Chapter Forty-One
Saskia
“It’s got to be done.”
Those were the words that she had repeated, both for her sake and Kivi’s, several times over the course of the last twenty-four hours.
It had started when, sitting in the kitchen the previous night while Kivi cooked salmon linguine, Saskia had attempted to help by cutting up a shallot.
She’d never cut any sort of vegetable before – her few previous forays into home cooking had been mostly courtesy of frozen pre-prepared ingredients – and she held the knife awkwardly, chasing the vegetable around the chopping board, before finally managing to nick herself.
While running the cut under the tap, embarrassment had tipped over into irritation.
“What sort of an adult am I?” she’d ranted. “Thirty-one years old, and I can’t even chop a bloody shallot!”
“It will be a bloody shallot if you continue to chop your own finger like that,” Kivi chuckled, but seeing that Saskia was truly upset, she slipped an arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze.
“It’s okay. You’ll learn. How about a little cooking-slash-baking lesson tomorrow afternoon, after my brunch with Eva?
I’ve been wanting to do some batch cooking this weekend anyhow – you can be my sous chef. Sous baker.”
At the thought of really getting hands-on with food, Saskia swallowed. She knew it was the healthiest way to eat, but there would be no ignoring the ingredients. There would be no ignoring the calories. It was why she’d seldom cooked before. That and not having the time.
But if she was going to heal from her eating disorder, she had to learn. She had to get used to it. And so she swallowed hard, again, and nodded. “That sounds good,” she croaked.
“You sure? I don’t want to trigger you. You don’t have to do it with me.”
“No, it’s got to be done,” Saskia said firmly, despite the slight tremble in her voice. “I want to. And I will.”
Kivi took over the cooking for that evening, but she gave a running commentary of everything she was doing, as if she were hosting her own cookery show.
Eventually, Saskia picked up her phone camera and started filming, mostly because she was cracking up with laughter.
Kivi kept glancing up at her with a limpid gaze and enunciating her words overly sensually, like a certain well-known British television presenter, and Saskia responded with her own commentary.
“And here we have Kiera Chadwick, ladies and gentleman, giving us a culinary masterclass on how to cook salmon linguine. Behold the deftness of her wrist as she chops leeks with the sharpest of knives, and flakes perfectly-cooked salmon into a luscious cream sauce…”
“And then I add the chives,” Kivi picked it up, “dreamily swirling them into the waiting pool of white, until every molecule of it becomes studded with pink and green…”
“Like Elphaba and Glinda,” Saskia said. It was the first thing that came to mind, and she didn’t want to break the flow. “In Wicked. Pink and green. Just… in a… pool.”
“A pool?” Kivi snorted, breaking character. “What pool have you ever seen that’s white?”
“I don’t know,” Saskia said, losing herself to laughter once again. “A pool of… coconut milk?”
“Or… well, shall we say… ejaculate?” Kivi shrugged, and Saskia had to put down her phone, she was laughing so hard.
Kivi couldn’t keep a straight face for very long, and soon the two of them were clutching each other to stay upright, barely able to breathe between the fits of hysterical laughter seizing at their bodies.
“You said… I can’t believe you said…” Saskia managed, before losing herself to further peals of mirth.
“I know,” Kivi spluttered. “It was just… the first white liquid that came to mind…”
“Came to mind,” wheezed Saskia, and although it took Kivi a second to realise what she’d said, she actually sank to the floor with the next gale of laughter, her legs apparently having given out.
Saskia wasn’t far behind her, the two of them collapsing into a puddle of hilarity that lasted far longer than it probably should have done for two women in their thirties.
“We’re such children,” Kivi said once she could breathe again.
Saskia wiped her eyes. “Oh, absolutely. I can’t remember the last time I laughed that much. If ever.”
“Glad to be of service,” Kivi said with a smirk. “Now, get off my leg so I can finish making this dinner.”
Saskia nearly choked a couple of times on the rich, creamy concoction, but for once it wasn’t due to thinking about the contents or the calories.
Every time she made eye contact with Kivi, she just thought about what she’d said, and the dinner seemed to stick in her throat as her body tried to break into laughter again.
But it made a change from the usual negative thoughts that swirled around her mind at mealtimes.
Unfortunately, they returned with a vengeance the following afternoon, when it came to the actual doing of the cooking.
They relocated to the guest house kitchen, because it was bigger and had more equipment.
Kivi presented her with a red apron, which she had bought specifically for her after seeing it in a shop while out for brunch with Eva.
She had a matching orange one. “All we need is a pink one for Eva, and we’ll pretty much make up the lesbian flag. ” She laughed at her own joke.
Saskia didn’t have the heart to tell her that red and orange were two of the colours that made people the most anxious, due to their association with emergencies.
She’d read studies on it for an article a few years ago.
But what Kivi said about red, orange and pink tickled at her memory…
what was it… oh yes, the colours of the school gates yesterday.
They had been red, orange and pink. Victoria’s subtle way of coming out, perhaps?
She smirked at the idea, and at the more positive thought, the tension in her body eased.
“Let’s get cracking,” Kivi said, withdrawing her head from the fridge and brandishing two paper bags of vegetables. “Carrots, celery and onions. A mix known as sofrito, if you want to be Italian, and the basis of most tomatoey or meaty sauces.”
Under Kivi’s guidance, and with the help of a fancy blender with a special chopping function, Saskia had the vegetables finely diced in less than ten minutes.
Kivi heated up some oil in a pan and then fried off all the vegetables, combining them with mushrooms and a couple of courgettes (which Saskia managed to grate without slicing off her own nails).
A mixture of beef and pork mince followed – “Beef has the most flavour but pork is better for the environment, so I use both.” Then it was a matter of pouring in what felt like gallons of chopped tomatoes, beef stock, and herbs.
Then, Saskia stared as Kivi produced a hunk of cheese from the fridge.
“Cheese?” she managed, dread creeping into her stomach.
“Cheese,” Kivi confirmed, meeting Saskia’s gaze steadily. “Parmesan, if you want to be exact.”
“That’s… unusual,” Saskia said, her mouth going dry. “People normally put cheese on Bolognese, not in, don’t they?”
“I’m not putting the actual cheese in,” Kivi said.
“Watch.” And, manoeuvring her knife as skilfully as she had done with the leeks yesterday, she cut the rind off and into inch-wide chunks, which she then proceeded to drop into the bubbling pot.
A quick stir, in with some frozen spinach, the lid was on and the heat dropped down.
“Is that it?” Saskia said.
“Yep,” Kivi replied, heading to the sink to wash her hands. “A long, slow cook is the key. That’s enough to feed… I don’t know, twelve to sixteen people? More if some of them are kids. I’ve cut costs by bulking out on vegetables rather than meat, and I’ll use wholewheat pasta for extra fibre.”
“Wow,” Saskia said. “Aside from the cheese, that actually sounds okay.”
“It sounds okay even with the cheese,” Kivi said firmly. “Because it is okay. It’s okay to eat food, Saskia, and consume calories. I think that’s something you need to hear.”
“Yeah,” Saskia said, and swallowed. “Yeah, it is.”
“Okay?” Kivi murmured, stepping in front of her and kissing her softly before pressing their foreheads together. “Sorry, I don’t mean to push. I know this is hard.”
“It’s bearable so far,” Saskia said, and stepped away. “Come on, then. On with the next recipe.”
By the end of the afternoon, they had made chicken and vegetable skewers, three different types of scone (plain, cherry, and white-choc-raspberry), two carrot cake traybakes since Elliot’s greengrocer had a glut of early carrots, and Kivi’s classic chickpea curry.
Under Saskia’s old internal food classification system, the vast majority of fruits and vegetables were classed as ‘pure’, so this at least made her able to breathe a little easier.
The hardest ones had been the scones. Because of the butter and sugar.
But they were blown out of the water by the last recipe Kivi produced. Eggs made it back to the table, followed by flour, baking spread and sugar. For a moment, Saskia wondered if yet more scones were on the cards, but then cocoa was added. And milk. And chocolate.
“Finally something decadent,” Kivi said. “Chocolate muffins. That okay with you, mignette?”
“Sure…” Saskia said absently, then realised what Kivi had said. Despite her anxiety, her mouth twitched. “What did you call me? Mignette?”
“Yep,” Kivi shrugged, but her cheeks were going red. “It’s just something my mum used to call me. It’s a pet name. I don’t think it has a meaning.”
“Uh… do you mean mignonette?” Saskia couldn’t help but laugh. “Mignette isn’t a word.”
“It isn’t?”
“I should know. I’m the writer. You’re probably thinking of a vignette. Mignonette is French for cute. Or dainty. Is that what you were going for?”
“Probably,” Kivi chuckled, her cheeks growing ever redder. “I’m just a dork.”
Saskia’s heart fluttered. It was just so sweet. “Declarations of love one day, pet names the next. What other relationship milestones are we going to get back to front?”
Now Kivi’s cheeks twitched, and she averted her gaze. Saskia could almost see the shift in her mood. Her own gaze shifted too – downwards, to the floor.
“I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that,” Kivi muttered. “I know it’s too soon. I know most people wait months to say it, not just nine days, but-”
“Kivi!” Saskia swatted her. “Put a sock in it. I said it too, did I not?”
“You probably felt obligated,” Kivi said. “I wouldn’t blame you. I did have you in a rather… compromising position.”
“With your hand up my blouse? Yes, I remember.” Saskia smiled at the memory.
“But I’m glad you said it. I’d already thought it, earlier in the day.
It was a relief to know that my feelings were reciprocated.
” She realised she’d said were, and off Kivi’s raised eyebrows, added, “Are reciprocated. Because nothing’s changed.
We know how each other feels now. That’s all. ”
“All the same, don’t you feel like we’re rushing in?” Kivi bit her lip.
“Do you?”
“No,” Kivi replied after a pause. “It feels natural. But I can’t tell if I’m just… being impulsive. Chasing the highs that come with the first heady days of a relationship, since I haven’t been in one for so long. And I did rather… say it on impulse. In the heat of the moment.”
“So you’re saying you don’t love me?” Saskia’s heart felt like it was plummeting into the depths of her shoes.
“N-no,” Kivi stammered, going bright red. Saskia’s eyebrows almost flew off into her hairline, so Kivi quickly added, “No, I do. That’s not what I meant. ‘No’ as in I’m not saying that I don’t love you. It just… feels wrong to say it so quickly. So early on.”
“Who says it’s wrong?” Saskia pressed. “Society?”
“Y-yes. They always say that relationships that are rushed tend to fail catastrophically, and I couldn’t handle it if this failed-”
“Society says that? Haven’t you spent the last forty-eight hours reminding me that we say fuck society? Fuck societal expectations?”
“Um… yes.” When presented with the logic of her own words, Kivi relaxed, and scrubbed at her eyes with her fists, leaving a chocolatey smear over her eyebrow.
It was endearing, despite everything, and Saskia didn’t resist when Kivi moved in for a hug.
“Sorry. I’m okay. That was just a little wobble.
It’s what happens when I don’t have work to do: my thoughts crowd in. I’m okay. And I do love you.”
If she hadn’t been looking up, directly into Saskia’s eyes, when she said the last four words, Saskia wouldn’t have believed her.
Her tone was distracted, listless, as if her innermost thoughts were drowning everything else out.
But her eyes were steady. Determined. Certain.
There was no mistaking that kind of look.
“Then I guess we’d best get back to making these muffins,” Saskia said, giving them both an out.
They didn’t exchange many words as they mixed together the ingredients, both lost in their own thoughts again. Anxiety was churning in Saskia’s gut, with a faint background of nausea, not helped by the rich chocolatey smell in the kitchen. If she’s already having doubts, are we doomed to fail?
It was only when the muffins were in the oven and a marathon cleaning-up session had commenced that Saskia found possibly the only silver lining.
Oh well. At least she distracted me from the anxiety over the chocolate muffins.