit you now, can I? Not after you've come all this way.'

'If it makes you feel better, then you can.'

'I've been getting on with my life, buoyed by the thought that if ever I saw you again, I'd give you a good old-fashioned whack across the chops.'

'Petra, no one but you could say "whack across the chops".'

'I have a mean left hook.'

'I'm sure you do. But I've come down from Yorkshire to see if you'd rather just kiss me.'

After a moment's deliberation, she steps towards him and Arlo wonders which it is to be. A kiss or a slap.

She comes in close, lifts her face to his and places her hands gently on his arms. A kiss. Yet he steps away. He looks fl.u.s.tered, a little flushed. 'Not here. Not now,' he murmurs. She frowns, backs off. The urge to belt him is back.

'Boys,' Arlo says over his shoulder. 'Guys this is Petra Flint.'

Her field of vision widens. There are four schoolboys tall ones, Sixth Formers perhaps, loitering a respectful distance behind Arlo. In their uniforms. Eyes agog.

'Felix Sutcliffe, Callum Jones, Thomas Allsop, Alexander McLeod. And there would have been two more only I couldn't track down their parents in time to process all the paperwork.'

One by one, the boys step forward to shake hands with Petra who hasn't a clue what to say or what today is all about or what will happen or what she's meant to be feeling.

'Hi,' she says.

'Hullo, miss,' they say. They look as confused as she feels.

'We're off to a gig tonight,' Arlo says brightly, 'at the Forum in Kentish Town. Then tomorrow we are going to a lunch-time concert at Wigmore Hall. In the morning, an old friend of mine, Michael Smith, is showing the boys around Columbia Records. Tomorrow evening we're going to the Troubadour. We leave Sat.u.r.day morning.'

Petra pauses. 'Oh.'

Arlo nods. 'Fleeting visit. Packed schedule. Should be fun.'

She pauses again. 'Yes.'

'We came down in the mini-bus.' Arlo is floundering. 'We're staying at quite a nice B&B in Swiss Cottage. With off-street parking.' With each mundane detail, the previous poetry of the caught moment diminishes. He and Petra are no longer at the still point of the turning world, they are standing awkwardly in the middle of the pavement, getting in people's way.

'Mr Savidge aren't we meant to be at Ronnie Scott's now?'

Arlo looks at his watch. 's.h.i.t. Ronnie Scott's too. I clean forgot. And Ronnie Scott's was basically the key selling point to the headmaster. Thanks, Felix.' He fiddles with his watch. 'They said three, three thirty. You don't turn up at jazz clubs early. We're having a little tour of the club,' he tells Petra. 'I organized it. The boys can see the sound check which is a contradiction in terms but I'm sure you know what I mean.'

She doesn't really, but she nods anyway.

'You could come too,' he says, 'to Ronnie Scott's to the gig later. You could come everywhere with us.' She looks a little wary. She also looks a little reluctant.

'I can't, really,' she says.

'Mr Savidge, are we going by tube?' Felix is presenting him with a map of the underground.

'Shall I call you later anyway?' he asks Petra.

'OK,' she says, suddenly wondering what any of this is about. Has there been any meaning in the last few minutes? Over and above the return of her sketchbook?

'We'd better go.'

'OK,' she says.

Petra watches Arlo and his little posse cross the street. He turns and gives a wave that changes into a shrug; she raises the sketchbook for a moment and then heads back into her building. She's not far up the staircase when there's a flurry of knocks at the door she's just closed and Arlo is calling her name. She retraces her steps. Opens the door. In a blink, he's inside. His hands are in her hair and his lips are all over her face. And it's now that she wants to cry and hit him and hold him tight and tell him to go away.

'The only way I could get time off school was to bring my students with me,' he tells her. 'The only way we could do London was if, musically, I could prove it would be worth the boys' while and worth the school's funds.' He kisses her again. 'But my guiding ulterior motive was purely that I had to see you, Petra. Sod the meters of red tape and myriad permission slips and miles of motorway I had to see you. Because I need to tell you that we're going to be OK, you know. You and me. We're going to be more than OK.'

Petra's lip twitches and it isn't a kiss that's causing it, it's a But. 'But Arlo,' she says, 'you may be here but it was me who left. And I left because you lied. And because of the Miranda situation.'

Arlo has been expecting this, of course he has, but still he's nervous now the moment has finally come to plead his point. 'But Petra, I am here because I won't let you go. Because really, truly, there was no situation with Miranda.'

'But you slept with her!'

'I don't sleep.'

'You know what I mean. And you did lie.'

'Will you listen, will you believe me, when I say I'm just a stupid f.u.c.k who deludedly thought I could avoid hurting you by retaining certain details? An idiot who didn't want to complicate something so new and so full of promise?' Arlo looks at Petra. 'It's the truth, Miss Flint. It may seem flimsy. But actually, it's all I can give you.'

'But the timing me, us, Miranda?'

'No overlap whatsoever.'

'You sure?'

'I promise.'

Though the upper part of Petra's face is creased into a frown, slowly the lower part breaks into a small smile. 'Why do I feel I still want to whack you across the chops?'

Arlo shrugs, allows a little laugh out loud. 'Please go ahead, if you need to. Though I'd rather you kissed me.'

Petra steps forward and again he's not quite sure which it will be until the gentle press of her lips against his leaves him in no doubt.

'We're going to be OK, you know,' he repeats, this time in a whisper. 'You and me, we're going to be more than OK.'

Someone is coming down the stairs. It is Eric.

'Oh hullo,' he says and his voice is camp and slightly withering and his surprise is meant to be so obviously feigned. 'Cappuccino, anyone? Or are you just leaving?'

'Eric,' Petra says with a swift, cautioning look, 'this is Arlo, say hullo.'

'Hullo.'

'I have to go,' Arlo says. 'Hi, Eric.' He turns to Petra. 'I have to go.' He takes his fingertips to her cheek, strokes down to her jaw until she rests her face gently in his hand. 'I really have to go. Which is the best way to the tube?'

'I'll show you,' Eric says, holding open the door. 'Cappuccino is it, Petra?' he calls over his shoulder.

She's not speaking. Eric and Arlo turn. She's just standing there, nodding. She looks absolutely poleaxed.

Chapter Forty-five.

'Has she said a word?' Eric asked, coming back with coffees all round; Petra was so lost in thought at her bench that he felt he could talk about her as if she wasn't there at all.

He went and stood in a huddle nearby with Gina and Kitty, the three of them a.s.sessing Petra like doctors conferring on a most unusual case.

'No,' Gina said, 'she's just been sitting there, with a rather inane grin on her face.'

'It's not an inane grin,' Kitty objected, 'it's more a beatific smile.'

Eric peered in closer and gently prodded Petra. 'I'd say the girl's in shock.'

Petra looked at them as if they were all hopelessly myopic. 'He's come all this way. To see me.' They nodded as if she was just out of a coma and thus anything she said was OK by them. 'And he's brought his cla.s.s with him.' She giggled. They continued to nod. 'And he doesn't really have a spare moment.' They shook their heads. 'So he's either been driven slightly mad by love or else he's driven all this way because he is madly in love. With me.' Kitty nodded vigorously. Gina looked more reserved. Eric rolled his eyes. 'Do you think I should go to Ronnie Scott's rush there right now?'

'Too late,' said Eric, 'and a bit too keen.'

'Shall I go to the Forum with them, tonight then?'

'You go, girlfriend,' Kitty said, suddenly American.

'Oughtn't you to wait for him to call?' Gina asked.

'Shut the f.u.c.k up, Mom,' Kitty growled in a surprisingly authentic Hicksville accent.

Gina looked as though she was going to send Kitty to the Naughty Step.

Petra hid her face in her hands. 'G.o.d. I am meant to be working, the sod.'

'Ditto,' said Gina, going off to hammer.

'Me too,' said Eric, returning to his bench. His mother had taught him that if he had nothing nice to say, he was to say nothing. He felt the same was true for giving advice.

Kitty loitered by Petra. 'Will you show me?'

Petra let Kitty pore over the sketches, handed her a clutch of photographs of the ruined abbeys she'd visited. 'There's something so romantic about these great Gothic edifices,' Petra said. 'In their current, ruinous state they are beautiful, so dramatic but there's a sort of poetic melancholy about them which perhaps comes from their history too. And yet they continue to stand in the landscape, regal and proud. The vistas they create actually seem to enhance the natural scenery. There's also this amazing physical dichotomy they look like delicate lacework, yet they are made of stone centuries old. But what time and historical events have not compromised is how the hearts of these places still beat so strongly.'

'And so?' Kitty prompted, eyeing the brown box on which Petra's hand rested.

'And so this.' She opened the box and carefully lifted out her preparatory work. 'Think platinum,' she told Kitty, 'with my tanzanite in the centre.'

Kitty took the piece from Petra. A bracelet but unlike anything she'd ever seen. Just wire, plain old craft wire. Strands of different thicknesses worked into a graceful armature of delicate arches and columns, some perfect, others pointedly truncated. Caught within this intricate framework, a purple boiled sweet.

Petra took it from her. 'That's what I'm trying to work out,' she explained, prodding the sweet with her little finger. 'How I can have my tanzanite as the heart of the work but not in a clasp, not in a static setting, not restricted to one view, one angle only. The heart of the work must be visible from all sides so that the colour and light of the stone pulsates.'

The piece transcended being merely a bracelet or cuff, it was the closest thing to wearable sculpture. Petra's genius was her ability to attain such startling grace in something so sizeable.