Chapter Ten
Kivi
Eva proved surprisingly open to spending more time at the guest house.
Kivi had expected her to have some objections – and sure, she had been sceptical when Kivi had first broached the subject. But then Kivi had sat her down and explained the predicament, and she had immediately agreed.
“If you want to do it, then say yes,” she said. “I’ll step up here. And Emilia is happy to take my job, right?”
“She is,” Kivi confirmed. Anastasia had texted her as much last night. It had taken a good forty-eight hours for her to confirm, and all the while, Kivi had been flip-flopping between saying yes and no to the fiancées.
“Then go for it,” Eva said. “It’ll be good for you to go back to your roots.”
They’d been interrupted by a guest at that point, but Eva’s words had stuck with her, and returned to the forefront of her mind as she lay in bed that night.
Normally, her days were so jam-packed that she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, but tonight seemed to be the exception.
As she lay there, Toto on her feet, she sighed. Might as well make myself a cup of tea.
Toto followed her sleepily into her tiny galley kitchen and flopped onto the floor, then just as quickly had to get up again and follow her into the living room.
He was a faithful hound – she never went anywhere in her little annex alone.
Which would be a problem if she ever had bedroom guests, but that hadn’t occurred for several years now due to lack of time and available participants.
She wasn’t unattractive – she looked younger than her thirty-four years, and her hair was still as fluffy and blonde as it had been in her twenties.
There just wasn’t much of a gay scene down in Miltree.
And those who were gay were already partnered up.
Sitting with mug in hand, she found her thoughts wandering to Lillia.
Her first, and only, relationship. They’d gone strong for seven years – and then just as she was thinking of finally proposing, the disaster had happened with Gareth and Drew, and the stress had ended them.
Lillia wouldn’t have suited this lifestyle, anyway.
She would have resented Kivi’s time being taken away from her.
Kivi hadn’t thought of her in years. It was because she couldn’t sleep, that was all.
Perhaps Miss Saltmarshe’s fiery red hair had reminded her subconsciously of Lillia’s strawberry-blonde locks.
Miss Saltmarshe had been suspiciously nice since bumping into her in the florist. Perhaps Kivi’s awkwardness and swift exit had given away her true feelings, because ever since then, she’d been the essence of professionalism.
There had been no more unfiltered blurts, no more staring off into space dreamily…
the woman had been on the ball, positively chirpy in the mornings, and congenial at all times.
She’d complimented Kivi’s cooking, and even her appearance this morning, although purely in a polite way, nothing flirtatious by any stretch of the imagination.
And yet, Kivi still didn’t quite trust her.
She couldn’t get over the feeling that the woman had some sort of hidden agenda, something else lurking beneath the surface.
She knew that the corporate world was often full of back-stabbing, nepotism, and other unattractive self-serving concepts…
perhaps it was the knowledge that Miss Saltmarshe was a high-flying corporate journalist that was putting Kivi off.
Whatever it was, it was disturbing her. She’d never not gotten on with a guest (or indeed a client) before, and had always prided herself on being a ‘human chameleon’, able to adapt her personality to bounce off whoever she was with.
Must try harder. She’s staying for six weeks!
Miss Saltmarshe was later than usual for breakfast the next day.
For the last three days, she’d been up at the crack of dawn, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and drinking Kivi’s freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice like it was going out of fashion.
But that Thursday – the fourth morning of Miss Saltmarshe’s stay – Kivi found herself checking her watch.
The Joneses came down for breakfast, then Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, then the rest of the guests room by room…
all except Miss Saltmarshe. By a quarter to ten, Kivi was seriously worried. Ought she go and check on her?
But five minutes later, Miss Saltmarshe appeared, looking rather worse for wear.
She sat down at what was fast becoming ‘her table’, and then got up to help herself to what was left of the continental.
She hadn’t ordered anything cooked, but Kivi noticed her pallor and wondered whether she should cook her something anyway.
“Good morning,” she greeted her, stopping herself before she could say ‘Miss Saltmarshe’.
“Oh. Good morning, Kivi,” Miss Saltmarshe replied. “I’m sorry I’m so late. I was up until the small hours, getting a first draft cobbled together for one of my articles. It’s still missing something, though… and I was driving myself up the wall, trying to figure out what it was.”
“Did you figure it out in the end?” Kivi asked politely.
“Sadly not. I had to accept defeat. The body of it is there, and the ending… it’s the beginning that needs some work. I probably won’t go out today. I’ll sit in the guest lounge and work on it, provided I won’t get under your feet.”
“Go ahead,” Kivi said. “Would you like anything cooked? I have a couple of sausages going spare if you’d like a sausage sandwich.”
Miss Saltmarshe considered it, then shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ve got enough on my plate here.”
She had one small croissant and some slices of fruit, but perhaps she wasn’t one for a big breakfast. Kivi wasn’t either.
“Tea, then? Coffee? Hot chocolate?”
“Grapefruit juice will be just fine, thank you.”
Kivi left her to it, but when she came back to collect the plate and cup, Miss Saltmarshe was staring into space. She only snapped back to attention when Kivi was standing right in front of her.
“I don’t suppose you know where the nearest laundrette is, Kivi? I should have researched it before I got here – I’ve just realised that I’m fast running out of clean clothes.”
“There’s no laundrette in the village. I would say the nearest one is… probably Lygate. That’s the next big town.”
“I drove through it yesterday,” Miss Saltmarshe tutted. “Should have thought ahead. I’ll take a trip down there later.”
“Or I can wash them,” Kivi’s mouth said without her mind having any conscious input. Oh, for God’s sake. Why did you say that?
“You?” Miss Saltmarshe’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into her hairline. “Were you a washerwoman, in a previous life?”
“No.” Kivi almost rolled her eyes, and felt obliged to defend herself.
“But I have a washing machine. Which I know how to use. I also have washing powder, and the ability to hand-wash things if they’re really delicate.
And a kind heart that doesn’t want you to be traipsing over Lygate if you’re so exhausted. ”
Now Miss Saltmarshe looked stunned. “You really do have a kind heart…” she murmured. “Do you mean it? Or was that just a knee-jerk no-brain-filter reaction? As you’re aware, I’m familiar with those.”
“I mean it,” Kivi lied. “Put your clothes in a bag or a box or something, and I’ll wash them. Just separate them into whites and colours.”
“I… thank you.” Miss Saltmarshe looked up, and made direct eye contact with her. Are her eyes watering? “Seriously. Thank you. Will you put the charge on afterwards? At the end of my stay?”
“Of course,” Kivi said. “Now, would you like anything else, Miss Saltmarshe?”
“Miss Saltmarshe? Please, I’ve told you before, please call me Saskia. ‘Miss Saltmarshe’ is too formal. Reminds me of my dad.”
Kivi nearly said ‘I presume that’s not a good thing’, but managed to stop herself.
That would be way too personal, and it wasn’t the first time the woman had said something like that.
Who are you kidding? Too personal? You’re about to wash her bloody underwear, you twerp. How much more personal can you get?
“Fine.” She managed to smile. “Saskia. I assume you’re not allergic to dogs. I can’t promise there won’t be any dog hair flying about. Toto does like to shake.”
“Where is Toto, anyway?” Saskia’s face lit up. Behold! Do we actually have a dog lover here?
“He’s over at my annex.” Kivi motioned over her shoulder. “He’s not allowed in the guest house. You might see him frolicking in the garden now and again, but he knows not to come through into this place.”
“You have an annex? I thought you just… well, I don’t know where I thought you lived, actually. It’s like teachers. When you’re a little kid, you’re surprised to learn that they don’t actually live at school.”
“I know what you mean,” Kivi chuckled. “I remember that realisation well. Particularly when my teacher moved next door to us.”
“No way!” Saskia laughed. “Wasn’t that awful? Was it like permanently being at school, with your teacher looking over your shoulder?”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Kivi said. “She was lovely. And as I got older, a great source of homework advice. She tutored me in the end. That was how I got my exam results.”
“No uni, then?”
“Nope. Went straight from college to work. Had my own business by twenty-one. A massive eff-you to the teachers who implied I’d never amount to anything because I couldn’t get a grip on sibilance or trigonometry or the Kings and Queens of England. Good old dyslexia.”
Okay, now she was getting too personal. Verbal diarrhoea.
She forced herself to button it, and felt her face heating up.
But Saskia didn’t look judgemental. She looked…
interested. If she’d been a dog, her ears would have been pricked, and she was making eye contact, actively listening.
Kivi suddenly pictured her as a gorgeous Red Setter-cross-Doberman, and nearly laughed out loud.
“Well, I can’t relate, because I was a straight-A student.
But my brother was similar. Not a book-minded guy at all.
But he scrambled through A-Levels, heaved himself through uni, crawled into a shiny insurance job…
then he lost the job during the pandemic and is now running his own business as a hairdresser.
So, it worked out in the end.” Now Saskia adjusted herself in the chair.
“What about you? What’s your origin story?
How did you come to run a guest house in sunny Cornwall? ”
Oh hell no. Not going there. Kivi chose to deflect. “Is this what you call research? How do I know this isn’t going to end up in one of your articles?”
Saskia rolled her eyes. “What is it with this village and your distrust of journalists? Mr Burns from the bakery told me to be careful what I put, Mr Elliot from the greengrocer essentially told me to naff off… has there historically been some sort of witch-hunt for producers of the written word? A mass exodus of wordsmiths? Now that would be an interesting titbit for my article.”
Don’t rise to it. “Would I have let you stay here, if that were true?”
“You thought I was an executive.” Saskia looked away, stretched and then relaxed again.
“Not a journalist. Although I prefer to just call myself a writer. I’m freelance, and I write all sorts of things, not just magazine articles.
” She sighed. “Speaking of which, I need to crack on. I have a couple of other projects on the boil too, so I’m hoping to get at least one of them done today. ”
“You’re in demand,” Kivi commented.
“For now,” Saskia said. “I’m still flavour of the month.
It’s when people start to forget about me that I’ll have a hard time.
That’s why I really need to pull these early freelance projects off.
Show I’m not just the one-trick pony who took Chica magazine by storm.
If I can maintain my high performance, build up a clientele, then I’ll be cooking on gas. ”
“You like your idioms,” Kivi chuckled. “I counted four in what you just said.”
“What can I say?” Saskia shrugged with a self-disparaging chuckle. “Words are kind of my thing.”
“Well, I will let you crack on then.” Kivi stood up. She hadn’t even noticed herself perching on the nearby chair, so engrossed had she been in the conversation.
“I definitely plan to stay here today,” Saskia said. “If that’s okay. Set myself up in the guest lounge with my laptop and put my head down. I won’t be getting in anyone’s way, will I?”
“Have at it.” They’d already discussed this a couple of minutes ago, but it felt a natural way to bring the conversation to a close.
“Great.” Saskia smiled up at her, then rose to her feet.
Instantly Kivi felt intimidated by her. She had such poise and elegance, like a goddess, quite unlike Kivi with the stumpy tree-trunks she had for legs.
Kivi almost wanted to curtsey, or make way, or something ridiculous like that.
Instead, she settled for a smile, and wished Saskia a good day.
She fanned her face with her hand as she went back into the kitchen – the June weather was turning her into the human equivalent of a stewed tomato, both in colour and in temperature.
Not helped by the conversation with Saskia – talking to an attractive woman always seemed to make her internal body temperature rise.
So now of course she had the best job for someone who was overheating: cooking.
Oh well. If you can’t stand the heat, after all… wait, now you’re going on to idioms.