Perfect Day

cappuccino to take away?’
    The man slams the drawer back into the till and prepares the cappuccino with spoon-clattering hostility.
    ‘One pound eighty,’ he says, snapping a top onto the styrofoam cup and causing a small eruption of milk foam stained with cocoa powder through the tiny hole in the lid. Alexander picks it up and walks out into the sunshine.
    It’s good to be in the air, amid the smells and sounds of a city preparing for work. So much better than the stifling insulation of the tube where every morning he stands with his hands clamped to his sides trying to protect himself from any intruding sensation. Perhaps he should walk from Victoria every fine day. It wouldn’t take longer than forty minutes if he took a direct route, and the exercise would do him good.
    In the distance a church clock strikes nine. Counting the chimes makes Alexander feel oddly nostalgic.
    The shop windows in the street he has chosen to take are full of baubles and gaudy trimmings for evening gowns. The signs say retail only. Mandy Kominski’s uncle was in the rag trade, and her father owned a bagel factory. How weird that his mind has secretly stored a file on Mandy Kominski for twenty years which, now that he’s opened it, is relentlessly downloading pages of useless information. He wonders what Mandy is doing now. Married. Probably to somebody very rich. Living in a great big detached house in Golders Green. A couple of children have thickened her and her naturally dark eyes and full lips are exaggerated with expensive make-up. She’s probably wedded to the fetishistic routines that incipient middle age seems to demand. Aerobics class and facial once a week, highlights every couple of months, teeth reenamelled . Each little imperfection patched up before the next crack appears. He wonders why he still feels hurt when he thinks of her when all she did to h im was wait in the wrong part of the restaurant.
    What would his life have been like now if they’d both been sitting in the café part of the Cosmo? If he’d pushed open the heavy glass door and said, ‘Hey! I’m here. I’ve been waiting for you next door!’
    Would he and Mandy still be together? Would he be any less uncertain about life today? Would they be happy?
    Strange to think how one tiny action might have changed everything.

    Alexander stares at the styrofoam cup in his hand.
    If Kate had come into Marco’s just now he would have pretended that he had bumped into her again, but it wouldn’t have been chance, because he deliberately went there to try to bump into her.
    What is the difference between that sort of premeditated chance encounter, and actually seeking her out?
    Is there in fact any moral difference at all?

Seven

    Kate has learned to distinguish between the noises and smells that waft in through the gap between the sill and the sash window which sticks at about three inches open however hard you push it up. She’s lying awake in the near-dark room like a blind person creating pictures of the street below from sounds: the sigh of the bin lorry lifters, the cabbage whiff of rot, the clank of market stall poles, the Christmassy scent of a just-squashed orange.
    The Italian shop on the corner is getting its delivery of bread. Brakes hiss, there’s a snatch of news as the driver opens the door of the cab, bolts shunt and tailgate bangs down. The smell of new bread lingers on the air for a moment, so deliciously evocative it almost satisfies Kate’s morning hunger.
    Marie’s half of the bed is empty. She left before the streets woke up, the tap of her heels echoing down the alley, the boudoir scent of Chanel’s Allure trailing behind her.
    Kate’s been half awake since then. The tip of her nose is cold. The crispness of the air makes her feel as if she should be up and about, but there’s always a time after waking when she’s stranded between the pulse-accelerating recognition that she’s hovering right over the heart of the city, and the paralysing thought that she should not be here.
    She snuggles her shoulders down and lies in a warm cocoon of quilt, attempting to delay her return to the real world.
    As soon as her eyes close, there are pictures of him: his face with the golden river behind, his expression as she says something stupid, a wince that lifts into his smile. The soft adhesion of his kiss remains on her lips like an invisible Post-It note, the uncertainty in his eyes imprinted on her mind.
    Enough.
    The scab on Kate’s