by Freya North
I'm going to have an ice cream.
I called him a cunt. I never use that word! I rarely go stronger than ‘sod'.
And actually, Rob was just a bit of an oaf, really.
We were not a match made in heaven – but neither have I gone through hell. His moral code conflicted vastly with my own. Fuck-buddies – I don't ever want to be someone's fuck-buddy. Not for me at all. I'm a romantic. And that's nothing to justify or defend – it's something to be proud of.
This place is so beautiful. The world feels really pretty good from up here.
It's Good Friday the day after tomorrow. So tomorrow I'll pop into Great Ayton and treat myself to an enormous Easter egg from Suggitts.
* * *
Which was precisely what Arlo Savidge was thinking.
He doesn't much care for chocolate, though.
He's planning to go to Suggitts tomorrow to buy an enormous Easter egg for his mother. Because then he's off down to London to visit her.
Chapter Nineteen
Arlo looked around his room. There wasn't much he'd be taking on his trip south. Unlike some of his less seasoned colleagues, Arlo had happily adapted to the confines of his living space and was not remotely bothered by the fact that his life had to fit the distinctive dimensions of the folly. Because of its nooks and alcoves and obtuse angles, life was easier if one didn't try to make the space fit one's belongings. Fortunately for Arlo, beloved possessions such as his guitars seemed to back nicely into corners as if the room had been custom designed for such a teacher. In fact, apart from his guitars – and he had four of them – Arlo had few personal effects, though what he did own he had in startling quantities. Racks of vinyl in 7 and 12 and even 10 inches, towers of CDs. It meant that there was no wall space for pictures or clocks or mirrors but as Arlo was neither vain, nor bothered by the passing of time, this was no sacrifice. However, he did need to take something home to show his mum, it would be important to her. He decided to take his students’ work because therein lay the proof of a worthwhile and successful career. He travelled light. His bashed-up old canvas shoulder bag contained a change of clothes, a clutch of exercise books, his iPod and room enough left for an Easter egg.
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-shirt. ‘Sherbet Dip Dab? A quarter of boiled sweets for the plane? Some genuine Yorkshire toffee to endear yourself to the Dutch? Lemfizz? Dolly Mixture? Tom Thumb drops?’
‘Will you just fuck 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 café 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 café. 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 passes 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 retroussé 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-fashioned sweetshop on a God-forsaken day in North Yorkshire. 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, finishing 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-fucking-on, Arlo needed a moment to raise his face to the sky.
If I believed in God, 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 fuck?’ 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 Yorkshire. In the sunshine. 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-fashioned,’ 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 buggered 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 God, 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.’
‘Bollocks, Mum. It's finest Swiss chocolate. You enjoy it.’
‘Do you talk to your students with that mouth?’
‘No, but I kiss my mum with it. Hullo, Mum. It's good to see you.’
Arlo wrapped his arms around his mother and gave her a long hug. It never ceased to surprise him that he was a head and shoulders taller than she. Though his upbringing had been liberal, lenient and laid back, the demarcation of parent/child had never been compromised. So, though Arlo had been allowed to say ‘bollocks’ and ‘bugger’ and ‘bloody Nora’ at home, to him his mum was his mum and he was her child and it always felt funny that he was grown-up enough to see over the top of her head.
‘Go and unpack and check all your Action Men are where you left them,’ his mother said brusquely and Arlo knew he wasn't to comment on the tears in her eyes.
‘I haven't really got anything to unpack – your Easter egg took up all the room.’
‘Arlo, you're dreadful. I'm going to make a pot of tea.’
When she came back into the lounge, with tea for two on a tray, Arlo was revisiting all the family photos on the mantel-piece. She loved to see him do this; it was his little routine whenever he came back, saying a silent hullo to his family through the years. Hullo, Grandma. Hullo, Mum and baby Arlo. Hullo, Arlo aged six with the orange Space Hopper and terrible haircut. Hullo, Dad. And hullo, Dad and Arlo flying kites, hair and flares flapping cheerfully in some summer breeze thirty years ago. Hullo, Mum and Dad on your silver wedding anniversary. Hullo, Dad the Christmas before you died.
‘Ten years – next year,’ his mother said quietly, knowing instinctively that her son was thinking the same thing.
‘I know,’ Arlo said, ‘good old Dad.’
‘You always called him “good old Dad”.’
‘I know – it used to wind him up.’
‘Not really.’
‘I know.’
She poured the tea and they drank, wistful smiles easing the loaded absence of father and husband.
‘Mind you, it used to really wind me up when you'd call me Mummy, good and loud in public. Especially as you were in your twenties at the time. I'm glad you've outgrown that, Arlo.’
‘That was to even the score for the period when you wanted me to call you Esther.’
‘You were a teenager,’ she shrugged. ‘I thought you'd like to.’
‘You were a dippy hippy,’ Arlo laughed. ‘You still are, a bit. I was the only one amongst my friends who never had to sneak joss sticks up to his bedroom.’
‘You never even had to buy your own.’
‘Yeah, who needed pocket money when your parents let you have all the joss sticks you wanted, Esther,’ Arlo teased.
‘Can't stand the smell of them now,’ Esther confided.
‘Me neither.’
‘I have quite a thing for expensive scented candles, though.’
‘So I can detect,’ said Arlo, thinking that the house smelt particularly fragrant and feminine and it was such a comforting and lovely ambience after weeks of eau de boys, photocopiers, floor polish, games kits and home-brew.
‘Take one back with you,’ she said. ‘Every occasion I've visited, I've noted that your folly smells of moss and stone.’
‘It's made of moss and stone.’
‘Not on the inside. Mind you, I'm sure I have a Jo Malone candle that is called Moss or something.’
‘Mum, if I start burning scented candles I'll get a reputation for being even more of a poof than they already think I am.’
‘Darling – you know it wouldn't matter to me if you were.’
‘Bloody Nora, Mother!’ Arlo declared. ‘Where's that come from?’
Esther looked mortified, though Arlo hadn't really taken offence. It had been such an Esther thing to say. Like when she'd told him she didn't mi
nd if he wanted to be Jewish when he spent part of his gap year on a kibbutz. I think you have to be born to a Jewish mother, Arlo had told her. Well, I'll look into it myself, if you like, she'd told him.
‘I just meant—’ Esther said. ‘Oh, I don't know what I meant. Here, let's crack this Easter egg.’
‘What you meant,’ Arlo said, having sucked thoughtfully on a full mouthful of divine chocolate, ‘was, How's my love life?’
His mother feigned her mouth being too full to respond.
Arlo shrugged. ‘It's difficult, Mum. After Helen. It's still difficult.’
‘It's gone five years, darling.’
‘But I flicked off that particular switch, I desensitized myself to the merits of romantic love. I can live without it. Quite happily, actually.’
Esther's eyes welled. ‘But that's so sad. You're so good at it. You are your father's son – and look how happy we were.’
His mother was the one person for whom Arlo's shrugs didn't work.
‘You need to let Helen go, darling,’ she said abruptly. ‘It wasn't your fault.’
‘That's easier said than done, Mum.’
‘Letting go of Helen – or believing it wasn't your fault.’
‘You're right – it's over five years ago. Nothing left to talk about.’
‘But something to think about.’
‘What if I have met someone?’ Arlo said quietly, more to steer the direction of the conversation away from Helen and events of five years ago.
Esther let the information hang. ‘Who?’ she asked gently.
Arlo thought of Petra. In his mind's eye he didn't see the vision of the drowned Ophelia who'd dripped back into his life that morning. He saw Petra at fifteen, wrestling with a big clay pot in the playground of his school. Wearing Dunlop Green Flash and her summer uniform. Ringlets crying out to be pinged. Cheeky smile. Nice knees. ‘A schoolgirl,’ he said vaguely.
‘A schoolgirl?’ His mother's frown knitted her brow in such a way that she suddenly looked older than her age, as she might look in another decade.
‘Someone I knew from when I was at school,’ Arlo quickly explained. ‘Someone I haven't seen or even thought of, really, for years and years.’