Kit: The Picnic Problem

I had asked Nell about food because it was a normal thing to ask before a picnic. I had then spent forty minutes deciding what to bring, which was less normal.

Mum watched me take two tomatoes out of the fridge, put one back and take it out again.

“Are you feeding her or conducting a trial?”

“We have to record the cost.”

“The tomato's not going to confess.”

I made couscous because it travelled better than a sandwich and because Nell had once said she liked the lemony version Mum made. I remembered this from a school trip when we were thirteen. There were parts of the periodic table I had studied far more recently and could not recall with anything like the same confidence.

At the bandstand, Nell was already spreading a blanket over the grass. She wore a yellow jumper despite the warmth and had brought a large bag containing, among other things, four forks.

“There are two of us,” I said.

“One could fall on the ground.”

“And the fourth?”

“Emotional support.”

We picked a spot within sight of the bandstand rather than on it. A dance group had booked the space, and the instructor was leading six people through steps that looked straightforward until their arms got involved. Nell quietly tried one while unpacking the bread.

“Don't photograph that.”

“I wasn't going to.”

“You were considering it.”

“I consider lots of things.”

She looked up quickly, then concentrated on opening the hummus.

We did the practical work first. The grass was not a useful promise of level ground. There were benches on the paved edge, a bus stop nearby and no public bin close enough to rely on. The bandstand was not always available. The nearest tap was inside a business, not a free public facility. We recorded what we could verify and left the rest out.

Then the guide stopped giving us tasks.

Nell passed me a piece of bread. “This is the moment in a film when somebody says something that changes the whole summer.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Only if it's not that you've brought olives.”

“I've brought olives.”

She closed her eyes. “Devastating.”

We ate. A little boy on a scooter went past, followed by a father carrying a second scooter, two coats and the expression of someone who had misunderstood the booking. The dance group started again. A woman in a red T-shirt got the steps right and looked so pleased that Nell and I both smiled.

“What would you put in a guide to somewhere you didn't live?” she asked.

“I'd ask people who did.”

“Annoyingly responsible answer.”

“Why?”

“I was thinking about Manchester.”

I put the lid on the couscous. “I've got a list of things to check.”

“Of course you have.”

“Not interesting things. Buses. The kitchen in the accommodation. Whether the course equipment can be borrowed outside lessons.”

“Those are interesting if you're going to live there.”

I looked at her. She was brushing crumbs from the blanket into her hand, carefully, as if the answer wasn't costing her anything.

“What about you?” I asked.

“What about me?”

“After next year.”

“University, maybe. Or an apprenticeship, if I can find one that isn't mostly answering phones under the word creative. I want to write about actual things. Not just produce six hundred words about why autumn is cosy because somebody has bought advertising space for scarves.”

“You'd make the scarves funny.”

“That is exactly the danger.”

She told me she'd applied to the Beacon. Her tone was casual enough to show how much she cared.

“They'd be lucky,” I said.

“You haven't read my application.”

“I've read you.”

She stopped folding the bread bag.

I hadn't meant it as a line. That was the trouble with telling the truth around Nell: sometimes it sounded more deliberate than I intended.

A gust lifted the corner of the blanket. We both reached to hold it down. Her hand landed over mine.

Neither of us moved.

The instructor at the bandstand shouted, “And turn!”

Nell laughed once, nervously. “Not helpful.”

I turned my hand under hers. She let her fingers rest between mine.

It wasn't dramatic. There were crumbs on my knee. An olive had escaped onto the blanket. Somewhere behind us, the little boy was refusing to return the scooter his father had finally put down.

“Is this still the test?” Nell asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

I looked at her mouth. She looked at mine. The space between us became something I could measure in every part of my body except the useful mathematical one.

Then her phone rang.

She flinched and let go.

“Sorry. It might be Ollie. Mum's at work.”

“Answer it.”

It was Ollie. He had locked himself out, which would have been manageable if he hadn't also left the spare key on the inside of the door after using it to let a friend in. Nell listened with the expression of someone revising a long-standing theory about siblings.

“Yes, stay in the garden. No, don't climb through anything. I mean anything, Oliver.”

She ended the call.

“I have to—”

“I know.”

We packed quickly. The olives went back into their box. Nell shook the blanket while I collected the containers. I wanted to ask her to wait one more minute, but her brother was sitting outside their house and romance did not make that less true.

At the park gate, she stopped.

“Kit.”

“Yes?”

“That wasn't just because we were talking about films.”

“I didn't think it was.”

“I just wanted to make sure.”

She stepped closer, put her hand briefly against my arm and then took it away.

“I'll call you later.”

I watched her hurry down the path, yellow jumper bright between the trees. Then I checked that we hadn't left any litter and found the fourth fork in the grass.

I took it home. It sat on my desk all evening, a ridiculous object to be happy about.