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.” Kivialmostrolled 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’rereallydelicate. 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 herbloody 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, nowshewas 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 thatwouldbe 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 tookChicamagazine by storm. If I can maintain my high performance, build up a clientele, then I’ll be cooking on gas.”
