Perfect Day

sartorial advice. His mother eschewed sandals even during her most ethnic periods. He thinks of her shoes, neatly filed in hanging calico shelves in her cupboard. He remembers the rip of Velcro as he took them down from the rail, and his misgivings about giving them to the Oxfam shop: it felt as if he were handing over a precious photograph album, to be scrabbled over by strangers.

    Kate pokes her feet into slippers embroidered with sequins and jewels. She’s very taken with a pair of ankle boots with an odd-shaped heel and covered buttons that look like Victorian skating boots except that they’re made of purple satin. She stands like a little girl who’s been at the dressing-up box, the grey nylon stocking socks the shop assistant lent her halfway up her bare shins.
    Alexander takes a fine black suede mule with a kitten heel and a chisel toe from a glass shelf and asks the assistant to bring Kate’s size.
    ‘How does it feel?’ he asks as her foot slides in.
    ‘Really, really comfortable,’ Kate says, surprised. ‘You wouldn’t think they were with this shape, but they’ve got this really soft leather inside.’
    She walks up and down. ‘They make me walk differently,’ she says.
    The shoes have turned her from an urchin to a lady.
    He has an unwelcome vision of her as Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, and him as Rex Harrison.
    ‘We’ll take them,’ he says.
    Kate’s eyes widen and she shakes her head silently.
    ‘Do you want to wear them, or shall I put them in a box?’ the assistant asks.
    ‘Wear them,’ he instructs.
    ‘OK, I’ll just get you a bag for these,’ the assistant says, picking up Kate’s black boots, ‘and if you’d like to follow me to the till...’
    ‘They’re ninety-nine pounds,’ Kate hisses.
    ‘I’m buying them for you,’ he says.
    ‘You can’t!’ Kate says.
    He can see that she’s caught between hating the idea of being bought something and loving it.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because I hardly know you!’ she exclaims.
    The shop assistant hears, but she doesn’t turn round.
    ‘I mean, why do you want to buy them for me?’ Kate says under her breath. She wants to know if the purchase of shoes is a sign of some as yet unspoken commitment.
    Women always think about the subtext.
    ‘I’m buying them for you because they look great, OK?’ he says.
    Kate looks at her feet.
    He can almost hear her deliberations about what to do.
    ‘You’re right,’ she says, eventually, ‘they do!’
    He uses his Connect card to pay and when the transaction’s completed, the shop assistant hands Kate her boots in a bright yellow carrier bag.
    As they walk together towards the designer rooms, Kate takes his arm, squeezes it and whispers, ‘Thanks.’ Her mouth is near enough for him to smell the slight sourness of champagne on her breath.

    In the English Eccentrics concession, she chooses a dress made of pink silk velvet.
    ‘What do you think?’
    ‘Yes,’ he says, thinking that it is the grown-up equivalent of a fairy princess’s outfit, ‘but try this too.’ He pulls out one in pale grey with tiny glass beads that shimmer glimpses of rainbow.
    Standing outside the changing rooms he feels as redundant and self-conscious as he always used to. It’s ironic if Kate thinks this is something he’s never done before, because he spent many Saturdays as a boy waiting just like this for his mother.
    The shop was more crowded in those days and he doesn’t think that there were special areas set aside for each designer. His mother would pull clothes from great circular racks, clacking the hangers together in search of her size, then queue at the side of the shop for a cubicle with a curtain that pulled across but never quite reached both sides. As he stood by the long mirrors outside he would see an occasional flash of hand pushing through a sleeve, or foot squeezing back into a shoe.
    He learned to say nothing specific when asked what he thought. Comments such as ‘It’s too bright’ would bring about uncomfortable retorts like ‘ And why shouldn’t I be bright?’ She had already made up her mind when she asked him, so as long as he said ‘Quite nice’, or ‘All right’, she could either say ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’ smoothing her hands down her sides, enjoying how she looked in the mirror, or ‘Actually, it’s hideous’, snatching back the cubicle curtain angrily.
    On one occasion he remembers pleading to go home, and her snapping, ‘If you can’t be