Perfect Day

the top of the phone, feeling her face break into a smile. ‘It’s engaged.’
    He’s there! He’s home! It’s going to be OK!
    The adrenalin of excitement flows through her body like the first sip of champagne.
    ’Try again,’ Frances says.
    Nell presses out the number carefully.
    ‘Press redial,’ Frances says, impatiently.
    ‘I never quite trust redial,’ Nell says. ‘It’s giving me a message. The number knows I’m waiting! Come on, Alex, put down the phone!’
    ‘Press five. Now put the phone down,’ Frances instructs.
    Almost instantly, Frances ’s phone rings. Three short bleeps.
    Nell looks at it.
    ‘Pick it up!’
    She does as she’s told.
    ‘Now, it should be ringing.’
    ‘It is.’
    ‘It’s ringing your number back.’
    Nell waits and listens. The phone at home is ringing, and ringing, and ringing.
    ‘Come on!’
    The ringing sounds hollow, as if it is happening in an empty room.
    ‘It’s still ringing,’ she says.
    After a few minutes Frances takes the receiver from her and replaces it.
    ‘There’s nobody there,’ Nell says, disbelievingly.
    ‘Your phone must have been engaged because someone was ringing you at the same time.’
    ‘Alexander?’ Nell says, hopefully.
    ‘Could be.’
    ‘Well, who else could it have been?’ she demands.
    Frances doesn’t say anything but shrugs.
    What’s the point in asking her for reassurance she hasn’t the power to give?
    It could have been anyone. It could have been a friend who’s worried, or even a friend who doesn’t know calling for a chat, or her mother. It could have been the police.
    It occurs to Nell that she experienced exactly this panic of dread when she was waiting for Alexander to come home last night. But then he arrived. The anxiety was just as strong, but it didn’t mean anything. This pressing sense of dread doesn’t mean anything. Unless last night was a sort of presentiment. She doesn’t believe in things like that.
    ‘You wouldn’t expect him to be home though yet, would you?’ Frances asks.
    ‘It would be unusual, on a Friday,’ Nell agrees. ‘If he’s OK, I’m sure he would call if he heard the news. The answerphone’s not even on. I must have switched it over when I was sending a fax yesterday. So if he’s called he won’t have been able to leave a message, and he’ll be wondering where we are. Oh God! If only I’d left the answerphone on, I think there’s a way you can call it and pick up your messages...’
    ‘There’s no point in feeling guilty about things you didn’t do,’ Frances says. The words have an unpleasant edge to them, as if she’s implying something else.
    ‘I don’t suppose you know how to retrieve your messages anyway, do you?’ she asks.
    ‘No,’ Nell admits, cursing her own technophobia.
    ‘What did the emergency number say?’ Frances asks.
    ‘They took my details. They said they’d be in touch if there was anything. It might have been them calling just now.’
    ‘Who else might know where he is? Come on, think. How about one of the teachers?’ Frances chivvies her.
    ‘I know one or two of them a bit. I don’t have their numbers in my head.’
    ‘Names?’
    ‘Vivienne... only first names... wait a minute.’
    Nell puts her head in her hands, trying to think of any occasion when Alexander might have used a colleague’s surname. There’s Mel, she remembers, and Malcolm, but that’s as far as she gets.
    ‘Mummy, what’s the matter?’
    Lucy’s face is peeking through the double doors, anxiously.
    ‘Nothing, darling.’ Nell sits up, as if she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t. ‘Why don’t you play with Lizzy Angel for a little while? I’ve just got to make a couple more calls, and then we’ll go home.’
    ‘ Lizzy Angel!’ says Lucy delighted. ‘Where is she?’
    After a thorough search of both rooms, Frances remembers that they were playing in the garden. Lizzy Angel is retrieved, slightly damp, and is introduced to Fizz Tweeny .
    ‘Now, it is extremely silly of you to go out on a cold night without a coat on,’ Lucy scolds.
    ‘Sorry,’ says the doll in Lucy’s doll voice.
    ‘Come on, let’s do some dancing to warm you up.’
    Lucy disappears into the front room.
    ‘Come on, think logically,’ says Frances . ‘If he’s rung and you’re not there, who would he ring? Your mother?’
    ‘Maybe,’ says Nell uncertainly.
    ‘What’s her number?’ Frances has the phone in her hands. She dials the digits as Nell says