Perfect Day

the title of a song from the 1930s.
    ‘OK.’
    She’s about to put down the phone.
    ‘Nell?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Love you in the world!’ Alexander says brightly.

    ‘Are you sure you’re all right to drive?’ Chris says.
    ‘I’m fine,’ she says.
    How different he is from the man she’s just spoken to. It wouldn’t occur to Alexander to think about the stress the day has put on her, the fact that she’s already driven over a hundred miles today.
    ‘Why don’t I take Lucy back with me? We’re going to tennis in the morning anyway. You probably need some time on your own together.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    She wasn’t looking forward to the thought of imposing on her mother, who sloshes a double measure of whisky into a cup of hot milk at this time of night and goes to bed with the three-legged dog and a copy of Country Life.
    ‘Sure.’
    Is Chris giving her this time with Alex so that she can tell Alex about them? Is that what he’s offering?
    ‘I don’t know...’ she begins to say.
    ‘It’s OK, Nell.’
    Does he mean that there’s no rush, or that he knows she’s going to go back to Alexander, or what?
    Does the lack of pressure mean that he’s gone off her?
    Perhaps there’s no subtext. Perhaps he, like she, just doesn’t know.

    Upstairs, Lucy is sleeping so peacefully Nell hates to wake her.
    ‘Come on, darling,’ she whispers soothingly.
    The child’s body is so much heavier asleep than awake. She relaxes automatically against Nell’s chest, turning her head so that it fits snugly against Nell’s shoulder, entrusting her unconscious self entirely to familiar maternal curves.
    On the stairs, she lifts her head suddenly and asks, with her eyes wide open, ‘Is Daddy home yet?’
    ‘He’s stuck in London and I’m going to get him. You’re going round to sleep at Ben’s.’
    Lucy’s eyes close again, and she sighs. Nell doesn’t think she was really awake when she asked the question. She’s surprised by how close to the surface Lucy’s love for Alexander is.
    She carries her out to the car. Chris sits beside Lucy in the back, and when they get to his house, Nell carries Lucy indoors and up to Ben’s room, where there’s a bed already made. She thinks how excited Lucy’s going to be to wake up in the morning beside her love.
    Downstairs, she hands over the waistbelt that contains Lucy’s emergency medication.
    ‘I’ll look after her,’ Chris says.
    ‘Thanks. Where’s Sarah?’
    ‘Talking to the States.’
    ‘Tell her I said thank you, won’t you?’
    ‘I will.’
    It would be normal for two people who were as good friends as they are to kiss at this moment, but they’re both very deliberately keeping a distance of about a yard between them.
    ‘Good luck,’ he says.
    His steel blue eyes give no further meaning to the words.
    ‘Yes,’ she says.

    It’s disco hour on Heart FM.
    ‘Next up,’ says the DJ, ‘ “ You’re The One That I Want”.’
    Nell switches the radio off; her head’s too full of possible scenarios to crowd it with memories of trying to look like Olivia Newton John, curling her hair with Carmen rollers and wearing skinny black cap-sleeve T-shirts.
    How different the motorway is at night. During the day the land around is so flat it makes the sky seem huge and light, and it’s possible to see for miles. But at night the road is unlit, and when there’s a break in the traffic the black motorway is so dark it feels like she’s hurtling through a tunnel towards an uncertain future.
    Love you in the world.
    Alexander sounded so unlike Alexander on the phone that she can’t quite suppress the odd feeling that she’s not going to recognize him, that this is all a hallucination, or a strange joke that she doesn’t understand.
    Midnight at the Cutty Sark .
    Is it a thriller, not a love song?
    In her mind, she repeats what he said:
    Should be easy enough to park at this time of night.
    Was that a none-too-oblique reference to the last time they were in Greenwich together?

    New Year’s Eve before the millennium.
    They’d both woken up with the feeling that they should be doing something to mark the last day of the century. It was Alexander who thought of Greenwich . She hadn’t realized how near this part of London was by car, having always travelled up from home by train.
    They stood Lucy’s legs on each side of the time line, Nell holding her east hand and Alexander her west. She remembers him kneeling next to Lucy to explain how it all