Perfect Day

smiling.
    ‘So, how does it feel?’ he says.
    She smiles at him.
    ‘Good,’ she says.
    He moves a fraction closer to her.
    ‘It’s not real, this, is it?’ he asks.
    ‘Isn’t it?’
    He stretches out his hand, touches a coffee lace shoulder strap, snatches his hand away as if from a flame.
    Her skin is so taut and goosebumpy it’s like it’s clinging to her bones.
    ‘You’re cold,’ he savs .
    ‘Yes.’
    As if it’s the most natural thing in the world, he folds her in his arms.
    Her face is against his chest. She breathes his smell that’s fresh and unexpectedly innocent, like soap powder and steam irons.
    She presses herself against him, trying to speak with her body. There’s no reaction. She looks up into his eyes, trying to ask without saying anything, what, what do you want me to do?
    He pulls away, and, still holding her hand, leads her to the bed.
    He unties his shoes and slips them off, then puts his arms around her and pulls the quilt up over them both. He’s still fully clothed. He’s breathing into her hair. She can feel the heartbeat in his chest against her cheek. In her head so many questions are jostling, she thinks he must be able to hear them. One of her arms is wedged under her. She knows it’s going to get pins and needles soon and then she’ll have to shift position and destroy this moment. She doesn’t know what to do with the other arm. It’s just there. She doesn’t know whether to touch him, or to leave him alone. She’s got the man of her dreams in bed with her, and she doesn’t know what to do.
    One floor down and two along the saxophonist from the jazz club blows his first arpeggio of the day.
    Alexander sighs.
    ‘When I was a child,’ he says, shifting a little and propping up pillows behind him, ‘I used to have a carpet on the floor of my bedroom. It was a Persian rug with flowers and birds on it, and intricate patterns, like mazes that you could trace with your finger but you always got lost. It had this very distinctive smell of old dust and souks, and sometimes, when my mother was downstairs working, I used to lie lulled by the rhythm of her typing, and fly away to exotic lands...’
    He gazes up at the bright strips of shiny tenting.
    This feels a bit like that.’
    Kate pulls out her arm from under her and shakes it to get the blood flowing again.
    ‘I used to go to the library,’ she says. ‘Not the children’s bit, the grown-ups’ bit, ’cause it was quiet up there. Like, there’d be a few smelly old blokes, but mostly it was empty except for a few kids like me who didn’t have anywhere quiet at home. It’s a different kind of quiet you get in a library, isn’t it? Everyone’s concentrating so much on being quiet, you can sort of feel the quietness like a presence around you.’
    Quiet, quiet, quiet. She tries to think of another word. Why can’t she just shut up?
    ‘... In winter, there’s the hum of the fan heaters and after a while you forget you’re reading, and you’re there, right in the story, you know. You’re not asleep, but when they say it’s closing time, it’s like being woken up...’
    She stops, mid-flow, forgetting how she got on to prattling on about her grimy local library, when he was telling her about his beautiful carpet. Her brain must have made the connection with the Arabian Nights or something.
    ‘What sort of books did you like?’ he asks.
    ‘All the old ones, you know, with children who have to look after themselves because they’re orphans, or something terrible’s happened. My favourite was E. Nesbit. What do you think the E. stands for?’
    ‘Don’t know. Didn’t she write The Railway Children ?’
    ‘Yes, but I liked The Story of the Amulet best.’
    There’s a long silence. Why didn’t she just agree with him? Yes, The Railway Children, and leave it at that.
    She wishes she had some idea of what he’s thinking about but she can’t think of a subtle way of asking him.
    ‘Sounds like a lovely day outside,’ she says, finally. She can’t believe she’s resorted to talking about the weather.
    He turns his head so that he’s looking at her face.
    ‘Sounds?’ he repeats, smiling.
    ‘The market men were whistling this morning. They only whistle when it’s sunny,’ she explains.
    ‘And when it’s raining?’ he wants to know.
    ‘Lorry tyres on wet streets sizzle like sausages dropping into really hot fat,’ she says, ‘and the air smells like a flower shop.’
    He thinks about that