Pillow Talk Part 39

'Are you and Arlo going to go somewhere nice this summer?' Esther had ventured as they took a stroll to St Paul's one lunch-time.

'Well, we did talk about it but I have to work. I really want to have the tanzanite piece finished. And one of the actress's friends wants a similar piece but with emerald so I've made a start on that.'

'Also an actress?'

Petra nodded.

'"A" list?'

Petra nodded again.

'Jeweller to the Stars!' Esther had clapped and a couple of tourists had turned to stare.

'I don't think Shaun Leane or Stephen Webster or Theo Fennell need watch their backs just yet,' a very red Petra had mumbled.

In early July, the school year came to a close at Roseberry Hall with just the Walley Brothers mooching about, tending the grounds and terrifying any moles or foxes off the property. Only the rabbits remained; their long c.o.c.ky ears looking like the equivalent of sticking two fingers up at the Walleys. Most summers, Arlo came and went from his folly but this year, Jenn had invited him to avail himself of her spare room with Petra most welcome too. And though it was more convenient for Arlo and Petra to use London as their headquarters over the summer, their friendship with Nige and Jenn was now such that spending time together was actively planned.

Nige and Jenn were to be married in the New Year.

'And then I'll be moving into married digs at Roseberry,' Jenn exclaimed.

'They're hardly digs,' Nigel protested. 'Boardman House is one of the most sought after. It's beautiful,' he said to Petra. 'Rooms and rooms.'

'I know,' Petra winked at him, 'I've seen it.'

'Rooms and rooms and boys and boys. Apparently, I have to dispense TLC in times of homesickness,' Jenn said with mock despair. 'Anyway, from January I'll be looking to rent out this place. I'll not be selling it. Just renting it out.' She looked at Arlo. 'Know anyone, do you, Arlo?' Before he could respond, Jenn turned to Petra. 'And you would you know anyone, Petra? Might you know someone who's looking for somewhere to live up this way, perhaps?'

At the end of the month, on a weekend in London, Arlo looked up a couple of his old friends.

'Do you remember Jonny n.o.ble?' Arlo asked. Petra thought hard but shook her head. 'Of course you do,' Arlo laughed. 'He was the world-cla.s.s rhythm guitarist with the n.o.ble Savages.'

Petra thought back to that distant lunch-time one spring when Arlo's band had played at her school. 'Vaguely,' she said. 'I can see you all up on our stage but I can't make out his face, really. I just see you you and your curls and your school shirt rolled up to your elbows. Are you blushing, Mr Savidge?'

'No, I'm mourning my curls.'

Petra laughed. 'Anyway, what of this n.o.ble Jonny boy?'

'I gave him a call. I thought we'd meet up later. He was intrigued to hear about you. And you'd love him he's just the same.'

Petra was game. 'What does he do now?'

'He's an estate agent,' Arlo laughed, 'but I think he still picks up his guitar every once in a while.'

Petra didn't recognize Jonny though with his thick dark hair and slim physique he probably looked closer to his schoolboy self than Arlo did. However, his affection towards Arlo and his geniality towards Petra made her feel as though he was indeed an old pal. He and Arlo spent the first half-hour joshing with each other, enlivened with a few slaps on the back and ruffling of each other's heads. They had a prime table, outside the legendary Flask pub in Highgate.

'It's a toupee, you know,' Arlo told Petra, patting Jonny's hair.

'I won't even rise to this, Savidge,' Jonny said, 'you bald git. Has he told you he thinks he looks like Bruce Willis, Petra?'

'Oh yes, Jonny,' Petra said straight, 'but I think he looks more like Phil from Location Location Location.'

Jonny roared with laughter. 'Where do you live now, Petra?'

'Oh, well sort of in North Finchley only the ceiling fell down so I'm staying with a friend in Brondesbury.'

'Very nice area,' Jonny nodded sagely. 'Where did you grow up? Where were you living when we were all at school?'

'Well, my teenage years were spent in a flat on the poor man's side of West Hampstead.'

'Very des-res now,' Jonny remarked.

'But up until then, my family home was in that odd area between Hendon and Cricklewood.'

'It's not so odd now,' Jonny said. 'Randoline Avenue.'

'Randoline Avenue?'

'You won't know it.'

'I very do, my dear, I very do. I have currently two or three properties for sale there.'

'Well, we lived at number 43.'

'Number 43 is currently for sale,' Jonny said, having not stopped nodding.

'Yeah right!' Petra laughed.

'On those last hairs on Arlo's head do I swear that I have number forty-three Randoline Avenue, London, North-west two, on my books for sale. It is a three-bed, 1930s semi, with off-street parking. It came on the market a couple of months ago. We are sole agents.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!' Petra marvelled.

'Fifty-foot rear garden facing south-east, sizeable conservatory.'

'Oh, can't be the same place we didn't have a conservatory.'

'The vendors put it in a couple of years ago.'

'Did they? That's rather grandiose.'

'It's added thirty grand to the price. I'll take you round if you like,' Jonny said. 'Nothing like a trip down Memory Lane.'

Curiosity saw Petra taking up Jonny's offer on Monday lunch-time. Arlo accompanied them.

'There it is!' she said excitedly. 'Fancy new drive. We had the front door red, not black.'

But as Jonny's key went into the lock, Petra felt suddenly a little shy of the place. It had been almost twenty years. What memories could she possibly have, really? And what would be the point of unearthing new ones?

Although she didn't recognize the smell of the place, the way the light bathed the entrance hallway from the tall window as the stairs climbed was immediately evocative. Arlo caught Jonny's arm swiftly, raised an eyebrow, and the men allowed Petra to take the lead. All the doors were shut. They had been stripped back to the bare wood though Petra distinctly remembered them as white gloss. Opening each was odd, in a Lewis Carroll way. With her hand on the doork.n.o.b, how the room used to look flashed across her mind's eye. When she pushed the door open, however, the interior was of course totally different. But seeing someone else's brown leather suite didn't cancel out the memory of her family's beige velvet one. And she could easily carpet over the current laminate flooring with an image of the rather pub-like blue-and-gold patterned wool mix of her childhood.

'The kitchen's twice the size,' she marvelled. 'Blimey and look at the conservatory.' Everything was rather echoey. She turned to Jonny. 'They don't have much stuff.'

'Oh,' he said, 'they've already moved out. I just always suggest my clients part-furnish or dress the properties if they are empty. All this furniture is just hired while the house is on the market.'

Petra led the way upstairs. All the doors were closed up there too. They were still the gloss white of her childhood and not stripped like those downstairs. 'This was my bedroom,' Petra said quietly, opening the door slowly and peeping through before stepping in. There was a single bed, in the same position hers had been. It appeared from the curtains and the wallpaper border that a boy had most recently had this room. The airing cupboard still jutted into the room from one corner and Petra wondered if it was the same hot water tank inside it, portly in its big red Puffa jacket. Did it still sigh and creak as if to say that providing hot water for a family was so very onerous?

Jonny and Arlo stood well back to allow Petra to continue her tour. Spare bedroom. Petra found her hand faltered. She moved on instead to the next room the bathroom, now with corner bath freeing up s.p.a.ce for a walk-in shower. At the front, her parents' room. Again, she felt herself waver before opening the door and going in. The same fitted bedroom furniture, which had been the height of Scandinavian curvilinear chic twenty-odd years ago. How bizarre to keep that, yet build such a fancy conservatory. She walked over to the window. Same old view, though the road seemed narrower these days. Perhaps because every house now had two cars. One in the drive. One on the street.

Giving Jonny and Arlo a quick smile, Petra went back along the hallway, peered into the bathroom again, and shut the door. Went back into her bedroom for a few more minutes. Then shut that door too. Lastly, she did look into the spare room briefly but she didn't step inside and she left that door open before she went back downstairs, stood by the front door and said, Thanks, Jonny, that was bizarre. Let's go.

Petra was quiet and reflective for the rest of the afternoon.

'There's so much I do remember,' she said to Arlo, 'and so much I sense I don't.'

Later that evening, Petra went to bed early leaving Arlo and Eric to enjoy a beer and a rerun of The Office on TV.

'Can I make a phone call, Eric?'

'Sure.'

'Thanks.' Arlo dialled Jonny.

'Hullo, mate! Please don't tell me you're going to put in an offer on Randoline Avenue, for old times' sake?'

'No, but I am going to ask you for a ma.s.sive favour,' Arlo said to Johnny, 'and I don't even know if it's legal.'

Chapter Fifty-three.

'Where are we going?'

'It's a surprise.'

'I hate surprises, Arlo! Tell me where we're going?'

'What kind of girl hates surprises?'

'Well, it's not as if you are carrying a Tiffany bag, is it? That's a Tes...o...b..g. What's in it? And don't say surprise.'

'Supper.'

'A picnic?'

'Sort of.'

'Oh good! Tell me where we're going.'

'Dear G.o.d, will you just shut up, woman.'

The winsome, petulant pout that Petra fixed to her face was soon wiped off and the stroppy wiggle she'd adopted fell to a snail's pace when she realized Arlo was taking her back to Randoline Avenue.

'Why?' Petra asked.

'I'm not entirely sure,' Arlo said. 'It's a hunch.'

'You have keys?'

'I know the estate agent,' Arlo said. He opened the door. 'Jonny said to be discreet. No lights blazing, no rock-and-roll.'

'But what's your hunch, Arlo?' Petra stopped on the doorstep, caught his arm. Her face was criss-crossed with anxiety which, in itself, suggested to Arlo that he was doing the right thing.

He put his hand on the back of her neck. 'Look, this may sound simplistic I just thought that perhaps if you came back here, stayed here, well, maybe you would remember stuff. Perhaps you might sleepwalk you know, back in time? See if it was anything here which set you off in the first place?'

Petra stared at him. 'But I never know where I'm going and I never remember where I've been,' she whispered. 'All this feels odd.'

'But you see, when you were little, there wasn't really anyone here for you. Now you're returning as a grown-up and you have me.'

He put the key into the lock and then stopped. 'We can go, Petra. We can go right now. You have only to say. I won't mind. I don't want to force you. It's probably a stupid idea of mine.'

There was a moment's heavy silence. 'It's OK, Arlo.' The frown had gone from her brow. 'Let's do it. It's crazy. But why not. If the sleep clinics in Harley Street and Loughborough Hospital could find no reason, then there's no harm in trying an alternative angle. But I think you're mad, Arlo mad as a fish.'

They spent the evening downstairs sipping red wine out of plastic cups, dipping pitta bread into a variety of dips and spooning Ben and Jerry's ice cream into each other's mouths. They didn't talk about the house in terms of her childhood but Arlo sensed that Petra was putting off going to bed. However, though he'd got her this far, he certainly was not going to force her upstairs to bed. Eventually, she could not stifle a yawn though she blamed the red wine. Arlo yawned too.

'Did you know, yawning is the most contagious thing on earth?' Petra told him. 'It's the same yawn just going round and round the world. I'll bet you someone next door is now yawning and so it will continue, down this street, off into Cricklewood and on and on. The good folk of Yorkshire will catch it in a few hours. I did an experiment once I yawned at my friend's dog and lo, it yawned too!'

Arlo gave her a tender gaze that said, I know you're waffling, Petra, because you don't want to go to bed and let the night unfold. He went upstairs to use the toilet and suddenly Petra didn't want to be downstairs, by herself. He came out of the bathroom to find her there. She looked as though she'd lost a few inches in height.

'You OK?' he asked, lifting her chin to kiss her.

She nodded. 'I suppose I'm tired now.'

They squeezed into the single bed in Petra's old bedroom and lay there, pretending to be perfectly comfortable. After an hour or so, Arlo made his apologies and moved onto the floor. It wasn't particularly comfortable there either but tonight was not about getting a good night's sleep.

But Petra does sleep. And then, at three in the morning, she rises. Arlo has only dozed. Now he lies stock-still, sensing her sitting bolt upright.

'What's that noise?'

'Petra?'

No answer. She is not awake. Quickly, he moves out of her way as she steps down from the bed. She's scratching her head and muttering about what that blinking noise is. There is no noise. The house is utterly silent. She pads across the room and Arlo follows. Out into the corridor.