Perfect Day

says. ‘They’re getting a bit mean here.’
    ‘Perhaps they’ve noticed that there are women who come in for a free manicure and meal,’ he suggests.
    The hors-d’oeuvres cabinet has an array of pale pink and cream fish terrines glossy with aspic, and half-lobsters topped with fluted blobs of mayonnaise. They look as if they should be sweet, not fishy, and they make her feel hungry.
    ‘What’s your favourite food?’ Kate asks.
    There are so many simple little things that she doesn’t know about him, as well as all the big ones. How can she be in love with him? But it’s definitely love because she’s so excited inside, she almost can’t stand it. It feels as if there’s a part of her, really deep down, that’s connected to a part of him. Marie would say that they’d met in another life.
    ‘Pizza,’ he says and smiles at her. His sweet smile. The one where you know he’s a really kind person as well as being incredibly handsome.
    She wonders if his answer is a subtle compliment. Is he saying pizza because that’s how they met? Nobody really likes pizza that much. Not unless they’re about seven years old.
    ‘There’s this little shop in Rome ,’ he goes on: ‘nothing in it except a primitive oven, a big fat man, and these huge trays of pizza that he gets out on a kind of shovel. He cuts it into rectangles, wraps it up in waxed paper. You walk down the street eating it. The best one is potato pizza.’
    ‘Potato pizza?’
    ‘Yes. Just thinly sliced potato, lots of salt, olive oil and rosemary. Really simple, really delicious.’
    He must have been in Rome with someone he loved, Kate thinks, because it’s not the food he’s remembering, it’s the times they spent together wandering about in the sunshine. Nobody in their right mind would choose potatoes on pizza as their favourite food.
    ‘Pizza is best done simple,’ she says, trying hard to keep her voice from screeching with jealousy. ‘We sell most of the plain ones. I mean, nobody really wants prawns on their pizza, do they? It doesn’t go. What you want is a bit of tomato and a lot of cheese. It’s just cheese on toast, really, isn’t it ?... Except yours was potato,’ she adds, feeling a complete fool.
    ‘What’s your favourite food?’ he asks.
    Kate has to think about it. She likes chocolate, but she thinks it would sound a bit immature to say that.
    Alexander watches her deliberations as if she’s a rare exhibit. Like he’s David Attenborough or someone. She quite likes being the subject of amazed curiosity. It’s as if her thoughts matter.
    ‘Perfectly ripe pears,’ she decides at last. ‘You know how pears are, one day too hard the next all brown in the middle. There’s about two hours when they’re fine. That’s when I like them.’
    A sudden waft of sweet pastry makes her wish that she’d said Danish pastry was her favourite food. She’d love something comforting to damp down the acidity in her stomach that’s come from all the raw fish and jealousy. The pâtisserie has a display of iced birthday cakes. A red sports car, a pink castle, a big round cake that’s iced to look like a pizza, with magenta slices of pepperoni and livid green strips of pepper on the yellow topping. It’s so garish, it almost seems to be mocking her.
    Kate takes a deep breath of the warm buttery aroma.
    ‘You know all that stuff about molecules?’ she says.
    ‘Yes,’ he replies cautiously.
    ‘Well, if smell is just escaped molecules floating about in the air, do you think that if you breathe enough of it, you’re really eating? If you absorb enough molecules...’
    He laughs
    ‘Are you still hungry?’
    ‘A bit,’ she admits.
    ‘How long would it take you to breathe an oyster?’ he asks.
    To their left, there’s a stainless steel counter she hasn’t noticed before. It’s got high stools, a tiled surround, a blackboard with prices chalked up.
    ‘Don’t think I’d want to,’ she says, trying to take his gaze to the cakes right beside her, but he’s not looking.
    ‘Have you ever tried one?’
    ‘No!’
    ‘Come on!’
    He takes her hand and pulls her towards the oyster bar. He perches on a high stool. Reluctantly, she does the same. Then he leans over and says in a hushed whisper, ‘They’re supposed to be aphrodisiac.’
    His breath is warm and just slightly damp against the curly bit of her left ear. She goes all tingly down that side of her body. If he asked her to eat a live snake at this point she’d do