Perfect Day

colluding in the pretence, because she knows it wouldn’t be any use arguing with her. It’d only make her try something worse, just to prove she could handle it. Marie’s like that.
    Quickly Marie does the other two lines, dabs the pad of her thumb around the edges of the mirror, licks it, and replaces the mirror on its hook.
    ‘So, is it just you and me tonight?’ she asks.
    Kate pulls a small suitcase from under the bed. She opens it and takes out fresh knickers, a white T-shirt and a short black skirt.
    ‘You want a plaster for that knee,’ says Marie, sagely.
    ‘Got one?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Where’s Des?’ Kate asks.
    ‘Driving a load of prawns from Scotland to Barcelona .’
    ‘Go on!’
    Des is a long-distance lorry driver Marie met when she was working in a service station.
    ‘What d’you mean?’ Marie’s eyes narrow.
    ‘Well, it’s coals to Newcastle , isn’t it, prawns to the land of paella?’
    ‘The lying bastard!’
    Marie smiles affectionately. Kate’s never pretended to try to understand what makes her sister and her boyfriend tick. But they seem happy and, oddly, trusting.
    ‘You look like a schoolgirl in that skirt with that knee,’ says Marie; then, as if the two thoughts are inextricably connected, ‘Who’s this bloke then?’
    ‘Just a bloke I served, and then he was in Marco’s later. We got talking.’
    ‘Talking,’ repeats Marie.
    ‘He’s lived abroad. He gave me some tips.’
    ‘Tips?’
    ‘On where to go,’ says Kate impatiently.
    ‘What’s he look like?’
    ‘What’s it matter?’ She doesn’t want to talk about him now. Marie turns everything sordid.
    ‘Not exactly drop dead gorgeous, then?’
    ‘He is.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘He’s so good looking that you kind of feel you know him. Like a film star. D’you know what I’m talking about?’
    ‘No...’
    ‘He’s tall, and a bit stoopy , you know...’
    ‘ Stoopy ?’
    Kate imitates the slightly awkward way that Alexander stands. ‘Kind of sad,’ she says. ‘No, not sad, more troubled.’
    ‘I’m mad with jealousy now,’ says Marie sarcastically.
    ‘Oh, he wouldn’t be your type at all. Too serious,’ she adds quickly.
    ‘What’s he doing with you, then?’
    ‘He’s not doing anything with me. I just met him, that’s all. Then I hurt my knee and he brought me back here in a taxi. He’s kind.’
    ‘Gay?’
    Kate hasn’t thought of that possibility. The soft kiss he gave her is still on her lips. A current of sex shoots from her chest to her vagina.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ she says.
    ‘Married?’
    She hasn’t thought of that either. He didn’t look married. She tries to picture his hands. She’s sure there wasn’t a ring. What does it matter? She’s never going to see him again.
    ‘What’s it matter? I’m never going to see him again anyway,’ she says to her sister. The dark blue room seems suddenly oppressive.
    Marie looks in the mirror again, snatches a tissue from the box by the bed, twists it, licks it and wipes away a trace of lipstick that has bled at the corner of her mouth; then she smooths her skin-tight jeans over her thighs languorously, looking pleased with herself.
    ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘let’s go for a drink.’

    Marie drinks vodka and Red Bull. Kate drinks orange juice. Kate remembers her father coming home from the pub, the smell of beer and cigarettes blowing through the door with him, and the sweet odour of his sweat as he kissed them both goodnight. Kate doesn’t like the taste of alcohol.
    ‘You can’t really taste it with Red Bull, though,’ Marie tells her. She always wants Kate to share in her sins. ‘It’d pick you up a bit,’ she says.
    ‘I’m not down,’ Kate says.
    ‘You’re thinking about that bloke.’
    ‘I’m not.’
    ‘Did you snog him?’ Marie wants to know.
    ‘He kissed me,’ Kate says tentatively.
    ‘I did that once,’ says Marie.
    ‘What?’
    ‘ Snogged a stranger. On a train. We were sitting opposite each other, you know, and we kept looking, then looking away. Then you know...’ Marie smiles to herself at the memory. ‘...the looks turned to smiles, and, when the people in our bit got out, we snogged ...’
    ‘And...?’
    Kate wants to hear the end of the story.
    ‘It was great.’
    ‘But what happened?’
    ‘He got off. I thought about him a bit that night, you know, and the next day...’
    ‘But you never saw him again?’
    ‘No. Didn’t even remember till just now.’
    ‘Oh.’ Kate can’t