Perfect Day

compulsion to sing along to Tammy Wynette songs even though she’s a feminist. Nell has felt Frances ’s hatred sometimes and the rawness of it has alarmed her, just as the rawness of Frances ’s love sometimes does. Frances likes or dislikes things with passion. Sometimes Nell feels a bit anaemic beside her.
    ‘We rural housewives spend a great deal of energy trying to make the best of what nature has given us,’ Nell says. ‘There is a salon called the Beauty Spot. Wayne does my highlights, Lorna does a French manicure while the foil’s on, and Lucy plays with Suzette.’
    ‘Their dog?’
    ‘Their baby.’
    ‘Does it worry you that you’re turning into your mother?’ Frances asks.
    ‘All the time! But I tell myself that it’s research. It gives me something to write about.’
    There’s a slightly uncomfortable silence.
    ‘I read your column,’ Frances says seriously, ‘and sometimes I wonder whether life isn’t beginning to imitate art...’
    ‘What do you mean?’ Nell says, sounding much more breezy than she feels.
    ‘Well, it started off as a parody, didn’t it? The laughably parochial habits of village folk, but you can’t remain an outsider for ever, can you? There’s a sense of belonging creeping in.’
    ‘It pays the bills,’ Nell says uncomfortably.
    ‘Yes, but just how much of your soul do you need to sell for that?’
    Nell feels tears bubbling up. They always seem to start in her throat, making her unable to speak.
    Frances looks at her, knowing she’s wounded. ‘Sometimes it’s very funny,’ she concedes.
    Nell gets up and goes into the garden.
    ‘Can you hear the sea from here?’ she asks, not looking at Frances . Trying to get her composure back.
    ‘When it’s stormy,’ Frances says, putting her arm round Nell. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘There’s nothing wrong with becoming a member of the community you live in. You’ve always been very good at fitting in.’
    Even that sounds like a put-down.
    ‘What are you writing about this month anyway?’ Frances asks.
    ‘My visit to a colour therapist. All for the purposes of research, you understand,’ says Nell.
    ‘Is that one of those women with lots of make-up who looks at your skin tone and tells you that your entire wardrobe’s wrong because you’re a winter not a spring?’
    ‘No, much more cerebral... although she did think a change to peach and coral tones in the bedroom might improve my sex life
    ‘Peach and coral tones have never improved anyone’s sex life. So what is it, then?’
    ‘Well, all you do is choose these four strips of colour and tell her your date of birth and then she tells you all about your past, present and future lives.’
    ‘Fantastic! So...’
    ‘I’m on my ninth incarnation before I move on to a higher plane. She thinks I definitely come from Atlantis. I was a teacher there,’ Nell says, very seriously.
    She looks at Frances totally deadpan and Frances looks at her, alarmed. And then they simultaneously start laughing. Just like they used to. It feels good to have wound Frances up even for just a second. Nell hasn’t laughed hard for a long time.
    ‘Actually,’ Nell says, calming down, ‘it was quite interesting.’
    ‘Oh, you’re not going to tell me that a lot of what she said was uncannily accurate?’
    ‘She said that something happened about five years ago that changed my life,’ says Nell a little more seriously.
    ‘That must be true for just about everyone,’ says Frances .
    ‘So, what happened to you five years ago?’ says Nell.
    ‘You guys left Tokyo .’
    ‘That was more than six years ago.’
    ‘What’s a year in a timescale that includes the lost island of Atlantis , for God’s sake?’ Frances points out. ‘Still, I must say it’s uncannily accurate about you having been a teacher, although I don’t see a great deal of career development over all these incarnations...’
    ‘Oh, stop!’
    ‘What else?’
    ‘You’re very interested for someone so cynical,’ Nell counters.
    ‘Oh, please!’
    Frances gets her coffee cup from inside and her cigarettes and lighter. She drags the other chair across the concrete floor of the well of garden so that she’s sitting next to Nell. Then she lights up and blows the first mouthful of smoke straight up in the air.
    ‘So what about this life? What’s in store?’
    Suddenly Nell doesn’t know if she wants to tell Frances what the colour therapist said.
    ‘Are you where you want to be, do you think?’