Perfect Day

shoes?’ Frances asks when they’ve passed. ‘Do you think they automatically collect them at a certain age?’
    ‘Like bus passes?’
    ‘Exactly. Do you think we’ll ever get to the age where we think a headscarf is a good idea?’
    ‘Or a Tricel dress with a pleated skirt and waistband?’ Nell adds.
    ‘Do you ever try something on in a shop and think, no, I’m too old for this now?’ Frances asks.
    Nell laughs.
    ‘There are things I think I’m too young for,’ she says.
    ‘Like?’
    ‘Leggings. Leggings and big jumpers.’
    ‘Oh, God, yes,’ says Frances . ‘Especially worn by people who think that the jumper is so huge, they’ll be mistaken for slim inside it.’
    ‘I do find some chain store stuff a bit skimpy though,’ says Nell.
    ‘So do I!’ says Frances , ‘but I think it’s a sign. As soon as you start to think that manufacturers are using less fabric than they used to, it’s the onset of middle age.’
    ‘What’s strange is that I don’t weigh any more than I used to,’ says Nell, ‘but I feel sort of lumpy.’
    ‘Well you don’t look it. You’re the only person I know who could wear that sweater under that jacket and still look thin.’
    She glances enviously at Nell’s chunky blue jumper and suede jacket and her slim jeans.
    ‘It’s horrible, growing old, isn’t it? The only thing I take comfort from,’ says Frances , ‘is seeing someone of my age who looks older than me.’
    ‘Like?’
    ‘Jerry Hall,’ says Frances .
    ‘Jerry Hall? But she’s a supermodel. She’s the example against which we’re all held!’ says Nell, loving Frances ’s perversity.
    ‘But have you had a really good look at her?’ Frances insists. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t mistake her for thirty, would you? She looks every day of forty. Actually she looks more than forty, because you’d expect her to look so much better with all that money and make-up. She’s got lines round her mouth. Now, look at me, do I have lines round my mouth?’
    She smiles a big false smile.
    ‘But she’s suffered,’ says Nell, thinking that Frances is being a little unfair on Jerry.
    ‘I would suffer for all those riches,’ says Frances .
    ‘Would you?’ Nell says. ‘I don’t think money makes up for a broken marriage.’
    ‘Hey, he is Mick Jagger , you know,’ says Frances .

    On the lower level of the promenade, the cafés and fortune tellers’ kiosks are still closed up for the winter. A single metal café chair scrapes along the ground, blown about by whirlwinds of sand.
    Nell and Frances sit down side by side on a small wall, hugging their coats around them while Lucy runs along, with her hood up and her eyes down, scouring the beach for unusual stones.
    The coldness of the concrete seeps into Nell’s thighs and lower back.
    ‘Have you noticed,’ Frances says, ‘that on a beach, girls always look for pretty things to collect and boys always throw stones into the sea? They’re still hunter-gatherers even though they generally gather in Gap Kids and hunt in McDonald’s.’
    ‘That’s rather good,’ says Nell. ‘Do you mind if I use it in my next column?’
    ‘Be my guest! Course, women have to hunt too these days...’ Frances says.
    ‘But men haven’t really learned to gather, have they?’ Nell finishes her sentence for her.
    Frances laughs.
    ‘I wouldn’t mind if men could really do the hunting stuff properly. But women have to do that too,’ says Frances . ‘Does Alexander mind appearing in your column as a useless git who spends all his time reading the paper?’
    ‘God, that’s not how it comes across, is it?’
    ‘That’s why the column’s so popular,’ Frances says. ‘Because it reflects most women’s experience of men.’
    ‘Maybe I’d better skip the hunter-gatherers, then.’
    ‘I thought you were writing about your colour lady?’
    ‘Actually, I’m finding that a bit close to home too.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Just something she said.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You’ll only mock.’
    ‘Promise I won’t.’
    ‘She said that there was going to be an opportunity for change soon.’
    Nell realizes as soon as she’s said it how idiotic it sounds. ‘Something momentous,’ she adds, to convince herself as much as Frances .
    The woman had guessed that Nell was unhappy. Whether she saw it in her aura, or in her eyes, Nell does not know, but she was impressed that someone who had no previous knowledge of her wasn’t fooled by the smiling façade.
    ‘Something will