Part 7 (1/2)

'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 pa.s.sed 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 c.r.a.p 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. G.o.d, 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.

'Don't let them upset you,' Lucy said, 'because of course they don't mean to. They're not bad people they're just, well, c.r.a.p parents.'

Petra paused.

'You don't really need them,' Lucy said.

'But sometimes I want them,' Petra said.

'Everyone needs a sense of family,' Lucy said, 'in every sense of the word. You don't quite have that and that's tough. How are you sleeping?'

'Not good,' Petra said. 'I've been waking up knackered. I think I must be sleepwalking a lot.'

'How is Rob?' Lucy asked.

Petra paused. She was acutely aware that she never paused when Eric or Gina or Kitty asked the question. She always jumped to his defence; blowing his trumpet and singing his praises. But with her oldest friend, such exaggeration was pointless. Honesty though, required greater effort. 'Fine.'

'Fine?'

'Ish,' Petra qualified.

'I don't like the sound of ”ish”,' said Lucy, wis.h.i.+ng she was in the UK, wis.h.i.+ng she knew Rob better because her first impression of him hadn't painted her a particularly pleasing picture.

'I'm not quite sure where I stand and I feel I should after ten months,' Petra said. 'After all, I've made it my mission to ensure that he wants for nothing from me. s.e.x. Support. Affection. s.p.a.ce.'

'You give,' Lucy defined, 'but what do you get? Does he actually warrant all the effort you bestow?'

'I wish he'd ask me to be with him you know, move in, or something,' Petra said, pointedly ignoring Lucy's question. 'I wish he'd just ask. I'd like to feel that he loves me enough to at least ask.'

On the other side of the Pacific, Lucy had closed her eyes and frowned. Love shouldn't be such an effort. But she didn't think love was the point she suspected it was self-esteem. Petra will stick with Rob, Lucy thought, because Petra loathes the thought of splitting up. Petra wants to feel loved regardless of whether the object of her affection is actually worthy of hers.

'It's his birthday on Friday,' Petra said, aware of Lucy's silence and changing tack because of it. 'I won't see him until then. He's too busy. He says.'

'Will you be going out to celebrate?' Lucy asked, her tone light. If she couldn't physically be there to pick up the pieces, then she couldn't very well dish out the home truths.

'Yes. Somewhere in town, I guess. He hasn't decided. He's not really into birthdays.'

'Don't take that personally,' Lucy said.

'I've bought him a leather doc.u.ment case. Cost a bomb. And I might let myself into his flat beforehand,' Petra told her. 'You know prepare it for later.'

'What, balloons and banners?'

'And rose petals!' Petra enthused, missing Lucy's sarcasm.

'He's a lucky boy,' said Lucy and she really meant it.

'Thanks, Luce,' Petra said.

'Call me,' Lucy said, with a touch of urgency, 'whenever. Seriously. Any time.'

Chapter Nine.

Perhaps Rob's mobile was on silent. But he'd said he'd be working late, so Petra wondered why on earth she was trying to distract him with phone calls anyway.

'Oh well,' she said, 'may as well go to bed.' But first she went from room to room, collecting her damaged paperbacks which had been splayed over the radiators all evening to dry. She took them all into the sitting room. In drying, they had fanned themselves out, some almost 360 degrees, like drab versions of Christmas paper lanterns which take form when folded in on themselves. She scouted the room for heavy items to place on them. Some she put into piles, placing chair legs on top. Her Tony Parsons paperbacks she lay side by side underneath the television set and she set her John Irving collection upright, against the skirting board, wedging the sofa against them.

There were still another sixteen paperbacks remaining, fanned out like Elizabethan ruffs, but all the heavy items in the sitting room had been put to good use. Petra checked her mobile. It was still blank. Gathering the books, she took them into her bedroom and laid them in a shambolic pile on the pew while she upturned her mattress and jostled it off the bed frame and up against the wall.

On her bed base, she put Barbara Trapido shoulder to shoulder with Nick Hornby and was just about to add Hilary Mantel to make an interesting threesome when she was distracted. Near the head of the bed and over to one side was a black velvet pouch with a thin gold silken cord. Petra leant across Nick Hornby, nudging Barbara Trapido out of the way as she did so, and took the pouch. She didn't open it; initially she just brushed the velvet against her cheek, her lips, as she sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed.

After a while, she slipped out the knot in the cord and eased open the neck of the pouch. With a little shake, she tipped out the contents. A white cotton handkerchief wrapped carefully around something hard. As she began, slowly, to unfurl the handkerchief, taking time to trace the embroidered 'P', she was about to detour in her mind's eye back to the John Lewis department store, to shopping with her mother, to the time when her mother bought her this handkerchief, a time when her mother wore glamorous red shoes and didn't have alfalfa for hair but Petra pulled herself back from that memory because there was somewhere else she'd rather be. The handkerchief was now open and there, glinting and breathtakingly beautiful, lay Petra's tanzanite. The size and gloss of a quail's egg: 39.43 carats of it, beautifully worked into a stunning pear cut with a dazzling array of light-reflecting facets. Internally flawless; brilliantly blue with a seductive wink of violet too.

On her bed, she cupped her hand as a cradle for the gem. It felt warm and rock-solidly rea.s.suring to hold while she travelled back seventeen years, back to the day she first heard about tanzanite.

'Mrs McNeil?' Petra called through the letter-box. 'Lillian? Hullo? It's me, it's Petra.'