Victoria Glendinning

Flight

Scribner, 2002.

Julie was waiting at the ornate gates of the rose gardens when he arrived...They began to walk around between the beds of roses, not speaking...He thought the roses were hideous. Coarse oranges and reds, brash and fleshy...He watched a three-generation Asian family preparing a picnic in a glade just beyond the roses - women in saris spreading out rugs and unpacking food, men in dark trousers and white shirts fooling around with little children. They had hung the children's jackets on the overhanging branches of trees. He would have liked to ask Julie why she thought that people from the sub-continent used London's open spaces so much better, and so much more decorously, than anyone else did. He'd often noticed it. But it wasn't the moment to discuss comparative cultures

Martagon has arranged the meeting to explain why it's all over between them, but his 'can't we just be friends' line gets short shrift:

"Don't say it. I don't want to hear it." She turned aside and ran from him, lightly and fast, not through the wrought-iron gates but in the opposite direction, back through the rose gardens and towards the wide open area of the park. He watched her disappear, her backpack bobbing behind her. "I'm sorry," he said, knowing she could not hear. "I'm so sorry."