Pillow Talk by Freya North

up?’ one of the men teased her.
‘You do look a little tired,’ Laura commented.
‘She was up half the night,’ Rob said.
‘Phnar phnar,’ one of his colleagues nudged him.
‘Not likely,’ Rob laughed. ‘My girlfriend gets up to all sorts of shenanigans at night – but it's nothing to do with me.’
‘I sometimes sleepwalk,’ Petra mumbled in, hoping to curtail details.
‘Yesterday – Christ, the early hours of this morning,’ Rob was saying, ‘I get a call from the police asking me do I know a Petra Flint, does she have wellingtons and a Snoopy T-shirt and is there any way she could have walked towards Whetstone whilst asleep.’
‘You're joking,’ Laura said, the focus of her pity directed at Rob which disappointed Petra.
‘Appalling,’ Petra said quickly. ‘Hence the slippers – from my blisters.’
‘Mind you, at least she was clothed,’ Rob said, raising his glass at Petra and winking.
Oh God, don't, Rob, please.
But Rob was bolstered by Bollinger and he had a captive audience and he quite liked the power of being a raconteur.
‘When I took her to meet my folks down in Hampshire, she walked into their bedroom, switched on their light, opened their cupboard doors, had a rummage around and then walked out again.’
‘Rob—’
But Rob paused for dramatic effect only. ‘Starkers!’ he told the table. ‘I don't know who it was worse for – Petra, or my parents.’
Petra hid her head in her hands.
‘Do you really not realize a thing ?’ the other girl asked, slightly accusatorily. Petra shook her head without raising her face.
‘Why don't you go to bed wearing something – just in case?’ Laura asked her.
‘I do,’ Petra said, ‘especially when I'm staying away from home. I put on layers and layers before I go to bed. I don't know why I take them off – I don't know why I take off.’
‘Can't you take a sleeping pill or something? It could be dangerous.’
‘So could taking sleeping pills,’ Petra said. ‘I've seen specialists, had tests. No one knows why I do it or how to stop me.’
‘I can't believe she walked into your parents naked,’ Laura said to Rob, and Petra would rather she'd said it to her.
‘I don't mean to,’ Petra said, trying to look imploringly at Rob who didn't seem to feel her gaze. ‘I don't like it.’
‘Petra will kill me for this one – apparently, before I met her, she actually got into bed with complete strangers.’
‘Oh my God – did you have sex with them?’
‘Of course not,’ Petra said crossly. ‘I was staying at a place in the country for my friend's thirtieth birthday. I didn't know the house and I think I was getting flu anyway. But yes, I walked in my sleep into another bedroom and got into bed with a couple.’
‘What did they do?’
‘Tried to get me out,’ Petra said. ‘I only stayed for a few minutes anyway and then I went out of my own accord.’
‘Out?’
‘Into the grounds of the house,’ Petra explained, ‘but someone was having a spliff outside and they led me back.’
‘They must've thought it was damn good skunk,’ one of the men laughed.
Petra shrugged. ‘I know it sounds funny and crazy – but it's not. Believe me.’
‘It's a liability,’ Rob said. ‘That's why I'd like to say that I'm particularly proud of the deal we did today, chaps – because I was up half the night in Whetstone bloody police station.’
Everyone raised their glasses to Rob, and Petra suddenly wondered whether it would have been entirely her fault if he hadn't closed the deal with the Japanese. Poor Rob, she thought, I am a liability. So she raised her glass highest of all. And though she was desperate to go home and snuggle up with him for an early night, she stuck it out at the bar because she felt he deserved it.
Later, much later, they took a cab back to Rob's flat in Islington. Petra was beyond exhausted but woozy with vodka too. When she sobered up, she would think how it was not particularly logical to be mad at Rob for