The evening was set to be balmy, perfect for a picnic, even one destined to end in disaster. Light was dappling in the sloping back garden, enormous for London, and it had rarely looked so lovely. A glass of white wine stood gleaming on the window-ledge, chasing shadows across its surface. A squirrel hot-footed it across the lawn.
Juliette stood at her state-of-the-art white sink looking out of the window fuming, ignoring the too-loud sounds of children misbehaving. Stephen had just called, and he would be home late again, although he’d promised he’d be back by six. He knew she was going out with her friends, and she really didn’t want to be late for once. Her children were sat at the table behind her, throwing their food around like hand grenades, and she just didn’t have the energy to stop them. She’d been effectively a single mother (apart from the nanny of course) all week, and she was tired of it now. She trusted Stephen, he was way too obsessed with his job to have time for affairs, but she was sick of taking second place to his career. He was only editor of a newspaper, she always used to remind him when they still had that kind of relationship (you know, the one where people talk, really properly talk). No-one died, she’d joke, but then he would remind her that people did, that the stories he told could wreck or make a life, depending on his whim (or perhaps savagery, she’d thought) at the time. She often wondered how she could have married such a man – maybe it was because she’d met him when they were both students at university, before she’d had time to grow into who she wanted to be, instead of who he wanted her to be. He’d been behind her at the queue for the pay phones and they’d just got chatting, and she’d thought he was nice enough, but not like that at the time, he’d been wearing a rugby shirt for a start. And after that they’d said hello to each other around campus, in that polite way where you don’t really know someone, until eventually one night he’d come and chatted to her in the student bar and, despite them both knowing he was doing well for himself, that had been that. And although he was keener than she was, before she knew it they were seeing each other every day, until somehow by the final year they were even living together in a shared house, and despite a brief split when he’d gone to America after they graduated, once he came back he’d pursued her until she’d succumbed again. And when they both moved to London, he’d thought they may as well get a place together, they could just about afford a studio if they both pitched in, he’d said, and somehow she found herself agreeing, and then she’d never quite got around to dumping him again. And so here they were now, over two decades later, married with three children and happy, apparently. Juliette couldn’t complain from a material point of view – the rented studio was long gone, their house was done up and beautiful, the kids were in private school, they had a place in Italy, and Stephen was making loads from his career, especially now he’d become a quasi-celebrity, appearing on late-night game shows and being asked to present televised awards events. It was odd how other people always found him funnier than she ever had.
Juliette kept her back to her children and thought about the evening ahead. She was meeting up with five of her oldest friends from university – every summer they got together, and although they had all been so close once, that was a long time ago now. Privately she thought that these occasions felt uncomfortably forced these days, there were far too many conversational no-go zones for a start, and she still found it hard to see Renée especially – but she wanted to go, for Sissy mainly, although she wasn’t even sure if Sissy would be happy to see her, not after what had happened. This year they were having a picnic in Hyde Park, and it wouldn’t be some half-hearted affair, but a traditional picnic, with old-fashioned dishes like coronation chicken and home-made potato salad served in handmade Italian bowls on real china plates with knives and forks, no plastic rubbish. It was all too heavy to carry really, but her friend Camilla was posh and liked to do these things properly, and so everyone indulged her, of course. Even when they’d been students a few bought pork pies and a family bag of Twiglets would never do in Camilla’s book. It was all such a lot of work, but Juliette had acquiesced as usual. And it wasn’t cold or raining for a change, so hopefully they’d all enjoy it.
Juliette turned wearily from the sink, exhausted suddenly by the thought of seeing everyone, fed up with her husband for letting her down again, and as she looked across to the table she felt her back stiffen.
‘Noah, put that bowl down, darling.’ Her tone was pleasant, cajoling. Her middle son pretended not to hear her.
‘Noah, I said put it down, please.’ He lifted the bowl further off the table and, ignoring her still, raised it to shoulder height.
‘Put it down, Noah.’ Her tone was becoming strained. Noah smirked at her, took aim.
‘NOAH! Will you put that bowl down NOW,’ she yelled, as he was about to fling the yoghurt at his little brother, who was racing, screaming, out of the kitchen to avoid it.
Noah looked at Juliette and his expression was one of reciprocal hostility, a look she was becoming used to. He hesitated, went to put it down as requested, and then just as it touched the solid oak table, he changed his mind and flung it anyway.
Juliette stared into her wine glass as she counted to ten. Then she walked without speaking over to the spattered yoghurt, its garish patterns perversely making her think of the markings on some type of cow (Friesian, she thought, or was it piebald?), and she picked the melamine bowl out of the pink bovine-shaped mess as if it were contaminated, and took it to the sink and put it down, too calmly now. The two children still in the kitchen (Jack had escaped unmarked and hadn’t reappeared) sat at the table motionless, watching their mother – the magenta violence of the incident had shocked them all, and none of them was sure which way this would go. Finally she turned to Noah and said wearily, ‘Go to your room,’ before she pushed her tumble of hair behind her delicate ears, went down on her delightful knees and got busy with the dishcloth – they’d run out of kitchen roll, and Mrs Redfern had left for the day.