Perfect Day

that it was a one-off. She did quite a good impersonation of the woman in Fatal Attraction...’
    A giggle that’s both nervousness and relief bubbles out of Nell’s mouth.
    ‘So it wasn’t just fate that made us bump into you in the Philippines ? It wasn’t destiny.’
    ‘No, I think it was probably Frances ,’ Alexander says. ‘Does that make a difference?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    It somehow seems significant, but she can’t think why.
    ‘I love you,’ Alexander says.
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
    ‘For what?’ Nell says.
    ‘For lots of things,’ he says.
    ‘Did you have other girlfriends?’ she asks.
    It’s weird talking in the dark on their own doorstep, but it feels easier than going inside, somehow.
    ‘In Tokyo ?’
    ‘In Tokyo , yes, well, anywhere... before you met me?’
    ‘I never really had a proper relationship until I met you,’ he says.
    How strange to find this out now, after seven years of knowing him. She has always assumed that there are great unresolved passions in Alexander’s past, but she never dared to ask before. It’s odd to learn that the person you thought you knew is different. Rather nice.
    She puts the key in the door of their home.
    She thinks of the moment she saw him this evening at Greenwich , his smile so incandescent it made her remember how thrilling it had been to love him.
    As they walk through the door together, she takes his hand, just for a moment, as he did hers, and she looks at him, and she wants to say: I know you’re trying. I am too.
    He squeezes her hand back tight, as if he knows that he’s nearly lost her and wants to hang on to her now.
    She does not turn away from his kiss, but the kiss she returns is as brief as the ones she gives to Lucy when she drops her at school when the bell has already rung and her class is lined up and about to go in.
    ‘I’d better ring Frances ,’ she says, taking her hand from his grip.
    Alexander takes off his leather jacket and chucks it onto the sofa. His keys, a handful of coins, his passport and a sock all cascade out of one of the pockets onto the floor. She sometimes thinks that Alexander looks as if he’s carrying the whole world on his shoulders because he actually is.
    He looks at the mess, then at her. There’s real anxiety in his eyes. She’s horrified to think that she is usually so strict and fastidious.
    She picks up the phone and dials Frances ’s number.
    Alexander wanders into the kitchen, opens the fridge. He pulls out the bottle of champagne, looks at the label, turns around and holds it up to her like a question.
    She shakes her head in reply.
    He replaces it.
    ‘Hello?’
    Frances sounds as if she’s drunk.
    ‘Frances, it’s Nell. I’m just ringing to tell you that Alexander is OK.’
    As she replaces the receiver, she hears Frances crying, ‘Nell? Nell?’

    ‘We thought you were in the train crash.’
    Nell walks into the kitchen where Alexander’s drinking milk straight from a two-litre bottle. He swallows.
    ‘I caught the earlier train,’ he says.
    ‘You said.’
    ‘I was lucky.’
    ‘It’s weird to think... horrible...’
    ‘Yes.’
    He has reverted to monosyllables. Nell wonders if his earlier garrulousness was a kind of survivor euphoria that will now be followed by sombre guilt.
    ‘So you went to the park?’ she says brightly.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Which one?’
    ‘Regent’s.’
    ‘It was a perfect day, wasn’t it?’ she says, remembering the seafront, the biting wind, the sky so blue and the sun so bright it made rainbows on the watery surface of her eyes.
    Alexander’s face freezes as if she’s said something so shocking he’s not sure that he’s understood her.
    ‘I meant the weather,’ she says, quickly. How could she talk about perfection on a day when so many people have perished?
    Alexander turns his back on her to fill the kettle.
    ‘Shall I make some tea?’ he asks.
    She can see his reflection in the kitchen window. His hands are trembling.
    She feels terrible.
    ‘I think I’d just like some water. I’m so exhausted, I can’t think,’ she says, trying to explain how it came out like that. She didn’t mean to sound so callous.
    ‘Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll bring you a glass up,’ he offers.
    It’s a small gesture of kindness, but it fills her with a disproportionate sense of gratitude.
    ‘Thank you!’ she says.

    Nell looks at her body in the mirror on the back of the bedroom door. Her breasts are already