Perfect Day

ill?’
    ‘No!’
    ‘I can’t pretend it’s all for Jimmy. I want it for me.’
    ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’
    He hates the way he sounds so much older than her. ‘... the doctor gave me Prozac. He said it’d put a smile back on my face. But I didn’t want to be drugged into liking my life. It’s the wrong way round. I wrote to Marie and she says, no way are you taking drugs, which was funny coming from her. You’re not mad for hating your life, she says, you’d be mad if you liked it. So I came down to London ...’
    Hearing about Kate’s problems makes him feel affectionate towards her, but also uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to know all these things because he doesn’t want to be responsible for her.
    ‘I met Marie,’ he says.
    ‘Oh?’ says Kate.
    ‘You’re like twins in a fairy tale. You look the same, but one’s good and one’s bad.’
    ‘She’s not all bad,’ Kate leaps to her sister’s defence. ‘And I’m not good,’ she adds. ‘Marie hasn’t got a fiancé and child back home...’
    ‘What’s he think of you being here? Your fiancé.’
    The very word sounds as out of date as an avocado bathroom suite.
    ‘... I mean, coming to London like this.’
    ‘He said that if you love someone, you have to let them be free,’ Kate tells him.
    ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Alexander can’t help feeling a grudging admiration for the poor bloke.
    ‘I think he got it from Little Voice,’ Kate explains. ‘And your son?’
    ‘All he wants to do is play football with his mates. He doesn’t really notice that I’m not there,’ Kate tells him.
    ‘I bet he does,’ Alexander says quietly. She’s someone with such presence, her absence must feel like a bereavement.
    ‘I miss him. I miss him more than I thought I would,’ she says, wistfully. ‘I made a promise, last night, if I could have a day with you, I’d go back.’
    ‘You knew I’d come?’
    ‘No. I thought it was impossible.’ She laughs. ‘That’s why I promised!’
    ‘That’s why you slept with me?’
    ‘Sleeping’s about the only thing we didn’t do,’ she says, suddenly a prude.
    To his left, he can sense the old man Marco rapt by the unfolding drama, stranded mid-wipe with a tea towel in one hand, a saucer in the other. When Kate looks up, he goes back to his drying up.
    ‘I thought you were gorgeous,’ she says, shyly looking down again.
    ‘I thought you were gorgeous too.’
    Just for the moment, the attraction’s there again, like a secret only the two of them know. They smile at each other and look away.
    She pretends to be interested in the coloured sticks of sugar.
    He looks at the television. Serie A is on.
    ‘Which football team does your boy support?’ Alexander asks, trying to move them on.
    ‘Which do you think?’
    ‘Bolton Wanderers?’ he guesses.
    ‘No. His dad does. Jimmy’s for Man United. What about yours?’
    ‘She’s a girl.’
    ‘Doesn’t like football then?’
    ‘She’s only five.’
    ‘Oh, she doesn’t have to like it yet, then,’ Kate says. ‘Girls only get interested in football when they’re going out with lads.’
    ‘Is that right?’
    It’s kind of odd chatting about their children, but it feels safer.
    ‘What’s her name?’ she asks.
    ‘Lucy.’
    ‘Lucy,’ she repeats. Loo seh .
    ‘It’s really Lucia,’ he says. ‘She was born in Italy . It means light.’
    ‘I knew you were in Italy with someone.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Because I could tell that you had really great memories, and you never have really great memories of being on your own, do you? Not ones that make you smile.’
    It’s a casual observation, as if it’s self-evident. It’s something he’s never even considered. He doesn’t understand how Kate knows so much about the world, when she’s so unworldly. Except she isn’t unworldly, he reminds himself. That’s only what he wanted her to be.
    ‘Is she Italian?’ Kate asks. ‘Your partner?’
    She puts heavy emphasis on the word partner as if she thinks it’s pretentious.
    ‘No.’
    He doesn’t want to talk to her about Nell.
    ‘So now you live in Kent .’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why?’ Kate’s asking.
    ‘Why Kent ?’
    ‘Why do you live in England , when you could live anywhere you wanted?’
    ‘We had a few problems with Lucy,’ he finds himself saying. ‘We never got round to going back.’
    ‘What sort of problems?’
    ‘She has asthma and really bad allergies. She nearly died when she was just one. When