by Freya North
But maybe this is all a bit over the top. Perhaps it'll irritate him. Perhaps it's not his thing at all, though it's very me. Maybe I should just go and meet him in Soho as arranged and not bother with all of this.
But just before six o'clock Petra arrives at Rob's flat, laden with all the things she can think of, all the things she can just about afford, and a couple of things she can't really afford, to make his birthday unforgettable. To ensure his birthday goes with a bang. To guarantee this will be a memorable day in their relationship. She's proud of herself and excited. And she's just let herself into Rob's flat.
Something is wrong. Instinctively, Petra knows that something is very wrong. She surveys the scene fast. Everything looks almost as it should. But only almost. Because there are two pairs of shoes that have been kicked off near the sofa and only one set belongs to Rob. And Petra allows herself just a moment to think that it would be fine, it really truly would be fine, if perhaps those spike heels were actually his too and simply exposed a secret cross-dressing proclivity. That it would be all right. Funny, even.
However, in those heightened milliseconds of being able to circumnavigate the entire scene of her imminent destruction, Petra knows that her straw-clutchingly pathetic notion is far from the truth. Somewhere in Rob's flat is the naked truth – possibly the butt-naked truth – but Petra doesn't want to go looking. She sits down on Rob's sofa and does not look at the shoes. She concentrates on holding tight to the flowers and the chocolates and the champagne and the tin-foil which she was going to wrap around the bucket to cool the champagne. She's holding on as tight as she can while she sits there waiting to be found.
Rob saunters through, whistling, and stops abruptly and says, Fucking hell, Petra, what are you doing here? And Petra stands up and says, I was going to give you the best birthday ever. And then Laura walks in – Rob's workmate, the nice one, the one who was kind to Petra that night in town quite recently. And the thing is, it's not as if they're naked. So maybe they were in Rob's bedroom because Laura wanted to see, just wanted to see – his built-in wardrobe. Or his ensuite walk-in shower. Something like that. Because Petra heard the shower going. Because perhaps Laura has – just bought a flat. Or something. Innocent as you like. Because they have their clothes on. And it's six o'clock on a Friday. And Rob is meeting Petra in town, for his birthday, in an hour's time. But all this reasonable blamelessness lasts just a split second.
Their hair is damp. And, at the very moment that Petra clocks Laura's bare feet, Laura says, Oh God, Petra! Oh shit! It's not what it seems! It's just – you know! And in a glance Petra can see that Rob's expression is telling Laura to shut up, shut the fuck up.
‘Rob?’
‘Petra – I can explain.’
‘Go on then.’
But he can't very well explain with Laura there so Laura says, Oops! I'd better go. And once she's gone, Rob looks at his girlfriend of ten months and he shrugs.
‘I didn't mean to hurt you, Petra,’ he says. ‘Honestly. It's nothing serious.’
‘Nothing serious? The thing is, Rob, I don't know if you're referring to me – or her.’
‘Her!’ Rob says too quickly. ‘We just got pissed at lunch-time – you know what it's like.’
But Petra doesn't because Rob inhabits a world so different from hers.
‘It was stupid. It didn't mean anything. It doesn't matter.’
But it matters very much to Petra. It means everything to her. And she feels very very stupid. And rather sick. She drops all the things she's been holding onto so tightly, all the accoutrements for a stupid bloody happy sodding birthday. And she bolts from Rob's flat and out into the lively thrum of Upper Street, Islington, which is buzzing on a Friday evening as people start to celebrate the end of the working week and all the fun of the weekend ahead of them.
Chapter Twelve
What is she going to do?
What can she do with this information?
What is she going to do with her night, with her weekend, with her life, with her tomorrow?
Who can she turn to right now? No one should have to weather a trauma like this alone.
Petra Flint may be a romantic but she's also fairly sensible. She would quite like to throw up in the middle of Islington but she breathes slowly and methodically instead, to calm herself and quell the nausea. She could easily collapse into sobs at the bus stop but she bites down on her lip and decides to hail a taxi. What price the security of home?
And quickly, please. I know it's rush-hour but if you could drive like the clappers I'd be grateful.
Train to catch, love?
No. I just want to be home.
Well, it'll be sticky up the Archway, love, but it'll ease out after that.
Sticky up the Archway. Sticky up the arch way. Stick it up yer archway. To Petra, just then, it sounds bizarrely vaudevillian and she is taunted by an image of a sticky sweaty Rob pushing up into Laura.
* * *
Petra is home.
The solitude and safety of her own space render obsolete the composure she maintained so brilliantly in Islington and in the taxi. She closes her front door and presses her back hard against it. Then she doubles over, clutching her stomach. She drops to her knees and cries, No no no, hammering her knuckles against the carpet. She curls herself onto the floor just inside the door even though she's within arm's reach of the sofa. She can't cry properly and it is painful. The sobs are caught like sharp obstructions in her throat and she can no more swallow them down than she can wail them up. Her tears try to itch and ooze their way past aching eyeballs as if her tear-ducts are constipated. She is light-headed but the pit of her stomach is leaden. Her brain is having difficulty computing all the immutable information and her heart hurts. It simply hurts. From a situation so sordid, comes pain so pure. It's all unfathomable.
She woke up pleased to find herself still on the floor near the door, because such a trauma could well have had her sleepwalking way past Whetstone. Common sense told her not to mope and not to be alone and the hands of her watch said that, at just turned tomorrow, it would be breakfast-time again in Hong Kong.
‘Luce?’
‘Stay right there – I'll phone you straight back.’
The beauty of your oldest, closest friend is that, in a crisis, she has no compulsion to do anything other than come to your rescue. She puts her life on hold as she steps into your shoes to fight your corner for you. Because she can feel your pain, so she can take just a little bit of it away. She won't mince her words or indulge you, she'll talk to you straight and tell it how it is. But she'll also intersperse her constructive help to there-there you like a mother. In Petra's case, in lieu of her mother. And she'll carefully lay the foundations of her advice on a soft bed of much-needed sympathy.
So Lucy listened and gasped and squeezed her handset tight as if it was Petra's hand or Rob's sodding neck. She was livid and distressed and frustrated by the distance that separated them. She was outraged and felt Petra's pain as keenly as if it was her own. After Lucy had done listening because Petra was done talking, she soothed her with utter sympathy and a genuine croak to her own voice. Encouraging Petra to use the phone call to sob all she wanted, Lucy willed her affection and her support to traverse the Pacific or bounce off the telecommunication satellite or whichever route was the quickest to go down the phone and into Petra's soul. And only then did Lucy take charge of the situation and of her friend's immediate future.
‘This will not damage you, Petra, because the problem is his and not yours. It's your opportunity to wrest your life back from the hold he had over you. You are allowed to hate him. You can enjoy it. Then you might well pity him. And soon enough – I promise you – you simply won't think of him at all. If you find yourself missing him, ask yourself what it is you miss.’
‘But I worked so hard at loving him.’
‘You worked too hard at loving him for too little return.’
‘But he didn't love me.’
‘Yo
u are right – but that's his shortcoming, not your failure.’
‘I tried so hard.’
‘It is not your fault. He probably does love you in his own half-baked way. Love means different things to different people. It's the centre of your world – but it's on the periphery of his. But he'll probably make a play to get you back.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘You shouldn't be sounding hopeful – you should be sounding horrified. You are better off in the long run. Please believe me. If he comes crawling and begging and dripping with diamonds please say no.’
‘It's all right for you, Luce. You're married and sorted. I'm on my own.’
‘Better to be on your own than settling for so little. You shouldn't be with Rob to make yourself feel better, because I'm telling you, Rob did not love you as you should be loved. And he won't miraculously change. You know what I think, Petra, I think deep down you were never sure about his feelings for you and that's why you tried so hard. God, it was like a full-time job – the effort you bestowed. You worked so hard at being a sexpot, a wifey, a fascinating person, an amazing girlfriend.’
‘What more could I have done? Why wasn't that enough?’
‘You are trying to measure yourself against how much affection you could inspire in him. That's why you're feeling so wretched – because you are judging yourself on how little he loved you. All you expected in return was respect, affection and fidelity – none of which he gave you. But you listen up, Petra – he didn't not love you because you're unlovable, my darling. He's emotionally imbecilic. You must not take this personally.’
‘How can I not?’
‘I know. I know. At this stage, that's impossible. Answer me this, though. If he came round right now and asked you to marry him, would you say yes?’
‘Yes! I would! I would say yes yes yes!’
‘Petra, if he came round right now and asked you to marry him tomorrow, would you say yes?’
The line went silent. ‘Petra?’
‘I …’
‘Would you? Would you marry Rob tomorrow? I'll come over – I'll go to the airport right now. Will you marry him tomorrow? Marry him tomorrow and forever?’
Silence.
‘Petra?’
‘I wouldn't marry him tomorrow. Not tomorrow. No.’
‘Good girl. You will see that actually, it's nothing to do with the love, or lack of, that he had for you. Ultimately, you'll see that you didn't really love him enough to be with him for good anyway. The more you doubt someone's love for you, the harder you work at trying to secure it. It's bizarre. Perhaps you set out to see if you could be the one for him without stopping to truly consider whether he was the one for you?’
‘Oh, Luce.’
‘He's not worth your tears, my darling. And the person worthy of you won't make you cry like this. I promise. Phone Eric first thing because you'll feel very unsure again when you wake up. So phone him. OK?’
‘OK.’
‘And Petra?’ Lucy paused. ‘You're beautiful and gorgeous and it would be wrong to settle for anyone less than a man who adores you.’
‘OK.’
‘And Petra? Double-lock your door tonight. Hide the key in the coffee jar right now and put the coffee jar at the back of your cupboard and balance something like a shoe on top of the cupboard door so it will clonk you if you open it. Go on. Just in case. You know how trauma can set you off.’
‘OK. But I wish you were here, Luce, really here. Round the corner, like you used to be.’
‘We'll be back later in the year. We'll be back for good in a couple of years' time.’
‘OK. But please don't hang up yet.’
Petra didn't sleepwalk, she didn't have nightmares, she didn't even dream. She slept without knowing she slept; hours of uninterrupted nothingness making time pass, giving the brain a rest, allowing the heart to beat a little more calmly. And when she awoke, she was momentarily tricked by the charm of those first gentle minutes of reverie, by sunlight seeping in through the gap in the curtains promising a fair spring day. It was only when her slumbery focus sharpened to settle on the strange sight of her Birkenstock sandal perched on top of her ajar cupboard door, that she recalled what had caused her to sleep to such numb depths.
Sandals.
Cupboard.
Coffee jar.
Door keys.
Sleepwalk.
Lucy.
Rob.
Birthday.
And Laura.
And not me.
Her spirits tumbled with the thudding realization of the horrible truth. She closed her eyes though she knew it was pointless – there would be no sleep while her heart was busy beating double time and the cogs of her brain were in over-drive. And closing her eyes didn't stop her tears and it didn't prevent her from staring straight into the bare facts of the situation.
Yet looking around her room, she suddenly hated every inch of it. She hated the trickery of the sunshine. It was all a lie. It wasn't a nice spring day at all. How could it be. She was waking up very alone, and for Petra that was a terrible place to be. A whole day – more, an entire weekend – stretched ahead of her as one long enervating slog.
I've spent my adult life avoiding weekends on my own.
Petra stumbled from bed and hurried to phone Eric.
‘He's been shagging someone else.’
‘I'll bring wine I'll bring fags I'll bring chocolate I'll bring scented candles I'll bring Jerry Maguire I'll bring my Eve Lom stuff and give you a facial that'll make the world seem all right again. I'll bring all this stuff with me – and much much more. I'll be over at lunch-time.’
Petra clung to the phone and loved Eric very much just then.
He brought a carpet picnic fit for a queen.
‘I haven't heard a word from him,’ Petra said quietly, having eaten her fill.
‘He was shagging someone else! There is no explanation!’ Eric protested. ‘You deserve so much more. It's shitty and it hurts – but it's for the best. He was no good for you, the tosser. I never much liked him. None of us did. He's not your type – and you're not his.’
Petra ruminated over this. ‘But why didn't you say something sooner?’
‘We did try but you were so full of how much you loved him. Note – you loved him. You were very happy to love him, too. You wouldn't have heard me. Anyway, you wouldn't have listened.’
‘He didn't love me,’ said Petra, her strength rapidly sapping. ‘I tried so hard.’
‘Love should never be such a one-sided effort. Anyway, do you know what I think? I think he's a sad fat fuck, that's what. He probably did love you in his own way, to his own inadequate limit.’
‘That's what Lucy says.’
‘Petra, much better to have your propensity for great love – big generous sexy caring love – than his limit for only so much lukewarm love. You'll be able to bestow it on a very lucky chap – and next time, it'll be reciprocated.’
‘I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be on my own.’
‘That's why you worked so hard on Rob. Not because he was worth it but because you didn't want to be on your own.’
Early evening, a text message bleeped through to her phone and in the instant she prayed it would be from Rob, Eric prayed it would be from Lucy. Petra's prayer, it seemed, was heard first.
u ok? I can xplain!! plus jamais!! promise!! xxx
‘Christ,’ Eric muttered, ‘if ever there was a time to go easy on exclamation marks.’ But he felt bad when he saw how his cynicism, however reasonable, had swiftly stripped the hope and joy from Petra's face.
‘Three kisses, Eric – he never usually does kisses at all.’
Eric decided not to comment but to give Petra a look instead which said, I've known you for over fifteen years – will you please just trust me.
‘But maybe it's only now that he realizes that he does really love me,’ Petra said, ‘and he's come to his senses.’
Eric gave Petra the look ag
ain. He thought how if Kitty was here she'd be yelling at Petra and physically shaking her. Or if Rob were here then yelling at him and physically shaking him too. But harder.
‘Are you going to forgive him?’ Eric asked, feigning nonchalance by laying out his jars of Eve Lom facial products like a chef preparing to cook up a treat.
‘I read somewhere that we all make mistakes but it's how we make amends that defines us.’
‘Petra, it's easy enough to think, Ooh, desolate text message! Ooh, three Xs. But are you intending to forgive a man who didn't bother with kisses until now – and, more to the point, who's been fucking someone else behind your back but claims it's readily explainable?’
‘You're not helping, Eric – and anyway, who says he was pathologically unfaithful? It was just the once. It was his birthday. He was a bit pissed. He never meant for me to walk in.’
‘And that makes it OK? Petra, why are you defending him? He hasn't been nice enough to you – from the start. Please use this as an opportunity to walk away. Please. You're too good for him. He doesn't suit you.’
Oh God, won't you just take your Eve Lom lotions and potions and sod off. Petra went quiet, not because the sense of Eric's sentiment struck home, nor because he was slathering a thick, aromatic gloop on her face. She was really tired of talking, tired of trying to think, she didn't have the energy to know what she ought to do next but she just wanted to be allowed to make up her own mind as to whether Rob was as much of a sod as those who loved her best decreed him to be. It was a strange thing: desperate not to be alone yet suddenly wanting to be all by herself.
So, when Eric suggested they crack open the wine and watch Jerry Maguire, Petra told him that actually she'd rather go to bed because she was exhausted. Before he left her flat, he checked all the windows were locked and then hid her keys, texting her the next morning to tell her under which cushion they could be found.
Chapter Thirteen
She may think she's all alone, she may bemoan the fact that her best friend lives abroad and that Eric's facial didn't really help much at all, but although a little self-pity can be constructively cathartic in times of crisis, if it lasts too long it becomes destructively self-indulgent. Sunday morning finds Petra very quiet. The sunshine is tauntingly brilliant, Rob has resent his text message to her and she feels she needs someone to tell her what to do next. Kitty has left the sweetest message about a friend of a friend who does voodoo and though Gina has sent a text inviting her to supper in SW3, Petra suspects neither approach is what she needs just now. She could catch Lucy, she could phone Eric again but they wouldn't have any new answers for her. They'd be happy to hear from her, they'd be pleased to be there for her, they would sweetly say the same things they said yesterday and they wouldn't mind her repeating herself and crying afresh, but until Petra gives them her thoughts, they can't really shed any new light on her situation.