Pillow Talk Part 13

He had the loan of a car from a colleague who was spending the long Easter weekend in Amsterdam, on the proviso that Arlo chauffeured him to and from the airport. And Arlo had said yes, he accepted the terms and conditions, as long as they could detour via Suggitts so he could buy his mother a very large Easter egg.

It was raining but the rain didn't seem to come from the sky at all. It wasn't falling downwards from above. It built its momentum from the moors and appeared to travel cross-ways in great swathes of wringing-wet mist, sweeping and tumbling across the land like wafts of wet gauze, drenching everything in its path.

'Want anything?' Arlo asked, parking the car and thinking himself an idiot for wearing only a T-s.h.i.+rt. 'Sherbet Dip Dab? A quarter of boiled sweets for the plane? Some genuine Yorks.h.i.+re toffee to endear yourself to the Dutch? Lemfizz? Dolly Mixture? Tom Thumb drops?'

'Will you just f.u.c.k off and hurry up, Savidge.'

Arlo shrugged. 'I don't share,' he said, 'and I intend to spend a fair whack in Suggitts today.'

'Savidge, you're a prat. Hurry up.'

Leaving the car, Arlo thrust his hands deep into his pockets as if, by hunching his shoulders up and looking down at his feet as he ran, he'd somehow get less wet. Not a chance. Once inside the shop, little rivulets dripped off him into puddles, as if he was a shaken umbrella.

'Nice day for it!' he said cheerily at large.

'Lovely,' said the shopkeeper, hoping he wouldn't touch anything with a paper wrapper.

'Got any Easter eggs?' he asked, terribly solemn so that she didn't know whether he was being funny, facetious, blind or just dumb. She tipped her head in the direction of the impressive display. Then she caught the eye of her solitary cafe customer dawdling over a cup of tea on the other side of the premises and they raised their eyebrows at Arlo's expense.

The door opened and another drowned rat squelched in.

'Wow! It's mad out there!'

'And I thought you were just a fair-weather rider,' the shopkeeper said warmly. 'Hullo, pet, you're wet.'

Arlo chuckled without turning around. He did love the local humour, their ability to state the obvious in such a deadpan way. Their humour remained dry whatever the weather.

'Easter eggs!' Arlo heard the wet pet declare and a few footsteps later she was standing by his side.

And there they stood, their arms almost touching as they perused the seasonal chocolate in the little shop area to the left of the cash desk and cafe. They didn't look at each other what was the point, it was raining, everyone looks the same when they're that wet. There was something cheering about being the only two people mad enough to get that wet for the sake of chocolate. But it was the serendipity of both reaching for the one huge Lindt chocolate bunny at exactly the same time which made them turn and regard each other.

And he doesn't have the lovely mop of Bob Dylan hair he had seventeen years ago. In fact, he seems generally smaller. But his dimple is still there and his eyes haven't changed and nor have his forearms. Today they glisten with rain as he pa.s.ses the bunny over to her. Seventeen years ago they were sheened with sweat as he played 'Among the Flowers' for her. And Petra knows it's Arlo.

And she doesn't have the bouncy bob she had when she was fifteen and it doesn't matter that her hair corkscrews off her head in sodden spiralling rats' tails apparently made of treacle he'd know that face anywhere. Those great big brown eyes and that little retrousse nose. And the fact that she seems to be wearing a tent doesn't fool him. And when he sees that it's a man's cagoule, that doesn't bother him either. For Arlo, not even revolting pea-green Gore-Tex can hide the fact that it's Petra Flint under there.

'Petra?'

'Arlo?'

Just then it doesn't seem crazy or weird or even amazing that they should meet like this, right here, after all this time, in an old-fas.h.i.+oned sweetshop on a G.o.d-forsaken day in North Yorks.h.i.+re. For a perfect moment it makes sense completely.

Chapter Twenty.

'Petra Flint? Petra Petra Flint. No way! What are you-'

'I know! But Arlo, I mean how-'

'You look amazing you look the same. But very wet.'

'You too just the same.'

'But bald as well as wet.'

'You're not bald you're you're. Just not as hirsute as you were when you were a teenager.'

'I what are you-?'

'I'm thirty-two.'

'No I meant-'

'Oh! Oh I you know.'

'I can't believe it.'

'No nor me.'

(Some time later, after Petra and Arlo had left Suggitts, the shopkeeper would remark to the customer still dawdling over the cup of tea, Did you see them? Those two grinning away at each other like soppy idiots? Sopping idiots more like, the customer would add, finis.h.i.+ng his tea with a Ta-ta, see you tomorrow.) 'It's been Christ it must be seventeen years?'

'Yes.'

'Last time I saw you was half my life ago, Petra.'

'Over half my life ago, Arlo.'

'That car horn is for me. I have to go. He won't stop honking until I'm in the car. Can I give you a lift? It's raining.'

'It's pouring. I have a bike.'

'Do you live here?'

'Not really but sort of.'

'I'm going to London. Today. Now. As you can hear from all that honking.'

'I live there too. Sort of.'

'I live here. How long a tenancy is a "sort-of"?'

'I don't know.'

'Will it stretch till I'm back? After Easter?'

'I think so. I don't know. I haven't thought.'

'Please be here.'

'OK.'

'Petra Flint.'

'But how will I find you, Arlo?'

'I'll find you.'

And, under a barrage of irritated car horns, Arlo backed out of the shop without taking his eyes off Petra. And, though he could lip-read his colleague masticating a stream of expletives, hammering on the car window and mouthing, Come-f.u.c.king-on, Arlo needed a moment to raise his face to the sky.

If I believed in G.o.d, I'd say the rain falling on my face feels like the fingertips of angels playing out a tune.

For the first time in years, Arlo wanted to write a song. Lyrics and notes surged around his body like the flow of blood, cascading from his brain to his soul, rooting him to the spot while the lot was transcribed to his memory.

'Savidge what the f.u.c.k?' his colleague was yelling out of the car window, a newspaper held over his head.

Arlo wanted to say, Drive yourself to the flaming airport, I need to write a song. And he wanted to make a phone call and say, Sorry, Mum, I just can't come home today. I need to stay here and make sure I don't lose her for another seventeen years.

'Savidge!'

The song was safely sealed in his thoughts. It was a gift he didn't give much thought to these days the ability to create an entire composition in seconds and commit it to memory in a moment. He couldn't afford to acknowledge it if he did, he'd have to question his teaching career; a career that had kept him occupied, solvent and safe these past years.

He didn't care if he looked like an idiot but he felt like a latter-day Gene Kelly, singing in the rain, as he jogged to the car with a lightness of step not even he remembered having.

'Sorry,' he said with a beatific smile which unnerved his colleague into silence, 'just sorting my life out.'

'In Suggitts?'

'It's as good a place as any.'

It's OK, Arlo thought to himself. I can do the airport. I can do London, I could even do another seventeen years if I had to. Because she'll always be there. She'll be there for me to find. In a crowd of schoolgirls. In a sweetshop in North Yorks.h.i.+re. In the suns.h.i.+ne. In the rain. Among the flowers.

The shopkeeper stared at the door while Petra gazed at the small puddle which was all that was left of Arlo. She didn't want anyone to step in it.

'He left without paying for his Easter egg the soft lad,' the shopkeeper remarked to his puddle. 'Ah well, I know where he lives.'

Petra suddenly realized she was hugging the chocolate bunny in the crook of her arm as if it were a soft toy.

'I'll pay for his,' Petra said, 'and mine.'

'All this equality it's not right, pet. Romance should be old-fas.h.i.+oned,' the shopkeeper teased. 'He's not what you'd call the Milk Tray Man, is he.'

'I don't like Milk Tray.'

'Just as well. He's not much of a Sir Walter Raleigh either look at that puddle.'

'Well, James Cook's my hero, he was a far superior explorer,' Petra said primly. 'Now, what do I owe you for both?'

'Six pound for yours, ten for his. Sixteen pound, pet.'

Petra paused before she left. 'I haven't seen him for seventeen years. And now he's b.u.g.g.e.red off down to London.'

'Well, did he not say he'll be back?' the shopkeeper said, reddening at the disclosure of her eavesdropping.

'He said he'll find me but I don't know how. We didn't swap numbers we just talked about, I don't know, each other's hair.'

'Well, if Captain Cook could find Australia, then I'm sure that lad'll find you.'

Chapter Twenty-one.

'Darling!'

'Happy Easter, Mum.'

'It's huge.'

'I stole it.'

'You what?'

'I walked out of the shop without paying.'

'Good G.o.d, darling.'

'They know me there.'

'For shoplifting?'

'No, not for shoplifting, Mother. I just had a moment. I'll settle up next week.'

'I don't think I ought to eat stolen goods, darling.'

'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, Mum. It's finest Swiss chocolate. You enjoy it.'

'Do you talk to your students with that mouth?'