by Freya North
Their eyes are closed. Their eyes open. Locking into each other's gaze they stop kissing, they stop moving and they just look. They look and look and slowly they move again. And they don't take their eyes off each other when some force in her sex guides his cock smoothly, easily, ecstatically into her. And they don't stop watching each other as they move and move; they see the pleasure they are feeling registered on the other's face. Is this as beautiful for you as it is for me? Yes, it is. They're not fucking urgently, their bodies are fusing and the pace is instinctively luxurious. The momentum is increasing but it's still tantalizingly slow enough for them to acknowledge every flush of pleasure in the glaze of each other's eyes, the reddening of their cheeks, the hastening of their breathing. And it's so blissful and so erotic and Petra knows she's never felt it so good and Arlo knows he's never had a fit so perfect and without drama they're coming, they're coming, seamlessly synchronized, they're coming. There's no shouting or yelping or affected panting; there's actually no need for sound. They're speechless anyway. They don't need to be told. There isn't a word for it. To ride together the vivid crest of physical pleasure, to share such a cerebral high of complete emotion. And the spurts from Arlo subside into a last few tired jolts. And the spasms from Petra ease into a woozy wetness.
They grin at each other, a little triumph, a lot of happiness. He slips out of her, lies beside her, strokes her hair, tucks it behind her ear. Their faces are very close. Blue eyes and brown. Nose tips almost touching. The poetry of the orgasm has ebbed into the sunny ordinariness of the afternoon in hand.
But Petra bites her lips and she says, Shit, we didn't, you know, use anything. Shit.
And Arlo stops grinning. He looks very serious.
But Petra, he says, it's irrelevant – there's no precaution necessary. We don't need to guard against a single thing any more.
‘You and me.’
‘And me and you.’
Chapter Thirty-four
‘I want to show you something.’
Arlo, who hadn't really been asleep but had sensed Petra gazing at him intently and was enjoying the feeling, slowly opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow. ‘If it's that thing you do with your hips when you're on top, then yes, please.’
Petra laughed – she didn't really know what the hip-thing was, though she was glad he liked it. Languorously she trailed her hand over Arlo's chest. What a perfect afternoon. Sod the glorious day happily going on outside, no doubt a landscape bathed in early summer sunshine, a sky scattered with Gainsborough clouds and air so fresh you could taste its sweetness – what better place to be than in bed?
They had made love a second time, then dozed. They'd had mugs of hot chocolate, sitting up in bed, side by side, sipping and chatting like an old couple. Kissed a lot. She clattered about the kitchen, brought hot buttered toast to bed. Dozed again. Crumbs in the sheets.
‘You can touch your nose with your tongue,’ Arlo said.
‘What?’
‘Or go cross-eyed? I don't know – what is it then? Show me.’
‘It's this,’ said Petra and she twisted half off the bed, delving around under the mattress. Arlo was far more intrigued by the sinuous undulations of her torso, the sheen on her skin. He placed his hand at the dip of her waist, kissed the bank of muscle running smoothly along her back. He wanted to make love to her again, this way, from behind, press himself against her, kiss her and feel her from this angle.
‘Down, boy!’ she said and he rolled onto his back laughing, saying, Fucking hell, Petra Flint, what are you doing to me?
‘I want to show you this.’ She passed him a large jewel. He took it from her. Transparent yet heavy with colour, in fact saturated with colours: navy, lilac, midnight, violet, plum, lavender. Faceted so that it both captured the light and spun it out simultaneously. He held it between thumb and forefinger. Petra straightened his hand and placed the gem on top, along the line between his index and middle fingers. The light, the colour, appeared even more brilliant.
‘Blimey,’ Arlo said, ‘what is it? A sapphire?’
Petra smiled. She'd had this conversation herself, with Lillian McNeil. ‘It's the colour that sapphire wishes it could be,’ she quoted dramatically. ‘It's tanzanite.’
‘Tanzanite.’
‘And I don't know what to do with it.’
‘Is it yours?’
‘Yes, it's mine.’
* * *
Two months after Lillian McNeil died, the school year ended. During the long summer that followed, Arlo received his A level results in music, English and history and packed his bags for Bristol University. Petra and her mother moved again, this time to a small, dull flat in a nondescript area where the fingers of Cricklewood poke into the outer reaches of West Hampstead. Petra returned to school that September with seven O levels under her belt but no Mrs McNeil for lunch-times and no more Arlo at all. She tucked her head down and worked diligently. Just after the autumn half-term, she was summoned to Miss Lorimar's office again, though this time she wasn't called from her class. Instead it came as a discreet request from her art teacher at the end of class and the beginning of break.
Miss Lorimar seemed not to notice Petra's arrival though Petra had knocked and been told to enter. The headmistress was doing the Times crossword. Petra watched her pen scuttle over the across clues, falter once or twice and dive on a down clue or two. The headmistress looked up. ‘Good morning, Petra – do take a seat. Wretched thing.’ Petra wasn't sure who or what was wretched but she decided it was the crossword and not herself or the blue leatherette chair.
Her headmistress put down the biro as if it was hot. She tipped her head to one side and regarded her pupil a little quizzically. ‘Did you have a nice half-term?’
‘Yes, thank you, Miss Lorimar.’
‘Refreshed? Ready to storm headlong into your A levels?’
‘I am trying,’ said Petra, ‘very hard.’
‘Good good,’ Miss Lorimar said. She tapped a brown paper parcel in front of her. ‘This is for you. It came to the school with a covering letter from Messrs William & Brandt.’
Petra did not recognize the name and couldn't fathom why she was receiving mail at school. After all, despite it being a soulless hinterland, postmen did visit the cusp of Cricklewood. William or Brandt. Never heard of them.
‘They are solicitors,’ Miss Lorimar told her. ‘They acted for your friend, Lillian McNeil. And in her will, she left this to you.’
Petra felt her soul leap. ‘For me?’ She looked at the parcel. She looked at Miss Lorimar and beamed. ‘I know what it is!’
‘You do?’
‘It's the painting I loved – of Kilimanjaro. In Tanzania.’
‘I know where Kilimanjaro is, dear.’
‘It's the one her husband painted. Hector. It's abstract – a little like Clyfford Still.’
‘Open it and see.’
‘There's two! Oh wow. This is the one her husband painted. And this is the watercolour. Mrs McNeil loved it out there, in Tanzania. She had so many stories of her travels – and she told me many Masai legends too.’
‘There's something else, Petra. See? In the paper – the velvet purse.’
The shock of seeing that black velvet pouch swept Petra's smile away and she quickly sat on her hands. ‘I know what that is too,’ she said quietly, regarding it a little shyly.
‘Aren't you going to open it?’
‘It can't be for me.’
‘Yes, it can. In black and white, or at least black velvet, care of Messrs William & Brandt. Come on!’ and Miss Lorimar's eyes sparkled like a child at Christmas – a bizarre sight indeed for one of her underlings to behold.
Petra took the pouch to her lap, untied the cord, tipped the contents quickly into the palm of one hand and cupped her other hand over the top. She thought she saw Miss Lorimar actually bounce on her chair in anticipation. Slowly she opened her hands, like a clam revealing its treasure.
‘Good God!’
Headmis
tresses oughtn't to blaspheme, surely.
But Petra knew that Miss Lorimar had been helpless not to. It was a natural reaction on first seeing a 39.43 carat tanzanite.
* * *
It had been Arlo's reaction too.
‘And this is it?’ Arlo asked, taking the gem between his fingers.
‘Yes,’ said Petra.
‘Shouldn't it be in a bank vault – not under a mattress?’
‘That,’ said Petra, ‘would be a tragedy. You can't lock something this beautiful away.’
‘You can't plonk something this valuable under your mattress, though.’
‘I almost didn't have it at all. My mother said I could keep the pictures but that I wasn't allowed the gemstone. She said it wasn't right. I had to knock on Miss Lorimar's door the following day and say, I'm sorry but my mother says I can't have this because she says it isn't right.’
‘But you do have it.’
‘She was a dark horse, Miss Lorimar,’ Petra laughed. ‘Just after I took my A levels, just before I left school, I was summoned to my headmistress one final time. She took down a reproduction Ming vase from on top of a shelf and tipped out the black velvet purse. She handed it to me and said that now I was eighteen I didn't need to ask my mother's permission.’
‘She'd kept it for you?’
‘Yes. In a fake Ming vase high up on a shelf. It was so strange – it was all so covert and yet so charmingly conspiratorial. She said to me, “When your mother said it wasn't right – I have a feeling she meant it wasn't right for you to have been the adored focus of someone else's world. I think your mother felt guilty, Petra. I don't think she wanted you to have a token of a friendship that eased a very dark time for you.” And really, that was the last conversation I had with my headmistress.’
‘From a Ming to a mattress,’ Arlo said. ‘It's a bit ignominious.’
‘But I don't know what to do with it,’ Petra said. ‘It's my writer's block. It goads me and yet it sustains me too. It's what motivated me to apply to Central St Martins. I know, I just know, that an essential part of my creativity is locked within this gem. But I can't access it. It's frustrating beyond belief. How can I do this beautiful stone justice? And what can I possibly create that would be testimony enough to the wonderful Lillian McNeil?’
‘Is that why you're here, Petra?’
She looked at him.
‘It is now.’
She'd left herself bare, yet she'd done so on purpose. Arlo's tipped head said, Tell me more. Petra raised her eyebrows at herself and looked a little sheepish. ‘Initially – when I first came up here before Easter – it was because I'd split up with a bloke.’
‘Nursing a broken heart by brooding all over the moors?’ Arlo said. ‘Very Brontë.’
‘It was not a broken heart,’ Petra said, quiet but decisive. ‘More of a bruised ego.’
‘“Fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with”,’ Arlo said but he wasn't looking at Petra.
‘The Buzzcocks,’ Petra said. The fact that she'd recognized the lyrics pulled Arlo back to her.
‘I'm impressed.’
‘But look,’ said Petra and she pulled back the sheet, stretched herself out, pointing her toes, arms stretched above her head, ‘no bruises. None on the outside, none on the inside.’ She thought it the best way to show him she had history but no baggage; that she had history and a sense of humour.
Arlo's eyes swept along her curves. He ran the tanzanite gently over her body, plopped it down on her stomach. ‘Good enough to eat.’
‘I have licked it, you know,’ Petra said and she giggled.
‘Putting your mouth where the money is,’ Arlo mused. ‘How much is this thing worth?’
‘Loose like this? A lot. Thousands. Because of its size, its clarity and colour, it's internally flawless. Made up into something – a lot more.’
‘And yet you struggle to make ends meet, living in a rented flat in North Frigging Finchley? By the way, I wasn't talking about the tanzanite being good enough to eat.’ And Arlo lay a cloth of light kisses over her body to emphasize the point. ‘Who was this bloke?’ he said casually, between mouthfuls.
‘Rob,’ said Petra. ‘Not my type.’ And she stroked Arlo's head, the velvety sensation of his closely cropped hair feeling lovely on her palm.
‘Did you show him – Rob – the secrets of your mattress?’
‘He wasn't particularly interested.’
Arlo brought his face up from Petra's stomach. He grinned. ‘Of course, I'd love you if there was dust under your mattress rather than thousands of pounds' worth of jewels.’
He just said he loves me.
‘The thing is Arlo, when I do – finally – make something for this tanzanite, who on earth will I allow to buy it?’
Compared to chips from the paper, supper was a grand affair, with the table set, side-plates with folded napkins, candles lit, a bottle of wine. The food Petra had bought from the deli was perfect. They were ravenous.
‘I'll bet people back in London think you are eking a frugal existence out in the sticks,’ Arlo said. ‘My mum took some persuading that one could even get a cappuccino, never mind a bloody good one, up here. She couldn't quite believe it when she saw rocket pesto on one menu in Stokesley and saffron couscous on another in Helmsley, and Jerusalem artichoke on a menu in Yarm.’
‘I must admit, I thought it'd be mostly ham and eggs, or pies pies pies.’
‘Shame on you, Miss Flint. It's a wonderful area – it really is. I don't think I'd live anywhere else now. The villages are great, the landscape is stunning and there's the bonus of being so near the coast.’
‘I haven't been. Yet.’
‘Well, that's a date, then,’ said Arlo and they laughed. ‘Another one. There's loads of places I must take you. Down to Runswick Bay. Up to Roseberry Topping. Bilsdale and Raisdale. We'll take the North York Moors Railway from Grosmont to Pickering. We'll walk the Cleveland Way, we'll go a way along the Lyke Wake Walk. The pier at Saltburn. The Wainstones, the Hanging Stone, a stick of rock from Scarborough. We'll fine dine at the Tontine. Have Sunday lunch at the Star in Harome. Fresh dressed crab from Whitby. We'll cross over the Transporter Bridge one way and the Newport Bridge the other. We'll go and see the Angel of the North, the goths at Whitby, the bikers at Helmsley.’
‘I'd like to see the ruined abbeys.’
‘Rievaulx. Fountains. Byland. Guisborough. St Hilda's. I'll take you there.’
‘All these dates, Arlo – they'll eat up all your weekends.’
He shrugged. ‘I don't mind. It'll be half-term soon enough. Summer holidays six weeks after that.’
‘Do you not go home?’
‘This is home, Petra – for me.’
Petra nodded and knitted the frisee with her fork. She'd never considered that home could be anywhere other than where you'd been brought up. Even if you didn't particularly like it. She never thought that home is where the heart is could be more than a saying, more than a song.
‘Why are you here, Arlo?’ she asks, as they snuggle into bed past midnight, having chatted the evening away.
‘Oh,’ he says blithely, ‘I'm just here for the pussy.’
Petra punches him lightly and then bashes him with her pillow. ‘Pillock,’ she says. ‘Not here, here. I meant—’
‘I know,’ Arlo says, ‘I know. A bit like you really – something went awry for me back in London, a few years ago, and an opportunity arose here which I took without a backward glance.’
‘What happened, what went awry, Arlo?’
He turns and lies on his back. ‘I knew you'd ask me that.’ And then he says ‘idiot’ at himself, under his breath, which Petra wasn't meant to hear, but they both know she has.
Petra tells herself to stop prying, it's late, don't push – not now. Don't spoil what's been so perfect by digging too deep just yet. ‘Tell me.’ Shut up!
‘Oh – it's long and complicated and boring, Petra. My career was at a crossroa
ds. I broke up with someone I'd been with for a while. You know – one of those life-defining intersections that tend to epitomize one's late twenties.’
‘What happened – with your career?’ Petra gives herself full marks for manipulating the divulgence into less contentious territory.
‘I changed my tune,’ Arlo says.
‘Stop being so enigmatic!’
‘Seriously – I'd always been in bands, from school through university and beyond. I worked in the music industry, but I knew that while my music had a market, I didn't. I wasn't cool enough, or young enough – certainly not good-looking enough.’
‘The Magic Numbers are no oil painting.’
‘Perhaps not – but they're marketable enough for that very reason. The industry needs the whole package. But anyway, if I'm truthful, over and above losing my nerve performing – I dreaded it, I hated it – I also lost my love of songwriting.’
‘I loved it when you sang to me.’
‘But I wasn't performing, Petra – I was just singing.’
‘Your songs were great.’
‘Other people seem to think so. I was fairly successful as a songwriter – as the continuing royalties show. Bizarre.’
‘Doesn't it rankle? Hearing some other voice work your music? Isn't it like seeing another man with your ex-girlfriend or something?’
‘Not really,’ says Arlo. ‘While I write a song, I'm inextricably bound to it. The moment it's finished, it becomes separate, autonomous.’
And Petra thinks to herself, Quick! Lead nicely on – pick up on the ex-girlfriend strand now. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Yes, I can see that. And. Then. So you broke up with someone around that time too?’
‘Yes. It was all miserably synchronized.’
‘Oh. Poor you. What was she—’
‘Helen. We'd been together a few years. You know how it is – you either go for it, big time, or you let it go.’
‘Do you keep in touch?’