Perfect Day

When Frances switches it on, Nell half expects to see the picture in monochrome, but it’s colour, and clear enough. The title music is just finishing and the presenters are sitting on the Blue Peter sofa, smiling at the camera, exuding personality and enthusiasm.
    ‘It’s quite good, actually,’ Nell remarks, perching on the back of the sofa.
    ‘Mummy, please be quiet!’
    The two adults retreat to the kitchen bit and close the double doors so that they can talk without disturbing her.
    ‘There’s this presenter called Simon...’ Nell says.
    Frances pulls a face.
    ‘I always thought that the presenters were supposed to appeal to the children, but now I realize they choose one of the guys specifically to appeal to the mothers,’ Nell tells her.
    ‘Please! They’re half your age!’ says Frances .
    ‘Says the woman who goes to salsa classes. For the dancing, of course. Not the lithe young Latino male bodies...’
    Frances sticks her tongue out at Nell.
    ‘Lithe, young, gay Latino bodies, unfortunately,’ she corrects. She can’t resist a peek through the crack in the double doors. The blond one?’ she asks.
    Tasty or what?’
    ‘Jesus! You’re beginning to sound like a frustrated housewife.’
    The words hang in the air, uncontradicted , as Frances fills a kettle. ‘Maybe you’re the one who should be having an affair,’ she adds mischievously.
    Nell says nothing.
    ‘It’s a pity I’ve got to work,’ Frances says. ‘What I’d really like to do is open a bottle of wine and get totally plastered.’
    ‘Me too,’ Nell agrees.
    Frances bends down, takes a bottle out of the fridge and holds it up by the neck.
    ‘Just one glass?’
    ‘No, I’m driving,’ says Nell.
    ‘Depressing, isn’t it?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Being grown up.’
    ‘Do you find that a glass makes you as pissed as a bottle used to?’
    ‘One glass and I’m anybody’s,’ says Frances , dismally, ‘... if there was anybody’s to be.’
    She puts the bottle back into the fridge.
    ‘What time are you teaching?’ Nell asks her. She feels slightly panicky now. They’re going to have to go home soon and it will be just the same as when they left. Why did she think one day away would change anything?
    ‘First lesson’s at eight, but I’ve got to go in a bit earlier,’ Frances replies. ‘Photocopying to do.’
    ‘Photocopying is something I don’t miss,’ says Nell.
    ‘So what’s going to happen with you and Alexander?’ Frances asks, impatient with small talk. ‘You going to split up?’
    ‘ Jesus , Frances !’ Nell shoots a glance at the double doors. ‘We can’t. We’ve got Lucy...’
    ‘And the new baby,’ Frances adds.
    ‘And the new baby,’ Nell echoes.
    Frances puts her arm around Nell’s shoulder.
    For a moment Nell wallows in the welcome clutch of her friend’s sympathy, but almost instantly she sits up straight, shrugging away Frances ’s embrace. ‘It’s not all Alexander’s fault,’ she says.
    ‘Oh, don’t do that female thing of blaming yourself,’ says Frances , irritably.
    ‘Some of it is my fault,’ says Nell.
    ‘How do you figure that?’ Frances wants to know.
    Which came first? Alexander abandoning her, or her starting to withdraw from him? And does the order of it really matter? And will telling Frances do any good?
    Nell looks at her friend’s eyes and she cannot bear deceiving her any longer.
    She takes a deep breath.
    ‘Because,’ she says, ‘I think I’m in love with someone else.’

Twenty-one

    ‘How do I look?’
    Alexander opens his eyes. He’s been pretending to doze. They’ve tasted and touched each other’s bodies but it’s almost too intimate for him to watch her getting dressed.
    She’s found more underwear in Marie’s drawer. A red satin bra with black lace and matching panties. The panties are loose. She hoiks them up round her waist.
    A thin blade of jealousy slices through his stomach at the thought of anyone else seeing her like that, her small high breasts encased in scarlet satin.
    ‘You’ll get good tips,’ he says.
    ‘I understand Liz Hurley now,’ she says, taking the mirror off the wall and twisting one way then the other to look at herself.
    ‘... I used to think she was a right old tart, but when you wear this stuff, it kind of makes you feel nice.’
    She pulls on her black T-shirt and skirt, and takes some little butterfly clips from inside a cup beside the kettle and pins her hair back with them.
    ‘All