Perfect Day

devoid of touch and smell and sound. She switches the radio off and opens the window of the car to blow away her tears.

Six

    In a white passage under Piccadilly Circus there’s a notice every few yards saying: these premises are under constant cctv surveillance. But Alexander cannot see any cameras.
    It feels more like a corridor in a hospital than a pedestrian tunnel. The floor is white, the walls are white and the exit is invisible from the entrance. He’s the only person using it.
    Alexander’s walk becomes a silly strut, the soles of his shoes sticking slightly and squeaking against the shiny floor. Somewhere in the building above there must be a tiny room filled with television screens. He imagines a bored security operative alerted by the sight of a man on the monochrome monitor doing a chicken walk. He stops abruptly as a woman in a navy suit walks past him determinedly not making eye contact in case he’s got violent tendencies.
    Three men are playing fruit machines in the entertainment arcade inside the Trocadero mall. Alexander wonders whether they wake up in the morning intending to do half an hour’s nudge ’n’ collect before work, or whether they are seduced by the bright lights and the static sense of time that this place with no natural light delivers. At nine o’clock this evening, it will look no different from now.
    In adjacent theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue , Brief Encounter is playing alongside The Graduate. Were the plays created from the films, or were they plays originally? He’s not sure. He tried to recall the last time he went to the theatre, but it’s so long ago, he cannot remember what he saw.
    He’s about to go into Starbucks when he sees a small group of foreign students sitting by the window. A Japanese girl he thinks he recognizes from Mel’s class is approaching her friends balancing a muffin on a plate and with a small Louis Vuitton rucksack strung halfway between her wrist and elbow. Unwilling to risk a conversation with a student, Alexander does an about-turn and crosses the road, hurrying up a side street where every doorway reeks of urine.

    The girl at the front of a peep-show yawns. She’s still wearing last night’s make-up, a powdery coat of flesh-coloured paint that’s scuffed a little. Looking in the strip of mirror that runs from the ceiling to the floor, she applies a slick of blood red lipstick, kisses a tissue, and tucks it into the sleeve of the tight fake leopard T-shirt. When her eyes meet Alexander’s, she makes a what-you-gawping-at face, and he quickens his step, alarmed that he’s been staring at her.
    He walks into the wrong bar first. It’s like a mirror of Marco’s. The counter is down the wrong side and there’s a plate of glazed custard tarts on top of the glass cabinet. The woman at the till has long black hair and a haunted, high- cheekboned look that he associates with Portuguese people. He says sorry, and walks out leaving her bewildered.

    Marco is bent over a copy of Corriere del Sport. He looks up as Alexander comes in. Alexander says ‘ Buon giorno !’ The old man repeats the greeting but does not give the impression of recognizing him.
    ‘Per cortesia , un caffé !’ says Alexander. He’s pleased with the accent that comes rolling out of his mouth after so little use.
    ‘One coffee coming up!’ says the Italian, and there’s a trace of something, offence possibly, or boredom, in his refusal to converse in his native tongue.
    Alexander takes the small cup of espresso to a table at the back of the bar and sits down on the chair facing the door. He doesn’t have a newspaper to read, and now that he’s here, he doesn’t want to leave for a second to pop out to a newsagent in case he misses her. Alexander’s eyes travel around the bar testing if he can remember all the Italian football teams by their flags. He reads the menu that’s painted on a blackboard, matching the written descriptions with the domes of sandwich filling arrayed in the glass cabinet. He wonders whether Marco washes up each oval stainless steel dish every night, and how much of the mayonnaise-bound filling is thrown away. He speculates about the sort of person who would choose a chicken escalope for their sandwich, cold and hard in its fried breadcrumb coating. After a while, he becomes aware of a clock ticking but he cannot see where it is.
    A woman wearing a leather skirt comes in and orders a decaffeinated latte to go. A couple of builders,