Siobhan stared at the long brown smear down the left thigh of her coral-pink skinny jeans, the broken cake stand, the torn carrier bag on the ground, and felt like wailing. At least the wine bottle hadn’t broken, instead it was rolling drunkenly towards the gutter, and she managed to catch it just before it dropped off the pavement into Marshall Street. A young man in indigo jeans and a dark shirt, thin white tie arranged just so, black glossy hair swept asymmetrically across one eye, sidestepped the Tupperware as he walked by, his gait almost as graceful as the sweep of the eight Georgian arches that rather improbably made up the facade of the leisure centre she was outside. He studiously ignored the catastrophe that had befallen her, focused instead on the trendy boutiques on the opposite side of the narrow street, as if stopping to help or interact with this dishevelled, slightly deranged-looking woman would be bad for his image.
Shit! Why was it always when she was meeting her university friends that disaster befell her? She was a successful career woman these days: a million miles from the girl at college they’d known, the one who was always losing her keys, scoffing her flatmates’ food, forgetting her library card, going to the wrong lectures, mangling her washing. She’d wanted to turn up in Hyde Park looking cool, happy, confident, successful – a shining example of how you don’t need marriage and kids to be a complete, fulfilled person. She’d made a special effort with her hair this morning, had blow-dried it into languid honey-coloured waves (the hideous perm she’d sported at college long gone), and she’d thought her outfit made her look willowy, California-glamorous. She’d even been fine with Camilla’s somewhat long-winded picnic instructions, pleased with her profiteroles, which had risen really well for a change – but now they were strewn halfway across the pavement as well as all down her trousers. She wished Matt were here to help her, but he was miles away, and anyway when she’d tried to ring him earlier his phone had gone straight to voicemail. Again. She remembered the last time she’d spoken to him, four days before, how although she’d tried not to be, she’d been silent and sulky, and she wondered with a pang whether he’d deliberately turned his phone off, was maybe even about to dump her. She wouldn’t blame him if he did – she’d been such a nightmare lately, her fixation on their future, or otherwise, utterly joy-sapping. What was wrong with her? Why did she always manage to push men away, especially the nicest ones, the ones she liked the most?
Siobhan felt even more miserable now, and wondered whether she should just ring Sissy and cancel – Sissy wouldn’t give her a hard time, out of all of her friends she’d be the one to understand. She felt so inadequate turning up like this, plus she didn’t really know where she was going, and it would take ages to get there on the Tube. She wanted to go home, get into her pyjamas and watch something slushy on the telly that she could have a good cry to, that always helped. Work had been so stressful today – although she was pleased she’d been promoted again she wondered whether she could cope with her new job, and she found the high-octane aggressiveness of her boss exhausting sometimes. Advertising sales was a tough business, no matter that everyone else said it was just talking.
In the end Siobhan bent down and rescued what profiteroles she could, relieved she’d made so many. The rest she kicked into the gutter. She picked up the broken pieces of the cake stand and grimaced as she threw them in the bin. She put the lid back onto the Tupperware, retrieved the wine and rammed it into the depths of her handbag, placed the box of profiteroles back in the carrier bag, and slung the fold-up stool over her shoulder. It was such lovely weather, and it would be great to see everyone – hopefully they’d not tease her too much for a change, she wasn’t in the mood for it today. She was also a little worried about how Juliette and Renée would be with each other – normally one or other of them managed to make some last-minute excuse, but according to Camilla they were both definitely coming this year. Siobhan checked her phone one last time – just in case Matt had called after all – and then she tottered in her cream-smeared heels in the direction of the Tube station, positioning the carrier bag carefully in front of the stain on her jeans, hoping no-one would notice.