by Freya North
‘I'm so sorry,’ Gina said. ‘Sounded like you were living your Brontë dream.’
‘The Brontës didn't shy away from some bloody dark passages,’ Kitty said to Gina.
‘Turned out my tale was more Stokesley Lows than Wuthering Heights anyway,’ Petra told them, managing a sorry smile.
‘I was looking forward to whirlwind, windswept summer nuptials,’ Gina said. Eric and Kitty shot daggers at her. ‘Sorry – but I was.’
Petra just shrugged. She looked at Eric. ‘Are you going to say told-you-so? You can. You were right.’
‘No, I'm not, missy,’ he said, ‘and I was wrong. For however long it lasted, you were a happy bunny up there – so I stand corrected. But I hope you've still brought some of the good back down with you.’
‘I tell you what I have brought with me – my tanzanite.’ Relieved for a seamless change of subject, Petra took the gem out of her bag and its beauty spun colour and light and silence around the studio. ‘I know what it's going to be. After all these years, it's as clear as – tanzanite! Wait till you see.’
It was only then that Petra realized her sketchbook was still face down on Arlo's floor. Half under the sofa. Though her mind's eye still contained a detailed image of the finished product, that sketchbook, filled on one of the happiest days of her life, had been her roadmap of how to achieve it.
The four of them stood and stared at the jewel.
‘You know, Garrison Keillor finished Lake Wobegon Days and left the entire manuscript on a station platform, never to be seen again,’ Eric told Petra. ‘He had to rewrite the whole bloody thing. And look how brilliant Wobegon mark two is.’
‘Perhaps this is a sign I shouldn't make anything with it,’ Petra said. ‘Perhaps I should place it in a bank vault and sell it in twenty years' time – when there's no more tanzanite left in the whole world.’
‘Perhaps I should go back to being a natural blonde, take out my piercings, have laser treatment on my tattoos and become a nun,’ Kitty said drily. ‘Don't be daft, Petra – that tanzanite defines you. It's your destiny. You put it in a bank vault, you may as well bugger off and become a recluse.’
‘Kitty's right,’ Gina said. ‘You need each other, you and that stone.’
‘Perhaps he'll post the sketchbook back down to you,’ Eric said.
‘He doesn't know my address,’ Petra said.
‘Well, when he next sends you a late-night or drunken text you could text back send me my book you fucker,’ said Kitty.
‘He doesn't have a mobile phone.’
‘Weirdo,’ said Eric but from Petra's reaction he knew this was the wrong sentiment to have expressed just then.
‘He may phone you anyway,’ said Gina.
‘He hasn't so far,’ said Petra.
* * *
Of course he hasn't.
There's two days left of half-term and he's taken himself off to the tiny cottage Helen's family own on the west coast of Scotland.
He hasn't just been hiding from Miranda.
He has been hiding from himself.
* * *
Petra soon tired of being so systematically inundated with advice and concern. Lucy urged her not to be hasty. Told her not to be so stuck on unattainable romance in the face of the messiness of regular life. Suggested Petra listen to Arlo and then talk to him. Lucy said that lies are sometimes kindnesses in a strange guise and told her to feel flattered that Arlo had been so utterly mad with love for her that he'd resorted to shagging some whore.
‘She's not a whore, she's Head of English or something. She's just a bit of an old slink.’
‘Slink?’
‘Isn't that a fantastic word for trollop? Jenn uses it.’
‘New-Best-Friend Jenn?’
‘You'd love her, Luce.’
Petra missed Jenn. She missed her too much to dare phone her. Jenn would only say, Come back, you daft cow. She'd tell Petra to come on, forgive, move on, move back. But surely hearing Jenn's voice would only remind Petra of how far apart they now lived.
Her Studio Three watched her like silent hawks. Eric turned up at her flat, unannounced, to stay the night on her sofa. Which was a good job as he managed to prevent her sleepwalking out into the night in her gumboots again. Kitty took Petra for a drunken night out to a goths' dive in Soho where a slender man with black lipstick tried to persuade her that amyl nitrate was the answer to life itself. But all Petra came away with was a cracking hangover and Gary Numan on her brain for days after. Gina invited Petra for dinner with her family but had so drummed into her daughters ‘Don't-mention-the-boyfriend’ that Harry and Henry were able to talk of little else.
‘Are you a spinster now?’ Harry gasped.
‘There are loads of fish in the sea, you know,’ Henry said.
‘You'll be OK,’ Gina told Petra, handing her fresh fat towels and a little bar of tissue-wrapped gardenia guest soap. ‘It's him we have to pity – losing you. Sleep tight. We'll go to Harvey Nicks tomorrow – buy shoes. It's far easier to walk through troubled times in a gorgeous pair of new heels.’
The next morning, Petra woke up on the floor of Henry's bedroom, being stared at. ‘What are you doing here?’ the child asked. ‘What's wrong with our spare room?’
‘I must have sleepwalked,’ Petra said, surreptitiously patting the carpet, relieved to find it dry. ‘I sleepwalk.’
‘That's just so cool,’ said Henry.
‘Not really,’ said Petra. ‘It's a pain in the arse.’
‘You said arse!’ Henry said. ‘Did it get on your boyfriend's nerves, then?’
Petra skipped over the memory of Arlo rescuing her from the Walley Brothers, of talking until dawn; she put her hands behind her back to stop herself remembering the feel of him gently holding her wrist as she fell asleep. Instead, she thought of Rob. ‘Yup,’ she said, ‘it did.’
‘He's a twit,’ said Henry and Petra loved Gina for the vocabulary she'd passed on to her children.
Taking various buses back to North Finchley from Chelsea, Petra thought how tiring it was to have so much love, attention and worry directed her way. If it was soothing at first, now it left her feeling drained and somehow exposed too. Being the object of everyone's concern was onerous, and their affection was starting to cloy. Yet Petra did not want to be on her own either, because that was when the exquisite sadness hit hardest. What she needed was to be among people for whom she held little significance. People who didn't care much for details, who knew little of her past, less of her present and were not particularly interested in her future. She phoned her mother from the top deck of the number 13 bus. And she phoned her father soon after. She spent Sunday in Watford, entertaining her half-siblings while her father played golf and her stepmother wafted around just beyond the perimeter of conversation. Then Petra went down to Kent on Monday and stayed the night with her mother whose cottage smelt of chicken shit and who talked mostly drivel until Petra left her on Tuesday afternoon.
Chapter Forty-three
There were ten minutes to go before assembly. Arlo couldn't avoid the staff room; not least because he'd run out of coffee, could not function without it and was well aware that it would be percolating enticingly – a full complement of digestives, ginger nuts and fig rolls by the side of the machine – in the staff room. He had not yet seen Miranda but it was clear that the umbrage she'd taken from his absence in the Highlands had led her to reveal the details of their couplings to anyone over school age who would listen. And as he walked across the grounds towards the promise of caffeine, his colleagues either wolf-whistled, slapped him on the back or else looked at him in bewilderment. He met Nigel Garton on his way to the staff room.
‘I know about Miranda,’ Nige said under his breath, a backdrop of Fifth Year artwork – mostly phallic cacti in Conté crayons – seeming to taunt Arlo as they climbed the stairs, ‘but I also know about Petra.’ He didn't give Arlo time to comment. They walked on alongside a stretch of wall thankfully unadorned. ‘Jenn saw her bef
ore she left.’ Just before they went into the staff room, Nige turned to Arlo. ‘I hope that's OK – for Jenn to have told me. I'm – we're – engaged. I did the whole bended-knee malarkey over half-term. I'm – we're – well, we're hoping you make a go of it with Petra. We like her. And I like what she's done for you.’
Arlo felt quite moved though the surroundings somewhat compromised his willingness to show it. ‘Congratulations, mate,’ he said, ‘and I like what Jenn's done for you too. No mean feat. But as for me, I'm afraid it seems I've sown too many wild Oates.’
Nigel physically brushed this away, as if it was an obstacle no greater than a pesky fly. ‘Talk to her.’
‘I'm going to have to,’ Arlo said, ‘until the end of term.’
‘Not Wild Oates – Petra.’
Arlo stiffened. ‘Do you think I haven't tried? She wouldn't listen. Anyway, she's gone. As well you know.’
‘Don't be like that.’
‘Like what, Nige?’
‘Defeatist. That's not you.’
‘Shall I say it in capital letters? I tried. She wouldn't listen. She's gone.’
‘So – make her hear,’ said Nigel, holding the staff-room door open for Arlo. ‘Go and bloody find her. Jeez. It may be difficult – but it's not rocket science.’
Arlo announced to his GCSE class that their double period would be short but sweet.
‘And that doesn't mean I'm going to let you bunk off early, Tobias – so put your books back on the desk, please.’ He stopped. This was one of his favourite lessons – he enjoyed delivering it each year. But he didn't want to say the next sentence.
‘Sometimes, something can be of such profound beauty that its time is, by definition, limited.’ He paused. ‘If it lasted longer, it wouldn't be so good.’ That can't be true, he thought.
He lost his words. All eyes were on him. He cleared his throat, told himself to focus, for fuck's sake. ‘A single sublime melody may not survive in a more lengthy or convoluted form. Classical or contemporary. Sometimes, it's just not possible – in fact, it makes no sense – to expand on something which is already perfect in itself.’ No sense? Nonsense! Nothing's impossible. Nothing's impossible. Focus!
‘It is the musician's prerogative to know when the staff should be left bare.’ Staff. Staff. Bloody Oates laid bare. ‘If a piece of music is stretched beyond its limit, its impact lessens and the sound wanes.’ That's better.
‘Now, I'm going to play Schubert. Don't confuse him with Schumann, please. This is the “Quartettsatz in C Minor” – a single movement of an unfinished quartet for strings. Unlike many musical historians, I'm happy to think that the artist felt the work quite complete, that perhaps he changed his mind about the need for three more movements, that the melody he created here can carry an entire work in its own right. It is self-contained and exquisite.’
The class listened. They liked it.
‘Bach,’ Arlo continued, changing the CD quickly. ‘Again – the first movement of the “Cello Suite in G”. I don't much give a toss for what follows. This does it for me. It's divine, autonomous, really.’
Arlo was tempted to play it through a second time. He resisted.
‘Who can tell me anything about Jethro Tull?’
Up shot Willem's hand. ‘Eighteenth century. Pioneer of the English agricultural revolution.’
‘Well, yes,’ Arlo said slowly, ‘if this was your history lesson, I'd give you an A+. But the subtle difference is that this is a music appreciation lesson. Anyone? No? Chap who can play the flute standing on one leg – quite literally?’
The class shuffled a little. They prided themselves on knowing the bands Mr Savidge alluded to. When they didn't, it was a harsh blow to their eager pursuit of musical credibility.
‘You're forgiven,’ Arlo told them, ‘but you'd also be mistaken to pass them off as just a bunch of weirdy-beardy prog-rockers. Their seminal 1971 album, Aqualung, is like an aural version of Hogarth's Conversation Pieces – reproductions of which adorn the art studio so ask Mr Hunter to talk you through them, to walk you through. I want you to listen to this. Seventy-eight seconds of utterly transcendent melody.’ The song was “Cheap Day Return”, acoustic and gentle despite the searingly prosaic lyrics. Arlo played it very loud. Then he let the class sit in silence for a further seventy-eight seconds. ‘What would happen if Ian Anderson had drawn that out? Made it last, say, a hundred seconds? Or two minutes? An entire album's length?’
‘He'd have sort of lost it,’ said Tobias. ‘I mean, he'd've sort of lost the centre of the song?’
‘Very good – the impact would be compromised, the melody diluted by too much time and over-involvement. What does it remind you of? Willem – yes?’
‘The hippy shit my dad plays.’
‘Rarely is published music shit, Willem,’ Mr Savidge said pointedly. ‘Anyone else?’
‘An Elizabethan ditty?’ Lucas said. ‘Not in the tune specifically but in its – I dunno – well, it's pretty, isn't it? It's intimate in that Elizabethan way.’
‘Excellent, Lucas. Excellent. Let's think about “Greensleeves”,’ Arlo said, picking up his guitar and playing, ‘one of the most perfect melodies ever written, extremely short and succinct. Then Vaughan Williams decided to make a large portion of sickly syrup from it. Something heavenly diluted into something that is just – nice.’ The boys laughed, thinking that they knew what Mr Savidge meant. After listening to Vaughan Williams, they did.
‘There is beauty in brevity – I can't impress this on you enough, gentlemen. To maintain that beauty, to respect it, is to ensure its enduring impact.’
Arlo felt suddenly winded. As he fumbled with a CD he thought to himself, But that's not right, that can't be so, that can only be right in terms of music. Not life. Not me and Petra. The beauty between us cannot be that we died young. I don't want brevity. I want years with her. I want evermore.
‘I want to grow old with her.’
‘Sorry, sir?’ Willem was confused.
‘Mr Savidge, sir?’ Tobias, likewise.
‘What?’ So was Arlo.
‘What did that mean?’ Lucas asked. ‘What you just said about growing old?’
‘Who's her, sir?’ asked Willem.
‘Pardon?’ Arlo hid his embarrassment with a look at his class that suggested they were either hearing things or else just plain dim. ‘This is Mozart,’ he said with a swift change of subject. ‘We are going to finish with the “Serenade for Thirteen Wind Instruments”. I want your arms on your desks, guys. I want to see your skin. If any student of mine is without goose bumps after the Adagio, they will not be welcome back to my class.’
Arlo was filing the CDs back, muttering under his breath that his goose-bump test was genius, possibly his greatest contribution to the teaching profession. He congratulated himself for being able to go seamlessly from Viennese chamber music to British prog rock. Jethro bloody Tull, hey! He glanced at the track listing on the CD and, against his better judgement, took out the disc and selected “Wond'ring Aloud”. OK, he hadn't heard it for ages; yes, on one level it was another beautiful melody perhaps worthy of inclusion in next year's lesson, at little over one hundred seconds long. But he chose it for another level entirely: for the resonance of the lyrics. Wond'ring aloud/will the years treat us well? At any other time in his life, he'd have found the song pleasant enough, cathartic even, sentimental perhaps. Today, though, he sensed it could send him spinning to the edge of sanity and he knew this was a place he needed to be. He needed to feel himself clinging there until he sensed he had the strength to haul himself up. Then he'd have the answers.
Wond'ring aloud
will the years treat us well?
As she floats in the kitchen,
I'm tasting the smell
of toast as the butter runs.
Then she comes, spilling crumbs on the bed
and I shake my head.
And it's only the giving
that makes you what you are.
The go
ose bumps from Jethro Tull lasted longer than from Mozart. Arlo wasn't quite sure on whom this looked worse, himself or Mozart. Of all the music ever written, it was Jethro bloody Tull cutting him to the quick. He returned to his folly. Stood with his eyes closed, conjuring the smell of hot buttered toast. Petra's favourite. An image of her bringing a plateful back to bed. The divine juxtaposition between crumbs in the sheets and her sweet soft skin. Arlo slumped onto his living-room floor, staring into nothingness. Then his focus shifted and he caught sight of Petra's sketchbook, half under his sofa, waiting to be found.
* * *
A man with a mission. First, Arlo went to the computer room, surfed the Net, scribbled down details on a scrap of paper. Then he made two phone calls before discoursing on Arnold Schoenberg and the emancipation of dissonance to his A level group. After this he went to his headmaster. After that he made further phone calls. At lunch-time, he found Nige.
‘I'm going to find her, Nige,’ he said. ‘There's no way that I'm letting her go.’
‘Good man,’ Nige said.
‘So I'm going to London.’
‘Oh yes? When's that, then?’
‘Day after tomorrow?’
‘Bloody hell, mate!’ Have you passed it with Pinder?’
‘Pinder – and a dozen others. No red tape is going to trip me up.’
Arlo had thrown himself into the arrangements, he'd packed what he needed, but the night before he was due to leave, something felt greatly amiss. There was something missing, or something he'd forgotten and though he unpacked and repacked, though he checked through his paperwork, he was stumped. The Who, playing in the background, provided the answer. From “I Can't Explain” to “Behind Blue Eyes”. No substitute. With a slow nod at the mirror, Arlo came out from behind Roger Daltry's shadow.
But my dreams
They aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be
Of course. Miranda.
