Perfect Day

to gloss over the L word.
    Why does saying the word love matter so much? He’s fucked her wearing borrowed Giorgio Armani in a cubicle observed by the entire security team at Selfridges, so what’s so outrageous about telling him that she loves him?
    ‘You’re nothing like Meryl Streep ,’ he says.
    There’s an amused look on his face that makes her feel slightly defensive. She wasn’t claiming to be like Meryl Streep .
    ‘You’re nothing like Robert de Niro ,’ she retaliates. ‘As a matter of fact,’ it occurs to her, ‘in that film, Robert de Niro wasn’t much like Robert de Niro either.’
    ‘So, not at all like today, then?’ he says with a smile that bursts over his face like a firework.
    It’s beautiful enough to change things, his smile, like a spell, or a charm.
    Is that where the idea of people having charm comes from?
    ‘It wasn’t much of a movie,’ he says, after a moment’s thought, ‘because it hadn’t updated the moral dilemma in Brief Encounter, so you didn’t care about the characters. It was like, well, if you’re unhappy, why don’t you just leave?’
    It’s the most she’s heard him say in one breath.
    Perhaps he’s divorced.

    They cross the road into Regent’s Park. They’ve gone quiet again, so she might as well not have asked about films.
    ‘Is this your favourite park?’ she asks.
    Yes/no answer, but what the hell? She’s got to say something.
    ‘I suppose it’s the one I know best,’ he replies.
    ‘I’ve not seen this one yet. I’ve been to Hyde Park ,’ she tells him.
    ‘Regent’s Park is a bit more formal,’ he says, pointing up at the grand white terraces which edge the Outer Circle . ‘I’ve always wondered who lives in these buildings. I remember coming past in a taxi one night when I was a child. It must have been early evening in winter because the curtains weren’t yet drawn and from a distance the windows were all lit up like orange lanterns. When we were closer, I could see chandeliers inside, and people at a party. It was like getting a glimpse into a secret world...’
    Kate pictures his face pressed up against a dark window of the taxi. She can imagine him easily as a five-year-old boy still curious about everything.
    ‘Did you want to be the sort of person who lived there and had the park for a garden?’ she asks.
    His expression changes, like a shutter going down.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ he says.

    There are one or two people in boats on the lake. Sunlight glints across the surface of the water making it look dense, like mercury.
    A bundle of toddler on reins, so well wrapped up in fleecy hat and jacket it’s impossible to tell whether it’s a boy or a girl, is throwing pieces of bread delightedly at an audience of ducks and geese. A pair of swans glide regally up to the bank and the squabbling mass of birds parts before them. The toddler is frightened and trots away.
    ‘Did you know that swans belong to the Queen?’ Kate asks, breaking the intense silence that has fallen on them as they watch the water.
    ‘Yes,’ says Alexander. He stares over the lake. ‘Funny, isn’t it, that there are certain facts that everyone knows, like about swans. It’s trivia that gives you your identity. A Japanese person might be able to speak English really well, but he wouldn’t know about the swans...’
    ‘He would if he’d taken the riverboat to Richmond ,’ Kate tells him. ‘They told us on the commentary.’
    Alexander looks at her with his surprised expression.
    ‘It’s ever so nice down there,’ Kate says, quickly, ‘like countryside.’
    Now he’s laughing.
    Now what’s she said that’s so funny?
    ‘Would you like an ice-cream?’ he asks.
    ‘Yes. All right,’ Kate says.
    He runs off towards a little café at the edge of the lake. Kate sits down on a bench, feeling slightly self-conscious, as if someone’s looking at her, but no-one is.
    On the next bench along, a couple of women are gossiping about the progress of a relationship. Kate’s always surprised by how loudly women in London talk about their love lives in cafés, or walking down the street shouting updates into their mobile phones. It must be because London ’s so big, the chances of being overheard by someone you know are a lot less. She stares at the island in the middle of the lake, trying to look as if she’s not listening to what they’re saying.
    ‘... I mean, if he really didn’t like me at all he wouldn’t have said it, would he?’