Perfect Day

catatonic state. Get a grip, she wants to tell him. You’re frightening your son. You’re frightening me, and I don’t even know you.
    In her head, their story’s changed. Father and son have come to visit the boy’s mother in hospital. There are lots of hospitals round here. She’s desperately ill, and the man’s terrified of being left alone. The boy’s mouth is dry because they’ve been waiting for news all afternoon in one of those hot hospital corridors where staff are always rushing past, but nothing ever seems to happen.

    The woman on table four has her hand in the air like a schoolchild.
    ‘How long does it take to make two salads?’ she asks when Kate gets to her.
    ‘I don’t know , how long does it take to make two salads?’ Kate asks, as if she’s listening to a light bulb joke.
    The daughter giggles nervously.
    Kate glances at the counter. The salads are there waiting for her to collect. She brings them to the table.
    ‘The only big decision now apart from the flowers, is up or down,’ the mother is saying, deliberately ignoring Kate as she places the bowls in front of them. ‘Are we thinking tiara or floral garland...?’
    There are so many rules and regulations about correct procedure at weddings these days, Kate doesn’t know who they’re meant to be for any more except for the dozens of caterers and hoteliers and florists and beauticians and hairdressers, and cakemakers and dressmakers, and disco owners and printers who all make a living out of it.
    Kate scoops an extra large spoonful of vanilla icecream into a tall sundae glass, and pushes the Coke button on the fizzy drink dispenser. The mixture froths alarmingly. She puts it on a tray, with a teapot, milk jug and cup, and carries it carefully to the window table. A peak of creamy foam floats on top of the glass defying gravity. It looks like the scum on the water at Blackpool that never goes away. Is that what happens when seawater meets dropped ice-cream cones, she wonders, or is it pollution?
    ‘Sounds like a job for International Rescue,’ the little boy is saying. He has a plastic model Thunderbird 1 in his hand which is dropping little pink sachets of Sweet ’n’ Low on some invisible enemy.
    ‘Sorry,’ his father says, collecting up the packets, as Kate approaches.
    ‘No problem,’ Kate says.
    As she picks up the tray, she says from behind it, in as good a Thunderbirds voice as she can remember,
    ‘FAB, Virgil!’
    The little boy’s face lights up, then falls.
    ‘Virgil is in Thunderbird 2,’ he corrects her.
    ‘ Ooops ! So who’s this, then?’
    ‘Scott.’
    ‘Course it is.’
    She winks at the father, and for the first time, he tries to smile at her.
    ‘Kate!’
    Tony’s calling across the restaurant.
    ‘Kate!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Phone.’
    Tony’s face is anxious.
    Who could be calling her here? No-one has her number, except Marie. Marie wouldn’t phone unless there was a good reason. What’s so urgent that it can’t wait?
    Jimmy! Please God, don’t let anything have happened to Jimmy!
    Suddenly, she’s running across the room.
    ‘He says it’s an emergency,’ Tony says, with his hand over the receiver. He remains standing next to her for support.
    He?
    Her heart is thumping in her head as she takes the receiver from Tony. He leaves his fingerprints in flour on it.
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘Kate?’
    The voice is so familiar but she’s not sure who it is. She’s thinking doctor, policeman...
    ‘Speaking.’ She makes her voice as old and responsible as she can.
    ‘It’s Alexander.’
    The adrenalin that apprehension has created inside her escapes in a surprised, relieved giggle.
    ‘All right?’ Tony mouths at her.
    Kate nods and shifts her body round so that Tony can’t see her face. ‘How did you get my number?’ she whispers.
    ‘It’s on the menu in the window.’
    Kate glances over at the window, half expecting to see him standing outside with a mobile phone, but the street outside is empty. A slight frisson of discomfort shivers through her.
    ‘Hey, you’re not a stalker, are you?’ she jokes.
    ‘I have to talk to you.’
    ‘Where are you?’
    ‘In the pub across the road.’
    The urgency in his voice is kind of flattering. Her shoulders relax. She can see the first window of the pub on the corner. It’s novel, talking to each other on the phone when they’re only a few yards apart. It turns her on.
    ‘So, talk away. We’re not very busy.’
    ‘Come here.’
    ‘I’m