Pillow Talk

‘Good weekend?’ Eric asked.

‘Ish,’ Petra said with a shrug.

‘Rob?’ Eric asked, expectantly.

‘Parents,’ Petra said.

‘How’s Mother Hen?’ Kitty teased, but carefully.

‘Barking mad,’ said Petra.

‘Does her hair still look like alfalfa?’ Kitty asked, because she loved this previous description of Petra’s.

It raised a smile. Petra nodded. ‘You’ll have to visit with me one day, Kitty,’ she said.

‘Your mother would love that,’ Kitty said. ‘One look at me and her hens will be laying eggs for their life.’

‘The thing is, my mother would love that,’ said Petra.

‘Did Rob chauffeur you about?’ Eric asked.

‘Well, he would’ve,’ Petra said, ‘but he had loads of work to do.’ Though she’d said it airily, there was uncharitable silence from her workmates. ‘It’s his birthday on Friday.’ Gina, Kitty and Eric nodded but returned to their work. ‘I’m going to surprise him,’ Petra said, ‘but I don’t know how just yet.’ Quietly, she paused to consider how hard she worked at choreographing this relationship without truly knowing whether Rob was much good at dancing to her tune. Their musical tastes were another thing that actually (along with a taste for champagne) they did not share.

Petra sketched. Recently she’d spent a lot of her studio time sketching. Sketching or doing out-work for Charlton. Though he had a selection of her pieces for sale, realistically, until funds came in, she couldn’t really justify purchasing the gold or the gems for her new designs. In fact, she just couldn’t afford it at the moment. She had a tab at Bellore, the suppliers to the trade, but Petra didn’t like letting that run too high. For the time being, she would just have to be content making up her designs in copper or steel wire for future pieces in precious metal. Perhaps if Charlton or one of her private clients liked them, they’d commission the real thing. But Petra wasn’t a saleswoman and the thought of contacting a previous client with a direct pitch for business appalled her.

‘I’ll do it for you,’ Eric had offered.

‘But they spent one thousand pounds on that crocheted gold necklace with the aquamarine only six months ago.’

‘So you suggest matching earrings,’ Eric had shrugged.

‘I don’t know, Eric,’ Petra had said. ‘It seems a bit mercenary.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Petra,’ Eric said. ‘It’s your bloody job, woman.’

‘Don’t swear at her,’ Kitty growled from the background.

‘My friend Sophia is turning forty this year,’ Gina said helpfully. ‘I could ask her hubby if he wanted to splash out on a gorgeous Petra Flint something-or-other. They’ve got buckets of cash and a penchant for the finer things in life.’

‘But surely you should be pushing him to splash out on a gorgeous Gina Fanshaw-Smythe?’ Petra said.

‘My stuff is way too chunky and vulgar for Sophia,’ Gina had replied ingenuously. ‘She’s very refined, is Sophia. Your style is perfect.’

As Petra sketched that Monday morning, working on curlicues and arabesques and serpentines, she recalled Gina’s compliment and it gave her a boost. Perhaps if she showed Gina a couple of her designs it would prompt her to mention Sophia again and maybe this time Petra might just say, Oh, OK then, if you think her husband might like to see my work, by all means show him. She worked again on an idea that had been nestling in her mind and her sketchbook for some time. She took coloured pencils and slicked mentions of gold over her soft pencil lines. Then she took a blue pencil and a violet one and worked the hues over each other. The design was for a necklace. Fine rose-gold belcher from the back of the neck slinking just over the trapezius where it then met an undulating line of solid rose gold sitting sinuously along the clavicle. From the centre of this, a gemstone. Tanzanite. Something sizeable, 4 carat or so. Balanced by two smaller tanzanites, a carat each, uniting the junctions between the gold chain and the solid gold.

She stood up, stretched, looked out of the window to the hubbub of Leather Lane. It’s busy this morning, for a Monday morning, she thought until Eric suddenly announced, ‘Lunchtime!’ and she looked at her watch and marvelled how the hours had rattled by while she had been so silently absorbed in her work. She felt quite triumphant, stimulated, productive. And very hungry. Gina was still engrossed in hammering a silver bangle and Kitty appeared to have left the studio. Petra decided to leave her sketchbook open and accompany Eric to the sandwich shop.

When they returned, Kitty and Gina were poring over Petra’s designs.

‘It’s stunning,’ Kitty said. ‘Classic but contemporary, delicate but strong.’

Petra looked at Gina expectantly. ‘You’re a clever bunny,’ Gina said. And Petra said, Do you think so, thank you, thanks a lot. But she couldn’t bring herself to mention Sophia’s fabulously rich husband.

‘Don’t let Charlton see it,’ Eric said. ‘He’ll copy it, the sod.’

‘That wouldn’t be your tanzanite, would it?’ Gina asked.

Eric looked at Petra’s drawing. ‘Her tanzanite is twice the size.’ He squinted at the sketch. ‘Three times the size.’

‘Bring it in again one day,’ Gina said, ‘so we can all have a jolly good ogle.’

Petra hadn’t been home since before the weekend. She’d gone directly from Watford and later Kent to Rob’s place and stayed over both nights. She’d rented her flat for just under two years. Recently she had renewed the lease. She’d asked Rob’s advice a couple of months ago, hoping that he’d say, Move in with me, babe. But his advice had been solidly financial. He pointed out that she couldn’t afford the down payment for a suitable flat in an area she liked and, with it still being a seller’s market, she may as well continue to rent for the time being.

Her flat was small and fairly sweet. The lounge could take a gate-leg table and three folding chairs as well as a sofa; it also had a fireplace with coal-effect fire and alcoves with shelving to either side, stripped floors and sash windows. The bedroom accommodated a double bed and the narrow church pew which Petra had bought as a student and had taken from bedroom to bedroom ever since. As there was only a small cupboard and a very narrow chest of drawers, the pew’s surface was invaluable. The bathroom had no window, just a noisy Vent-Axia but, bizarrely for the lack of space, a bidet too. Her upstairs neighbours were the landlords and they were a friendly if heavy-footed family.

Today, she came home to a note from them saying, ‘There’s a leak!!! We’ve had it fixed. Hope nothing of yours is affected??? Insurance will cover if so!!’ Petra looked around the sitting room and suddenly noticed the yellowed bulge at the far end of the ceiling and the beige fingers of damp clawing their way down the wall; her paperbacks on the shelf directly beneath were puffed swollen and soggy but they appeared to be the only casualty. In fact, Petra found herself more distressed by the state of her fridge – that her milk had gone off and that the KitKats she thought she still had were not there. She was going to slump down to sulk, then she thought she’d stomp off to the corner shop, but then she noticed the flashing of her answerphone.

‘It’s me! I’ve just done the school run! Where are you? Phone me and I’ll call you straight back.’

It was Lucy. Or, rather, it had been Lucy, phoning from Hong Kong. Hours and hours ago. It was now gone six and over the seas and far away Lucy would be fast asleep. In fact, it was already Tuesday for her. If Petra waited until eleven, she’d catch Lucy at breakfast.

The conversation started as it always did: with brief marvelling at the clarity of the phone line and how much time had passed since they last spoke.

‘I miss you,’ Petra said. ‘What are you having for breakfast?’

‘Fruit salad,’ Lucy laughed. ‘Miss you too. I did phone yesterday. What’s up?’

‘Well, I feel OK now – because I had a productive day at the studio. But I woke up feeling crap – because I used up my weekend visiting my parents.’

‘It’s not Christmas,’ Lucy said.

‘I know.’

‘I thought we’d decided you’d only visit at Christmas?’

‘I know. I don’t know why I did it, really.’

‘How were they?’

Petra paused. ‘They’re both always so preoccupied. I just feel inconsequential.’

‘You are far from it,’ Lucy said, almost sternly.

‘Thank you,’ Petra said. She paused because she wanted Lucy to continue.

‘You’re the strongest person I know,’ Lucy said. ‘All your achievements are your own. God, it’s not as if your parents gave you a leg-up, a foot in the door or even a pat on the back. You’ve always managed to stride out by yourself. And look at your success.’ She said it with triumph. ‘Does that help?’ she added.

‘Ish,’ said Petra.