Perfect Day

nothing suspicious about it.
    Nothing to trace him.
    He even has his passport.
    In his pocket, his hand finds the envelope with his passport in it. Why didn’t he take out the passport last night and put it in a drawer?
    It’s like that game show. Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush. The contestants came prepared to fly off to the Bahamas at a moment’s notice if they won the show.
    Money?
    Nell would spot an unauthorized withdrawal from their own joint account the moment the statement arrives, but he has not used the account today. He has paid for everything today with his mother’s debit card. Nell doesn’t even know the joint bank account he has never put into his sole name exists. He hasn’t told her, because she would be so annoyed with him for not sorting it out. Nell likes ends to be tied.
    The logistics are all in place.
    ‘Just one final question and tonight you will be on a plane… ’

    As he approaches the neighbourhood of the school, the streets begin to feel more dangerous.
    This is crazy!
    He wishes that someone he knows would come out of the pub and see him. He slows down, almost dawdling.
    He’ll go in. Malcolm will be inside, drowning his sorrows with Vivienne.
    Amid the fog of cigarette smoke he sees a group of men who have been drinking all afternoon. His eyes scan each table for familiar faces. The men — football fans? A rugby club at the start of a weekend break in London ? — launch into a chorus of ‘Daydream Believer’ by the Monkees . The singing’s so loud it blasts Alexander from the pub like a beery explosion.
    The pizzeria where Kate works is just fifty yards further up on the other side of the street. A man in a white chef’s apron comes out and picks up a swinging sign that has blown over. He sets it down, then goes back inside. A taxi roars past. The sign flaps in its wake. It says open.
    There is a single red tulip in a slim white vase on each of the tables inside. A man and a woman are sitting at a table in the middle of the restaurant with pizzas in front of them, not eating.
    Alexander pretends to be studying the menu that’s taped up at shoulder height inside the window.
    At the back of the restaurant, Kate pops up from behind the metal shelves, with a triumphant smile on her face. She’s been searching for something in a low cupboard and found it. In her left hand there’s a flask of chilli oil with a long neck and a metal spout. Her head bobs along as she walks to the table, throwing back laughter to the man in the chef’s apron who’s whirling a pizza behind the metal shelves. She has a white tea towel tied round her hips.
    Alexander watches the profile of her face, lit by the light above the table, making her look, just for a moment, two dimensional, then the slight frown as she listens to a request from the man. Her mouth moves silently in reply, probably saying something as simple as ‘Anything to go with that?’ but Alexander’s jealous of the man. Kate smiles, tucks a pencil behind her ear. For a second she looks in Alexander’s direction, but doesn’t see him. She bobs away out of sight behind the cappuccino machine.
    Alexander ducks his face behind the menu, feeling guilty to be watching her.
    He loves the way she occupies the space she’s in, the way she moves, the energy that’s contained in her neat outline.
    He knows he must go.
    He crosses the road and walks into a pub.
    There’s a payphone at the back beside a fruit machine that’s alive with flashing lights even though nobody’s playing it. Alexander picks up the receiver. The fruit machine suddenly plays a rushed electronic scale, which makes him jump.
    He puts the receiver back.

Twenty-four

    ‘No answer from the school,’ Nell says. They must have all gone home...’
    Palpitations of fear race across her chest down her arm to her fingers each time she dials a number and melt into numb paralysis when it isn’t answered.
    Each call, she’s stranded between the relief of a little more time to hope, and the frustration of uncertainty.
    ‘Hang on... oh,’ she puts her hand over the mouthpiece, ‘it’s an answerphone ... oh yes, hello. It’s just Nell, calling to see if Alexander’s there. Can you ring me at Frances ’s flat if you are. The number’s...?’
    She repeats the numbers after Frances , then puts the phone down, and looks up at her for more ideas. She doesn’t know what to do next.
    Try home again,’ Frances instructs.
    Nell dials.
    ‘Engaged,’ she says, over