Perfect Day

didn’t feel she could ask him to move out to make way for her mother. He did not volunteer.
    To make things worse, her mother and Alexander took an instant dislike to one another at the luggage carousel after Lavinia remarked wearily that one had grown used to inefficiency from the British workforce, but it was hardly what one expected in Japan, a remark that managed to touch almost all Alexander’s leftish nerves in one go. Lavinia later confided to Nell that she was suspicious of very good looking men, because they’d never had to work for women’s adoration.
    ‘And I don’t just mean about putting up shelves,’ she had added, with a nod and an attempt at a knowing look.
    Frances had stepped in and offered Lavinia her bed, and for the duration of her visit the two of them became irritatingly close, like schoolgirls sharing a dormitory.
    It was Frances, rather than Nell, who first learned the reason for her flight from England , Frances who put into words the suspicion that Nell’s father might be having an affair, Frances who later persuaded Lavinia that actually she’d be happier without him, which oddly turned out to be the case.
    Nell remembers asking Frances , ‘Why do you like my mother?’ As if she could see no reason why anyone would like Lavinia if they didn’t have to.
    ‘She’s got guts,’ Frances told her, ‘and she’s bright, and just because the entire feminist movement has passed her by for the last thirty years doesn’t mean that she can’t be a late learner.’
    ‘But she supports Thatcher!’
    ‘She won’t by the time I’ve finished with her.’

    ‘How is the old girl?’ Frances asks.
    ‘Very involved in the Countryside Movement,’ Nell replies.
    ‘She doesn’t actually hunt?’ Frances asks, aghast. She prides herself on taking the unexpected view, but there are limits.
    ‘No. She’s at the making-sure-everyone’s-got-a-sustaining-packed-lunch-to-eat-on-the-march end of things. She’s always turning up with baking trays covered with foil: “Darling, you couldn’t just pop this ham in the oven for me, mine’s full of game pies.” ’
    ‘Bet Alexander likes that.’
    ‘He’s usually at work,’ Nell says, noncommittally. Frances is wonderful in many ways, but she’s a terrible stirrer.
    ‘How do they get on these days?’
    ‘They rarely see each other. It’s actually one of the benefits of living so close. We never have to have her for the weekend. She can be as much of a grandmother as she likes, but she doesn’t get to be much of a mother-in-law.’
    Nell’s rather pleased with that construction of the situation. It sounds so good, it might almost be true.
    ‘Isn’t it a bit oppressive, living so near your parents? For you, I mean, as well as for him?’
    ‘But in the end it’s not about place, is it?’ Nell argues, trying to divert the particular into the general. ‘Happiness is a state of mind and if you’re content, then where you are doesn’t really matter It’s one of the things Nell has been thinking about a lot recently. Would moving help?
    ‘I’ve never been happier than I was in Tokyo , and I hated that city,’ she concludes. QED.
    ‘And I’ve never been more unhappy than I was there,’ says Frances .
    ‘Really?’ Nell’s shocked. ‘I never knew that.’
    ‘You were so busy being happy that you didn’t notice,’ Frances says, with a brisk smile that makes Nell feel more guilty than a moan would. Frances is such a cynic, Nell’s never considered that something as banal as happiness would be important to her.
    ‘Are you happy now?’ she asks, slightly anxiously. She’s never felt comfortable dishing back the intense personal probing that Frances subjects her to because she’s always slightly feared that Frances might suddenly declare a passion for her. Loving someone less than they love you normally makes you powerful, but the situation with Frances seems to have the opposite effect on Nell.
    ‘At this moment?’ Frances asks, and Nell feels that she’s laughing at the inanity of her question.
    ‘I meant in general.’
    ‘Am I happy in general?’ Frances repeats the words mockingly. ‘As happy as any other sad, single woman approaching forty, I suppose.’
    ‘I will draw you a picture,’ says Lucy. ‘That will cheer you up.’
    Nell and Frances exchange looks.
    ‘I haven’t got any crayons, love,’ Frances says.
    ‘We should have brought some,’ says Nell.
    ‘Hang on a minute,’ Frances says. She goes