Perfect Day

but did not know, her long-limbed body in vest and cutoff jeans so unsophisticated compared to the smart trousers and ironed shirt she always wore to work, her hair loose around her face, not scraped back in a sleek ponytail. When she saw him, her face lit up like a lottery winner unable to believe her good fortune, and he was touched by the transparency of her pleasure.
    He didn’t see Frances at first. If he had, he would probably have tried to get away. And they would have returned separately to Tokyo and continued as before, existing in the same space, never making contact. And his life would have been so much less rich.
    He remembers walking on the beach with Nell that first day they spent alone together, the sensation of sand between his toes, a warm damp wind blowing in his face, and Nell saying, ‘It’s so like you expect a paradise island to be, you can’t believe it’s real, can you?’
    The pure guilelessness of her smile and her golden hair in the sunshine made her breathtakingly beautiful.
    He let his hand reach for hers and connect with her for the first time, and it felt like a watershed in his life, as if he was choosing goodness over cynicism.

    It’s hard to be good.
    Far easier to rail against unfairness, be ground down by routine, live every day under the shadow of nonspecific anger.

    Alexander is halfway down the steps to the South Bank when he realizes that he has lost count of the number of paces it has taken to cross the bridge.
    He gazes back over the water that sparkles like jet, and says, out loud, ‘Sorry!’
    The word floats out over the river, carrying his anger with it, expanding in the air, like smoke, until it’s so finely dispersed, it’s no longer there.

    There’s a cartoon picture of a panicking traveller in the advert above the head of the passenger sitting opposite Alexander.
    Flight in four hours. Plane tickets. Passport. Wallet. Suitcase. Travel insurance???? Instant Quote.
    Alexander imagines calling the company and the operator saying, ‘ Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ Or, ‘When a man is tired of London , he is tired of life.’
    The shoutline of the ad next to it asks:
    Feel like a total change of job?
    It pictures a quartet of men in lounge suits. Three of them are playing cellos, one is shearing a sheep. It’s an arresting image, but Alexander’s not sure whether it’s the sheep shearer who’s always wanted to be a cellist, or the other way round. He tries to imagine how the designer of the ad would make a wacky image of an EFL teacher who wanted a change of career. An image of rows of Japanese students set out like the pins in a bowling alley comes into his mind.
    Further down the carriage another ad announces:
    A message that may change your life...
    The print’s too small for Alexander to read the rest from where he’s sitting. He’s never recognized before how all the adverts on the tube taunt their captive audience with dreams of escape.
    The sound of the train accelerating out of the station is like an aircraft’s engine going down the runway. The carriage is nearly empty apart from the black man opposite who’s wearing a navy wool overcoat over a smart suit. A pale curly line has been shaved out of the close-cut hair on his head, just above the hairline, like an engraving. The frivolousness of such an adornment against the sobriety of the overcoat gives Alexander a little flip of enjoyment.
    Almost every station on the Jubilee line extension offers a promise of future adventure.
    Waterloo for connections to Eurostar . Paris for a weekend, the view from the Sacré Coeur, cassoulet in La Coupole , maybe even EuroDisney .
    Southwark for Tate Modern.
    Alexander imagines Lucy’s serious critical appraisal of Matisse’s Snail.
    ‘Do you know something, Daddy? I did one just like that at school.’
    The view towards St Paul ’s. The wobbly bridge. Shakespeare at the Globe.
    Canary Wharf will be a future history lesson in Thatcher and the follies of capitalism.
    He’s never been aware of the adverts as messages before, nor the stops as destinations. Normally, he stands braced against the invasion of other people’s bodies and breath, trying to let his surroundings intrude as little as possible. Now he lolls in his seat, legs splayed, amazed at his sudden willingness to engage.
    He wonders if this is what people mean when they talk of being born again: a moment of epiphany after which everything that was