Perfect Day

really isn’t an authority on the subject.
    Marie struts across the room and switches on the radio. ‘Terrible about this train crash, isn’t it?’ she says.
    ‘Yes,’ Alexander agrees.
    ‘You wouldn’t believe they could let it happen again, would you?’
    ‘No.’
    The disc jockey is just finishing the weather.
    ‘Shit,’ says Marie and switches the radio off.
    Her fidgetiness is rubbing off on Alexander. His damp back itches. ‘I’ll be off, then,’ he says.
    ‘Not on my account,’ Marie says, glancing at the bedside drawers. ‘I’ve just come back to pick something up.’
    Alexander pulls out the bath plug and makes a performance of folding the towel so that he doesn’t have to look at what Marie’s up to. From the way she’s shielding what she’s doing, he thinks there must be an esoteric sex toy in the drawer, or perhaps it’s a drug stash. For the first time in this weird room, he experiences a frisson of fear.
    ‘Well, then,’ Marie says, turning round with a big satisfied smile that shows she’s found what she’s looking for. ‘Have a nice evening!’
    She sashays to the door.
    ‘Oh, and Alexander,’ she says, ridiculing his name with a ludicrous posh accent, ‘don’t muck my sister around or you’ll have me after you.’
    It’s halfway between intimidation and invitation.
    He listens to her heels tapping down the stairs. He’s sweating, and his heart is beating fast.
    He must go.
    Reality blew back into the room with Marie and it’s lingered with the smell of her perfume and the artificial light from the single bulb that dangles from the ceiling. The sisters look so alike that now if he tries to think about Kate he can only see Marie’s knowing smile.
    He rushes to the door, grabs at the Yale. Stops. When the door closes, he will not be able to come back in.
    He puts his feet into his shoes, picks up his heavy jacket, shoves his socks into the outer pockets, gives the room a final once-over: the painted window, the improbable tented bed.
    This is it. This is the impetus he needed to say goodbye.
    His eyes fall on the plastic carrier bag containing a pair of kitten-heel mules, and Sasha’s Magic Carpet. He takes the book out, hunts in his inside pocket for a biro, opens the book at the front page where there’s a rectangular box with a fringe drawn round like the tassels of a carpet.
    Printed in the box is the message, ‘This book belongs to...’ And there are two empty lines beneath.
    Alexander scrawls ‘Kate’ on the first, and below it, after a second’s thought, he writes, ‘Thanks for giving me back my life! Love, Alexander.’
    He imagines her reading it, crying a little, flinging it across the room in anger, then retrieving it, reading it again, trying to work out the meaning of what he has written. He kind of likes the idea of her face frowning as she grapples with a message she will never properly understand.

Twenty-two

    ‘Who?’ Frances wants to know.
    In the next room, Nell can hear the theme music for Neighbours. She doesn’t usually let Lucy watch it, but it probably won’t do any harm just this once.
    ‘We haven’t done anything about it, yet... well, not really...’ she says, finally.
    ‘But who is it?’
    ‘I’m surprised you haven’t guessed.’
    ‘Guessed?’
    Nell thinks about his face, smiling. She thinks how much he would love it that she was telling someone, how he would see it as a step forward. She hesitates. Is it an irreversible step once she takes it? Or is it inevitable anyway, whatever she does or says?
    ‘It’s Chris,’ she says quietly.
    ‘Chris?’ Frances echoes, bewildered.
    ‘Ben’s father,’ Nell whispers.
    ‘Do I know Ben?’
    Nell’s impatient. Did Frances really expect it to be someone she knew?
    ‘Ben. Lucy’s beau.’
    ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe it! Like daughter, like mother!’
    Frances squeals so loudly Nell’s fearful Lucy will hear and want to join in with the excitement. She’s momentarily stunned by the gleefulness of the expression on her friend’s face, which seems somehow inappropriate.
    ‘And what does Chris do?’ Frances asks, more seriously.
    ‘He’s a cabinetmaker.’
    ‘Oh yes, you said. Is that really a carpenter?’
    ‘He wasn’t always a carpenter,’ Nell feels obliged to explain. ‘He was a foreign exchange dealer, but he’d had enough. So, when they had Ben, he decided to look after him and set up his own business. His wife still works in the City.’
    ‘Ah,