The Picnic

The Picnic

Effie rode her bicycle down the main street with the sun blazing a tattoo into her skin as she pushed on out of town. After clattering down the rough gravel road, she stood her bicycle against a willow and slipped off her red sandals. A gathering of friends sprawled haphazardly across the uneven stones at their favorite spot. With shade from the trees on the bank behind, it was both near enough to the green-blue water to languidly throw stones and call to the children, and close enough to the cars and bicycles which harbored extra towels and books and hats. The cicadas were deafening; all other life lazing, escaping the heat.

“Hey monkeys!” she chattered as she approached, picking her way across to the group.

“About time,” Lenny said, lifting the brim of his wide straw hat. Erika’s twins, all coltish long brown limbs and clouds of white hair, darted over and clung to her legs.

“Oh girls!” she said, finding her footing on the wobbling stones. They whooped and giggled and raced in their knickers to hide in the arms of their mother who blew her a kiss. There were checkered blankets spread; covered in plates, wooden chopping boards and plastic cutlery. Homemade breads, salads and bowls of fruit beckoned. Several people dozed, arms and legs akimbo in the shade. Roop was glistening on the rocks across the river, laughing at the children attempting to swim across, who were drifting in the current downstream to the end of the swimming hole. She couldn’t help but stare at his skin, thankful for her sunglasses, and noticed him clock her arrival too. He gave her a small wave. The familiar flicker of heat flushed down her body.

“So, is that all of us?” she asked, arranging herself and her offerings on the remaining visible parts of blanket. She stretched her legs out into the sun, the heat radiating up from the rocks below; her face and chest cooler in the shade. The others started stirring. The children in the water returned with Roop, dripping and shaking their wet hair over everyone. Plates passed around quickly and soon enough the feasting began. Effie loved this about summer here – you could round up your friends and spend entire days at the river, eating and swimming and drying off, reading and napping and swimming again, until after the sun made its slow retreat. Long dusky evenings spent outdoors - hip-wrapped in towels, with jandals and sandals and sun-kissed cheeks. Children from tots to teens happy too, fed over and over and sleeping with juicy chins.

Her wine bottle was empty and several others were on the go, plastic glasses wedged between the stones. There were still three rounds of cheese slowly being smeared onto crackers, stuffed into groaning bellies and lips licked as the sun drooped wearily in the sky, tired of its own hot travels. Conversation had steered to love and sex, per usual, and the teens amongst them were squirming and mute with shyness. She drifted, feeling the heaviness of the food and wine and letting the conversation waft over her. The younger children could be heard squealing over at the swing by the horse paddock nearby.

“I don’t care what any of you lot say about marriage,” Roop exclaimed, sparking her attention. She rose up on one elbow and looked at him with eyebrows raised.

“I love it. Erika’s amazing. Seriously, she’s a goddess, look at her! In fact, I reckon she’s far sexier since she started eating.” He grinned over at his wife, her cheeks flaming. “Having kids changes a woman.”

Effie rolled her eyes before looking over at Roop, as he refilled his cup. She held his gaze, rolling from her hip back onto her bottom, stretching her chest up toward the sun, feeling his eyes falling over her body.

“Erika’s a lucky woman,” she murmured, tossing her hair behind her, still feeling his eyes on her. But everyone had fallen back into their own quiet conversations.

Roop moved closer to the food at the same time she did. Kneeling side by side with their legs touching, they both reached for a cracker at the same time.

“I’ve got it,” he mumbled.

Roop smeared the soft cheese onto the cracker agonizingly slowly, before leaning over to pop it into her mouth.  Erika didn’t seem to notice their sudden intimacy, and the hairs on Effie’s arm rose as his whispered words electrified her ear. She laughed quietly as he rose to return to his beloved, distracted wife.

A hysteric clamoring of voices pierced the calm afternoon, and as she looked back toward the cars she could make out one of the twins, Maya, racing toward them, screaming. Erika and Roop leapt to their feet and careened wildly toward the girl, their voices sharp barks cutting at the air. Maya was quickly followed by the other children, except her twin, Metty. Effie’s heart plummeted, her mind racing to fill in the gaps – Where had they been? The swing. The horses.

Roop turned and yelled at them to hurry. He caught her eye, with fear contorting his face. She willed her legs into action. The stones were hard going, her ankle twisting slightly several times as she followed.

“What is it, Roop? Erika?” she called, but they were too far ahead now, running. She couldn’t recall ever seeing Erika run before. She was almost overcome with a complex aching love for her friend as she watched her struggling to keep up with Roop; her body heavy looking, like a sack of overripe fruit. By the time Effie reached the edge of the riverbed they were heading left, down the dirt track toward the horse paddock. Erika turned, her eyes wild, screeching for somebody to call the ambulance, before disappearing around a corner, obscured by the long, dry grass. Effie turned to go back, but saw Lenny behind her, pulling his phone from his pocket. Everyone was moving, heaving their hot bodies as quickly as they could.

Rounding the corner, she saw them gathered at the swing. No, not the swing - the energy and movement was at the tree itself. Getting closer, she saw Metty’s slight body caught in the pine tree like a kite. Wedged between two branches at the hips, her back was bent at a painful angle and her legs twisted to the right. Her hair waving like wisps of white candy floss. She looked lifeless, no movement. Roop was climbing awkwardly up to her, calling her name over and over. Erika was calling up to Roop, who turned to see his wife and child below.

“It will be ok.” His voice cracked, carried with a look of love so bare and exposed that Effie felt the breath knocked from her chest.

Maya was immobile too, clutching her mother’s hand and saying something quietly, over and over.

“Don’t be silly, Maya,” Erika replied, crouching to meet her eye to eye. “Whatever happened, it was an accident.” Erika’s voice was wobbling too, and Effie suffered a wave of bottomless regret that touched all of her inner edges. All the wine they’d had earlier quickly bolted together into an intense headache in her skull, her thoughts flickering back to what Roop had whispered in her ear, just fifteen minutes earlier. All the tiny hairs inside standing on end, When can we meet again? Guilt skunked about inside her, a violent nausea punching in her gut.

“I did, though, I told her she couldn’t climb as high as me,” Maya was saying, her voice winding up into a squeak as her fingers twisted at the edges of her shirt.

Effie took several stumbling steps back, swallowing and swallowing at the lump in her throat, trying to press was was rising there back down. She saw through watering eyes the fire truck and ambulance arrive. As they rushed in, she stepped clear, slinking back along the uneven path to her bicycle which jeered at her with its rusty smile. She crossed the stones slowly – funereal – and carefully gathered up all her things.