Perfect Day

realizes that the food in her mouth has broken down a little and she’s able to chew again. It still takes an age to reply to his question.
    ‘It tastes like smoked salmon without the flavour.’
    A grain of rice flies out of her mouth and lands on his shirt. She stares at the white spot in the little dark circle of her saliva.
    It’s only a grain of rice but it’s a potent symbol of what she knows already. They come from different worlds. They are totally incompatible.
    He looks at his shirt and starts to laugh.
    So she laughs too.
    Perhaps they’re not incompatible after all.
    ‘Do you like it?’ he asks.
    ‘It’s a bit funny eating fish when you’ve not had breakfast,’ she says, pleased that she’s managed to avoid a blunt no.
    ‘Try this,’ he says.
    Clusters of little orange globes glisten under the bright shop lights. The piece of sushi looks as if it’s wrapped in black plastic.
    ‘What is it? No, don’t tell me.’
    With the tip of her forefinger and thumb she takes one of the beads from the piece of sushi. It’s like a capsule of seawater bursting in her mouth. Not unpleasant exactly. If she were doing a taste test on Food and Drink she’d use the word ‘fascinating’. She takes another bead, then another, then, when she’s sure that she’ll be able to cope with the rest in one go, the remainder.
    ‘It reminds me of that bubblewrap stuff, you know, where you can’t stop popping the bubbles once you’ve started?’
    ‘It’s a type of caviare except it’s from a salmon not a sturgeon,’ Alexander tells her.
    ‘What about the black plastic?’
    ‘Seaweed.’
    Seaweed? She’s glad she’s already swallowed.
    ‘How come you know so much about it, then?’
    ‘I used to live in Japan .’
    ‘Wow!’
    He smiles at her. It’s his sad smile. The one that looks like he’s thinking loads of things that he’s never going to tell her.
    Who was he with in Japan ? Did he have a girlfriend? Was she Japanese like that woman in the opera? She imagines a woman with a painted face and a kimono with Japanese writing on it. She hates her.
    ‘Do they eat stuff like this all the time?’ she asks. ‘Yes.’
    ‘Don’t they like hot food?’
    ‘They have hot food too. Noodles. Miso soup.’
    She leans forward and boldly takes another plate of sushi from the conveyor. Pale yellow spongy stuff, with another strip of black plastic holding it onto the rice.
    ‘This one’s like an omelette, but sweet.’
    ‘It is omelette,’ he says.
    ‘Omelette fish?’ she says, eating another piece. ‘Makes sense, I suppose.’
    She catches him trying not to laugh.
    ‘What?’
    ‘It is omelette. Not fish.’
    ‘Well, it can’t be fish if it’s omelette, can it?’ she says, trying to make out that she knew what he was talking about all along.
    Madam Butterfly, that was it.
    ‘What’s Japan like?’ she asks.
    He takes a slug from his beer bottle, then looks at the sushi chef and the Japanese waitresses standing by the till.
    ‘A lot like this.’
    ‘That’s what you said about Italy , yesterday.’
    ‘Is it?’
    He’s got this way of closing down when he doesn’t want to talk about something and it makes her feel loud and stupid but, at the same time, even more in love with him.
    ‘I suppose what I mean is that everywhere’s pretty much like everywhere else these days... there’s always Gap, Starbucks, KFC...’
    ‘ Pokemon .’
    ‘Exactly,’ says Alexander.
    ‘So tell me one way Japan is different from England .’ He thinks for a moment.
    ‘The trains run on time.’
    ‘Another.’
    ‘People take off their shoes when they go indoors.’
    ‘Right. Another.’
    ‘Women cover their faces when they laugh because it’s considered rude to show teeth.’
    ‘And the Japanese?’
    ‘They don’t like to give away what they’re thinking.’
    ‘You must have fitted in well, then.’
    She doesn’t know why she said that, but he smiles, so that’s all right.
    ‘Raw fish, no laughing,’ says Kate. ‘My kind of place. Not.’
    ‘Have you had enough?’ he asks.
    ‘Yes, thanks.’
    She’d had enough before they even started.

    * * *

    ‘I like the idea of the conveyor,’ she tells him as they walk away from the sushi bar, thinking that she’d better say something positive. ‘But I’d like it better if it were chocolates or something going round.’
    ‘So, where’s all this free food you told me about?’ he asks.
    ‘There’s a few scraps of raw ham, over there,’ Kate