I insist you try rice milk, Petra. I’ve changed from soya.’
They take their tea out into the back and the chickens squawk their irritation but soon settle down into a sort of muttering indifference.
‘Rob says hi,’ Petra says.
‘Tell him I say hi and Have you sold your horrid car, Rob,’ Melinda says and she starts giggling.
‘Mum,’ Petra objects quietly.
‘He’s too businessy for you, Petra,’ Melinda says. ‘You need someone more – I don’t know – less Mercedesy.’
‘Don’t be so judgemental,’ Petra says. ‘You hardly know him.’
‘I’m not being judgemental,’ Melinda says. ‘I’m just making an observation. How long have you been with him?’
‘Coming up for ten months.’
‘There,’ Melinda says. ‘Obviously you know him better than I – but there again, perhaps I know you better than he.’
Petra wants to say, You hardly know me at all, Mum – we rarely speak and I hardly see you. ‘Don’t talk in riddles,’ she says instead. And though she wants to defend Rob, she decides to leave it at that. Because, annoying as it is, her mum is a little bit right. Rob is businessy. He is Mercedesy. But Petra thinks it’s up to her to decide whether he’s too much so.
Petra is starting to feel tired and irritable. I just want a normal cup of tea and a sensible chat.
‘Yoo-hoo!’ It’s Tinks, suddenly appearing from inside the house.
‘I thought you’d buggered off!’ Melinda says and the two women fall about laughing.
Petra bites her lip, not sure if she’d like to swear, cry or just yell.
‘I have to go, Mum,’ she says. ‘Rob has tickets for – a thing.’
‘You’ve only just arrived,’ her mother protests.
‘Actually, I arrived two hours ago,’ Petra says, ‘but you weren’t here.’
‘Oh come now, darling,’ her mother says abruptly, ‘you can hardly blame me for going for a stroll on a beautiful day like today. It’s April! Flip-flop time! Goodness me, you Londoners, you youngsters, you’re always in an insane rush, obsessing with schedules and timetables. Anyway, you can’t go just yet, I need to collect some eggs for you.’
As Petra headed home, with the eggs and also the milk that her mother would not allow in her fridge, she thought about the period when her mother was slightly more staid and her father a little less dowdy. She must have been about eight or nine. But what was clearer than recollections of how they looked at that stage, what was more vivid than memories of family outings to the zoo back then, or those supper-times with Ambrosia Creamed Rice for pudding, was that this was precisely the period when Petra had first started sleepwalking.
Petra had made much of not going into work the following day. She curled up under the duvet in Rob’s bed that Monday morning and tried to entice him to stay with her.
‘Play hooky?’ she asked playfully.
‘Why?’ he said.
‘Don’t go into work,’ she said.
‘Why not?’ he said.
‘Stay right here and play with me!’ Petra said. Rob hadn’t asked why she wasn’t going into work. ‘I feel a bit low,’ she told him, as if he had, ‘after the weekend. My parents. You know. It’s difficult.’ Rob didn’t ask why specifically.
He sat on the edge of his bed and traced the pinky beige aureole of her nipple thoughtfully, as if weighing up the merits and consequences of her offer to stay at home, but then he tweaked her nose between his fingers and slapped her buttocks as if she was a puppy. ‘I have to go to work,’ he told her, ‘and you should too. It’s not healthy to play hooky.’ And with that, he swept back the duvet and flicked cold water at Petra from the glass beside the bed. She giggled and shrieked and writhed about the bed.
‘I’m working late tonight,’ Rob told her, ignoring her nakedness which quite hurt her feelings. ‘And I’m away overnight tomorrow. I’ll give you a call later in the week.’
‘It’s your birthday on Friday,’ Petra said.
‘Whoopee doo,’ said Rob.
‘You can’t wake up alone on your birthday,’ Petra said, though she remembered she’d done precisely that last December.
‘You girls and bloody birthdays,’ Rob said under his breath, procrastinating over which tie to wear.
‘You realize you need never come back to an empty bed after a long hard day’s work,’ Petra said, making much of her coy expression though her heart was thudding as she let slip what was on the tip of her tongue. ‘That is – if we lived together.’
Rob looked at her blankly. ‘Those are the times when I need my space the most,’ he said.
She cringed, not at the bluntness of his response but at what suddenly seemed the misfired audacity of her proposal. She sat herself up and fiddled with winding her watch. Rob’s expression softened. ‘We’ll go out Friday night and you can celebrate my birthday for me in whichever way you choose,’ he said. He ran her hair through his fingers. ‘It’s a bit soon, for me, to be talking about cohabiting and whatever.’
Petra nodded. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘You’ve got keys, haven’t you – remember to double-lock when you go.’
Petra cursed modern technology for its failings. Emails and text messaging and phone calls were all very well for shrinking the world in an amicable web of global communication but the truth was that her oldest, closest friend lived abroad and though the phone was marvellous in making a mockery of vast oceans and time zones, what Petra wanted most just then was simply a cappuccino in Lucy’s actual company. Feeling a little sorry for herself, she made one from the coffee machine in Rob’s kitchen. Sitting at his breakfast bar, calculating the time differences with Hong Kong, she decided to send a help!
She waited; toyed with the idea of phoning too but decided against it – her mobile phone bill was large enough and realistically this wasn’t an emergency, it was just her feeling a little down. She finished her coffee. Her phone remained blank. She took a shower. Still there was no reply. There wasn’t anything worth watching on daytime TV. And there was no food in Rob’s fridge. Just champagne, which irritated her. He’s a bit of a cliché, my boyfriend, she thought and wondered fleetingly how much else would get on her nerves if they did move in together. There now seemed little point in playing hooky; Rob had gone into work and her best friend was apparently oblivious to her cry for help. There was nothing to do but leave Rob’s flat and head for Hatton Garden.
‘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