Perfect Day

deckchair.
    ‘Ben is just a friend,’ says Lucy, loudly, anxious not to lose command of the conversation. Adults have a way of getting sidetracked.
    ‘Ben has a beautiful house just for him, with a garden, and everything.’
    ‘Sounds like a good prospect.’
    ‘Ben’s daddy is a cabinetmaker,’ Nell explains to Frances . ‘He’s made him a sort of Wendy house in the garden with a little picket fence and a flowerbed where they plant seeds and dig them up again to check what’s wrong when they don’t start growing immediately.’
    ‘Chris is going to build me a castle this summer,’ Lucy announces.
    This is news to Nell.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘In our garden,’ Lucy says.
    ‘Is he indeed?’ Nell feels herself flushing with irritation. ‘Well, we’ll have to see about that.’
    It’s peculiar how readily phrases emerge from her lips that used to sound so unreasonable when her parents said them.
    ‘A castle in the garden!’ Frances says.
    ‘So I can be a real princess.’
    Lucy is talking directly to Frances now, intuitively sensing that she is the more sympathetic audience for this particular story.
    ‘It’s going to have battlements and a tower and a moat...’
    ‘Not a moat!’ Nell says.
    ‘And will Chris be your handsome prince?’ Frances asks, getting into the excitement of the project.
    ‘Not Chris!’ Lucy explains. ‘Chris is Ben’s daddy!’
    ‘Sorry. I meant , will Ben be your handsome prince?’
    Lucy gives this question some thought.
    ‘Ben likes being Batman best. Or Buzz Lightyear ... Chris made Ben a real Buzz Lightyear outfit! With wings, and everything!’
    ‘And can he fly?’
    ‘No,’ Lucy corrects her, ‘but he can fall with style, can’t he, Mummy?’
    She takes a very serious lick of her lolly.

    The noise in the amusement arcade is so loud it’s like an electronic torture chamber. Most of the machines are for teenage boys. One boy, who cannot be more than twelve, is summarily executing real-looking terrorists who leap out menacingly on a video screen, felling them with shots from the pump-action machine gun. Another youth is standing on a hydraulic surfboard, a lit cigarette in his mouth, riding imaginary waves. There is nothing suitable for a small child except a glass case which houses a claw that grabs ineffectively at the mound of soft toys inside.
    ‘Can I have a go?’ Lucy says, her eyes gleaming acquisitively at the toys.
    ‘Come on,’ Frances says, putting in a twenty pence coin. ‘Now look, you just get two goes. This moves the crane away and this moves it along.’
    She crouches down beside Lucy.
    Carefully, Lucy does as she’s told. Nell watches the series of emotions on her face as the claw drops, opens, closes round the head of an imitation Tele-tubby, then fails to pick it up.
    ‘You never win anything from these things,’ Nell says, ‘they’re just a waste of money, darling.’
    ‘But I almost got it,’ Lucy says.
    ‘You’re a bit old for Teletubbies anyway,’ Nell says, trying to move away.
    ‘I do like Tweenies though,’ Lucy says, looking longingly at the next cabinet.
    ‘All right, one pound. You can have five goes. And that’s it.’
    Nell hands over the money. Lucy puts it in.
    ‘Did these places used to be so awful?’ Nell says to Frances . ‘I seem to remember betting on little horses that jerked along a racetrack. At least you had some chance of winning.’
    She sees Frances ’s face.
    ‘OK, don’t say it. Middle-aged.’
    They both watch Lucy concentrate on her futile task. The claw goes down again. Fizz Tweeny slips away.
    ‘Last go,’ says Frances . ‘Do you want a bit of help?’
    ‘No.’
    Lucy is determined to beat the machine on her own .
    The claw goes down again. Miraculously it holds Fizz Tweeny’s head. The brightly coloured little doll is lifted precariously into the air.
    Nell is transfixed. It’s such an unexpected bit of luck that she suddenly feels as if their fate is hanging in mid-air.
    Don’t drop, please don’t drop, she pleads silently.
    The claw hovers shakily for what seems like a long time, then opens and Fizz Tweeny falls. There’s a satisfying clunk as she’s discharged down the prize chute.
    ‘You’ve won! My God, you’ve won!’ she says, hugging Lucy. ‘That’s so lucky, we should make a wish together...’
    She closes her eyes tightly.
    ‘It’s only a toy, Mummy,’ says Lucy, giving Fizz a quick kiss.

Eighteen

    Sasha watched the worker ant struggling along with a