The Luxembourg lakeside was covered in sunbathers. The heat had eased off somewhat - but it was still sweltering. Tim and Lucy were unpacking their picnic tea, a hamper overbrimming with meticulously cut sandwiches, almondy cakes, pies to suit every mood and ice-coolers of muscadet. This modern couple of indeterminate age - whose wedding vows would only be made come halfway towards even the grandest of priceless anniversaries - were somewhat irritated by a pair of neighbouring non-descript picnickers with a loud-mouthed transistor radio. In earlier days, sunspots were crammed with competing musak but, now, with the prevalence of personal stereos and walkmans, the problem was as good as non-existent. But this radio well seemed fifties-made, chunky, utility - a large blasting creature with huge dial and outlandish knobs. The battery it must have needed wasn't made now...

Lucy suddenly dropped the glass vase which she had had just precariously picked out. Why that should have been packed in the hamper at all was a mystery ... until she saw the roses between a whole roasted chicken (which she had spent hours plucking at the weekend) and a pork pie. Tim had fetched the roses and the vase, evidently, to be the centrepiece of their spotlessly white tablecloth - now spread on the ground before them. The miniature shards of glass pickle-peppered the food like foreign bodies.

An animal that had been snuffling at the various picnic sites came nearer to Tim and Lucy. What type of animal couldn't be told. More like a pig than a dog. Feather or fur, neither would have been quite right.

Tim put his arm around Lucy's shoulders to calm her regarding the breakage. The stray scuttled off with a squawk and a snort and a yapping whine. It was owned by the non-descript people who were around the radio as if its wavelengths were more than just a centre of attention. These people scowled. Tim scowled back.

The sun was dipping from across the other side of the lake it gilded - and most other picnickers were gathering up their leftovers and trundling off on tandems amid the sudden cool of the evening.

The last to leave were the loud wireless people. They strutted, as if their legs were stilts, the raucous music fading into the Luxembourgian distance. Animal stiff-turning on its choke-chain behind the surly caravan.

Lucy and Tim had managed to salvage a few items of food from the nutty slag of the carbonising glass - the vase's original edges having been clinically sealed; not the fresh ones created by the dispersal of its erstwhile constituent sun-lit "diamonds" - and they could not understand why they, as a couple, were so happy. Perhaps it was because they were on a self-styled honeymoon. They placed a rose in each other's hairstyles and nibbled from opposite sides of the crusty pork pie towards its heart, imagining they were getting their own back on that awful awful animal. They were too old for dreaming of creating anything smaller than themselves. Whilst the not-too-distant combo of Duchy lights shone a city yellow, the lake managed an unbeaten silver beneath a horn of moon. And the silence rang truly golden.


(Published ‘Oasis’ 1999)