Perfect Day

colour as the dogs’ coats, white with a sort of yellow tinge, like a nicotine stain. The woman stares back as Kate’s eyes fall on her. Slightly changing her orientation, she walks towards the bench they’re sitting on.
    ‘It is Alexander, isn’t it?’
    Alexander’s hand drops instantly, tellingly, from Kate’s shoulder.
    ‘Hello!’ he says, jumping up, his face all huge, false delight.
    ‘You’re back in your old stamping ground, are you?’ says Tweed , in a loud, posh voice.
    ‘Just for today,’ he says.
    The dogs yap around Kate’s ankles as if they can tell she’s an impostor. She doesn’t know whether to stand up or remain seated.
    ‘Lovely day!’ Tweed says.
    ‘Lovely!’ Alexander repeats. He looks up at the sky.
    ‘Well...’ says the woman.
    ‘We’d better be getting along,’ Alexander says to Kate.
    ‘Yes,’ she says, standing up, and even though it’s only one word, she knows that Tweed has picked up her accent and slotted it into the profile she is creating that already has her clothes and age recorded.
    At the same moment as Alexander turns to walk away from the woman, Kate takes a step towards her as if to pass her.
    ‘Better decide which way you’re going,’ says Tweed .
    It’s probably just a casual remark, but it sounds as if she’s chosen the words for maximum innuendo.
    Alexander does an about-turn and hurries after Kate.
    ‘Sorry about that,’ he says, as he catches her up.
    ‘About what?’
    She’s walking very fast and determined not to look at him.
    ‘About not introducing you. I couldn’t remember her name.’
    ‘Really?’ she says sarcastically. ‘Can you remember mine?’
    ‘Kate...’
    He looks so mortified that she wants to snatch back her sarcasm, but she doesn’t believe he has forgotten the woman’s name.
    ‘She was a friend of my mother’s. Except they hated each other. You know how it is sometimes?’
    ‘No, I don’t know how it is sometimes,’ Kate says.
    He stops walking. She stops too. Glares at him.
    ‘What’s up?’ he asks.
    ‘You were embarrassed by me,’ she says.
    ‘No.’
    ‘She looked at me like I was something the dog dragged in,’ Kate says.
    It sounds absurd given the insect-sized dogs the woman was with.
    ‘What do you think those dogs are capable of bringing in?’ Alexander asks, tuning into her thought. ‘A letter?’
    ‘A leaf?’ Kate joins in.
    ‘She looked at you like you were a leaf. That’s terrible!’
    ‘An ice-lolly wrapper?’
    ‘Oh dear!’
    ‘You know what I mean!’ Kate protests. But her anger’s gone now.
    ‘I think she was a magistrate,’ Alexander says, as they start walking again. ‘She looks at everyone as if they’re a young offender.’
    ‘Look, there’s a black swan!’ says Kate, pointing across the lake.
    They’ve just had their first argument!
    ‘Would you like to go rowing?’ he asks, as if he’s offering her a treat as a kind of apology.
    ‘I don’t know how to row,’ she says, eyeing the lake warily.
    ‘The point is that I row. You just sit looking picturesque,’ says Alexander.
    The unexpected compliment gives her the confidence to say, echoing his nice pronunciation, ‘The point is that I can’t swim.’
    ‘I expect they have life jackets,’ Alexander says. ‘And if you fall in, I’ll save you.’
    He puts his arm around her again.
    ‘That sounds like the lyric to a song,’ she says, brightly; then, before she can stop herself, ‘If we were a song, what song do you think we would be?’

Sixteen

    Alexander wonders whether Kate’s desire to define their relationship is a girls’ thing, or simply a human impulse he’s trying to deny. He wants only to experience being with her in the present. Maybe it’s just that she’s more honest than he is. He finds it easier to let things go along, not lying, but not telling the truth either, but he knows that they’re close to the limit of behaving as if they have no past and no future. They already have half a day’s history together.
    How strange it is that she asked whether this is just sex, because the sex felt like it was so many things. Amazing, uplifting, profound, stripped-bare, dangerous, tender.
    He looks at Kate. Curious Kate. Kate who wants to know what he’s thinking. He wants to reassure her that it isn’t just the surface of her that he likes, although he does like the surface very much, and the way her emotions seem so close to it, as if she’s lacking a layer of protection. He likes