Perfect Day

something like that happens, you want an ambulance to arrive when you dial 999. You want to be not too far from a hospital. That wasn’t going to happen where we were in Italy .’
    Is that really the reason they have stayed in England , in a village that neither of them likes much but is close enough to London , close enough to a hospital, close enough to Nell’s parents? Is it simply fear ? He’s never explained it to anyone before, not even himself.
    ‘Peanuts?’ Kate asks.
    ‘All nuts.’
    ‘There’s a lad in Jimmy’s class like that. We’re not allowed to put peanuts in his packed lunch, not even cereal bars. You have to read the labels really carefully, don’t you? There’s so many things with nuts in.’
    ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It is difficult.’
    She’s a mum who makes sandwiches for her child and shops for cereal bars.
    ‘Are there a lot of peanuts in Italy , then?’
    Alexander laughs at her logic.
    ‘No! But you know how you kind of get stuck?’
    Kate nods vehemently.
    It’s what they have in common. The responsibility of being a grown-up, being a parent. The great leveller.
    ‘I was the one who bought the peanut butter,’ he suddenly confesses. ‘I’d been abroad so long... it was going to be a treat... and, then...’
    The thought of it still makes his hands tremble so much that he has to sit on them to stop anyone noticing.
    Nell’s yelling at him to do something. He’s thumping Lucy on the back, trying to dislodge what’s stuck in her throat. Nell’s snatching her from him, screaming at him as if he can’t see it himself and it’s all his fault. ‘She’s getting worse!’ He runs out into the street, shouting ‘HELP!’
    ‘Well, she would have come across it sooner or later,’ Kate says matter-of-factly.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nuts. There’s almonds in Bakewell tart...’
    Kate starts to list all the foods she’s come across which contain unexpected nuts: ‘Most chocolate bars have a nut warning now, and Easter eggs...’
    It’s as if he’s hearing for the first time that Lucy would have had anaphylaxis whether he had bought the peanut butter or not.
    It’s a leap from guilt that he has not been able to make before.
    Kate has stopped talking. She’s frowning with concentration, working through something in her mind, and when she speaks again, her voice slices him apart.
    ‘What were you going to tell Lucy ...’
    He wishes now he hadn’t told Kate her name.
    ‘... about us going to Heathrow?’
    They keep referring to Heathrow as if it’s a destination in itself: neither of their imaginations can now stretch to getting onto a plane and away.
    ‘What were you going to tell Jimmy?’ he parries.
    ‘At least I was going to tell Jimmy,’ she says.
    Is she guessing wildly?
    His silence incriminates him again. He looks at her curiously beautiful face, the uncomprehending frown.
    ‘She’s the age you were when your father left you,’ she says quietly.
    He doesn’t know whether she’s offering him an explanation for his behaviour, or further condemnation. He wonders how something so simple and obvious has eluded him.
    ‘I didn’t do it, though,’ he offers. ‘I didn’t go.’
    But that’s not good enough for Kate and he’s relieved because now there’s no possibility of the attraction that crackles between them like static overcoming their circumstances.
    Would it have been possible to go on knowing nothing about each other for a while? If they’d got as far as a white sandy beach, would they then have needed a past? How soon would she have discovered that he was not good enough for her, not a good enough person? She’s found out in one day what most women take years to discover. That he’s a coward. And her clear disgust is like a punishment. But one that he accepts.
    In twenty-four hours this love story has run its course. Attraction, sex, love, a moment that changes it all to disillusion... an attempt at friendship that was bound to fail.
    Kate’s waving for the bill.
    A white china saucer is deposited between them. She reaches for it, but he snatches it up.
    ‘What are you going to do now?’ he asks.
    ‘I don’t know,’ she says, not looking at him. ‘I can’t face going back to work.’
    He’s relieved that she has taken the question to mean only the immediate future. The rest of her life is none of his business.
    ‘What are you going to do?’ she asks, her eyes flicking round the room. Anything but eye contact with him.
    ‘I’m going