Perfect Day

her walk which expresses her mood, and her vitality even when she’s quiet. She brings to mind distant science lessons about electricity — the potential that is always there, ready to be switched on, and she’s got so much energy stored that some of it can’t help spilling out, filling the space around her with shimmering possibility.
    He knows that if he says all this, she will only ask for more.
    Women always want more.

    The wooden scrape of oars twisting in rowlocks and the slop of the blade pulling through water is soothing for him, but he’s aware that her small body seated stiffly on the plank opposite him is getting more and more rigid the further they glide away from land. He’s half tempted to rock the boat a little, to scare her in a boyish prank, but she’s proud and she would find it humiliating to have her fear exposed.
    Close up, the water looks dirty and has a faintly stagnant smell.
    ‘Is it difficult, rowing?’ she asks.
    ‘Not when you get the hang of it. D’you want to have ago?’
    ‘No!’
    The word comes out with several syllables and much shaking of head.
    ‘You should learn to swim.’
    ‘I know.’ She stares at the water as if she can see something very interesting about four feet under it. Then she looks straight at him.
    ‘My dad drowned.’ She says it so matter-of-factly that for a moment he thinks she’s joking.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ashamed now for making her come onto the water. ‘You should’ve said.’
    ‘He didn’t drown in a lake,’ she says, staring at the water. ‘He was drunk. He fell over, knocked himself unconscious and drowned in a puddle on his way back from the pub. Can you believe that? A puddle! Silly sod!’
    Alexander’s shocked, not just by the revelation, but by the flat, unemotional manner in which she delivers it, which he recognizes as a front for hidden pain.
    ‘How old were you?’
    ‘Fourteen.’
    He pulls the oars up so they’re just drifting in the middle of the lake. His imagination had given her two healthy smiling parents, but it had no reason to.
    ‘Do you still miss him?’ he asks.
    She looks at him with large clear eyes.
    ‘You know when you think about someone you always have one picture that comes up first?’ she says.
    He nods.
    ‘Well, I have this image of us all walking to Mass on Sunday. We’re dressed up in our best clothes. Marie’s wearing this lemon yellow dress which sort of rustled. It was really her party dress, but Mum said she was growing up so fast she might as well get some use out of it...’
    She looks up to see whether he’s still with her.
    He nods.
    ‘... She’s about ten or eleven, just at the point where she’s turning into a woman, but she’s still a little girl, you know, with her hair in bunches, and she’s laughing and skipping along. Suddenly my dad raises his arm and clouts her round the head. Marie just stands there, then she puts her hand up to her ear, and this drop of thick red blood drips onto the puff sleeve of her dress. And it kind of stays there as a blob for ever such a long time and we’re all staring at it, and then suddenly it’s not a blob any more, it’s kind of splatted into the material, spreading out into the fibres, showing up the weave, you know? Then I’m crying and my brothers are terrified thinking they’ll be next. And Marie says to him, really cool like, “ What did you do that for?” And my dad replies, “Nothing. And if that’s what you get for doing nothing, think what you’ll get for doing something!” ’
    Alexander’s been sitting so still, he shivers all over when he shifts position.
    ‘I don’t miss him,’ says Kate. ‘It took a while to get used to him not being there. Not being frightened all the time. No wonder Marie’s like she is. What’s the point in being good if you’re punished for it?’
    Alexander’s thinking about the party dress. He doesn’t know what to say to her.
    ‘Oh, sometimes he was great, you know, but he always spoilt it with violence,’ Kate says.
    Alexander takes up the oars again. His instinct is to start rowing, to make some sound to fill the confessional silence.
    ‘Do you have one image of your mother that you always think of?’ Kate asks.
    Her words seem to come from further away than the end of the boat.
    She’s standing in the kitchen wearing a big purple sweater which hasn’t been washed for a while and the undersides of the sleeves are slightly shiny...
    ‘Yes I do,’ Alexander says,