Perfect Day

help feeling disappointed.
    ‘You’re allowed to fancy someone, you know,’ Marie tells her. ‘It’s normal.’ She finishes off her lurid drink and spots someone she knows drinking on the other side of the pub. ‘Back in a mo,’ she says.
    The pub’s clientele is mostly gay men. It’s where Marie comes on a night off. There’s little chance of being propositioned. Kate watches her sister flirting exaggeratedly with a grey-haired man in his fifties wearing a lilac polo shirt and his much younger boyfriend who’s wearing a vest and a leather collar with studs around his neck. In London , Kate sometimes sees Marie as other people must see her. Her eyes look huger and bluer than they used to at home because of her cropped hair and the drugs she takes, and her plum-painted mouth is always open, laughing or talking. Marie’s not the sort of person who can walk along the street just listening to her personal stereo: she has to sing along with it. She’s petite, but she’s what people call larger than life, and she’s got a beautiful singing voice. Perhaps one day, someone will discover her.
    The streets of Soho are like extensions to the theatres dotted around. People act like they’re on stage here. At home, they’d call it showing off. Kate expected London to be more serious and monumental. It still takes her breath away when she turns a corner and sees a view, like Trafalgar Square or St Paul ’s Cathedral, that is so familiar it’s unreal. But the rest of it is a never-ending series of urban villages. She likes the fact that you can walk all day and not get to the end of it. She never feels lost exactly, but she has never felt so alone. You need a big personality like Marie to be part of it. Des says she’s turbo-charged.
    Kate could sit on her own in a pub for hours and nobody would say a word to her. She’s had a coffee in Marco’s bar every day since she arrived. On the first day, Marie arranged to meet her there because it was easy to find. She had some explaining to do before Kate saw her room. Kate sat there for two hours waiting and Marco was friendly, but until this afternoon she’s never had a conversation with anyone else.
    Alexander.
    She didn’t really notice him in the restaurant until he smiled. When his face is normal, he looks like he could make someone unhappy. When he smiles, the air around him sparkles. She has an image of him as he followed his crowd out of the restaurant. He’s looking at the sky, enjoying the feeling of sun on his face after the dry chill of the air-conditioning, the heaviness of his jacket hunching his shoulders. He’s with the others, but not with them, somehow. The battered flying jacket with pockets so full they droop makes him look like a teacher.
    But she didn’t know that he was a teacher then. She wonders if her brain’s created the image to fit the facts.
    Marie’s on her way back. She shimmies through the men, unable not to draw attention to herself even amongst a crowd of uninterested guys.
    ‘Listen to this,’ she says, squeezing her bottom onto Kate’s seat. ‘Have you ever had a pigeon on your right shoulder?’
    She points to Kate’s right shoulder.
    ‘No,’ says Kate, warily. It’s bound to be something crude.
    ‘Have you ever had a parrot on your left shoulder?’
    ‘No.’
    Marie points to her mouth.
    ‘I bet you’ve had a cockatoo in there!’
    ‘Gross!’
    Marie’s delighted with herself.
    ‘There’s this club they can get us in,’ she says.
    ‘I want an early night,’ Kate says.
    ‘Oh.’ Marie’s face twists with indecision. Will she try to bully Kate into going with her, or not? ‘You’re right,’ she says, finally, ‘I’m going to be dancing at seven. What do I want to spend the whole night dancing for too?’
    Kate’s surprised, but pleased too, specially when Marie links her as they’re walking back. Sometimes London makes Kate feel as if she’s floating about in a whirl of sensation. The friendly press of a sister’s arm grounds her.
    ‘Des wants me to move in with him,’ Marie remarks, as she puts her key in the lock.
    The sisterly, companiable feeling vanishes. Marie’s clearly been working up to telling Kate that she’ll have to find somewhere else to live. She feels momentarily betrayed, then ashamed of herself. It’s a significant step for Marie to settle down with Des. She should welcome it.
    ‘I don’t like the idea of giving up my freedom,’ Marie says, slumping down on the