“Only one,” Saskia said evasively, but Kivi decided not to press it. Instead, she put the car into gear and reversed out of the parking space.
Neither Cass nor Saskia were great conversationalists, so a paralysing silence immediately took hold. At a junction, Kivi flicked the radio on, and Radio Miltree filled the car with a classic summer ‘banger’. When she looked in the interior mirror, Cass was smiling.
“All good back there?” Kivi said.
“Heather made me dance to this song once,” Cass chuckled. “My first morning in Cornwall. Gave me cramp in my arm from holding me so tightly.”
“That’s one way to welcome you to the village,” Kivi commented. “Death by dancing.”
“Well, the worst part was that I didn’t want her to let go,” Cass laughed. “I think I was falling for her right from the get-go. Addictive touch: first symptom of love.”
Kivi laughed, but in the corner of her eye she registered Saskia squirming in her seat. Uncomfortable subject? Now wasn’t the time to press it, and so the three occupants returned to simply listening to the radio.
It only took a few minutes for one of the resident road arseholes to appear. The black SUV appeared in her interior mirror in seconds, and travelled so close to Kivi’s little Peugeot that she couldn’t even see its numberplate. She eased off the gas. Primarily because the road was getting increasingly twisty, but it also had the side effect of pissing the driver off.The closer you get, the slower I go, arsewipe.
At the first available opportunity, the SUV pulled out and overtook her with a tremendous roar of its engine. “Knobhead,” Kivi muttered. She hated loud engines like that. Particularly on the road next to the guest house in the middle of the night.
“Ooh, look at me,”Saskia said mockingly. The high-pitched, nasally tone was so different to her usual register that Kivi almost took her eyes off the road to stare at her.“Look at me, folks, I’ve got a big engine and a small DICK!”
Kivi burst out laughing. The plosives of the unexpected obscenity, said with such force, almost ripped a hole in the car’s atmosphere. The laugh exploded out of her like an airbag going off, and she could feel Saskia looking at her. Luckily, they were pulling up at a junction, so Kivi looked over at her to see Saskia’s eyebrows and lips raised in a disbelieving but humour-laden smile. She had to look away to focus on the junction, but she pressed her lips together to stop herself smiling or laughing further. If only she could press her brain to stop herself thinking about kissing Saskia’s lips… but no, she needed her brain to drive.
“That got yousofar, didn’t it?” Cass said sarcastically to the SUV driver when they pulled up behind him again thirty seconds later. This time, it was thanks to a set of niftily placed temporary traffic lights. True to form, the driver edged forward, further and further until he was practically on top of the orange traffic cone, then bombed off with another tremendous roar as soon as the light turned to amber.
“I don’t wish to play into any stereotypes, but when you’re overtaken by a car whose brand starts with a B and ends with an MW…” Kivi let her meaning hang unspoken.
“Say no more,” Saskia said, and so the ride returned to quiet. At least, until Kivi slowed down at Hooty Corner and sounded her horn, and Saskia nearly jumped through the car roof.
“What was that for?” she said. Kivi didn’t respond, focused on navigating her way through the tight turn, and so Cass answered instead.
“Hooty Corner. It’s the unwritten etiquette for drivers to sound their horn as they approach. It’s such a blind, dangerous bend, that sounding the horn helps anybody on the other side know that you’re there.”
“Makes sense,” Saskia said, and put a hand on her heart. “Frightened the life out of me though.”
“These roads are perilous,” Kivi said. She could speak now that the worst bit was out of the way. “Practically every other day you hear of a problem. And then you havetwatwaffleslike that other driver who cause the accidents, and get off scot-free. Sorry. Didn’t mean to swear.”
“Twatwaffle,” Saskia chuckled. “Unique.”
“And then there’s wildlife, too,” Cass pointed out. “There was a particularly bad accident last year, caused by a deer running into the road. The driver had to have spinal surgery. Miss Berry, from the school.”
“Anastasia’s partner?” Saskia said. Kivi shot her a quick glare out of the corner of her eye.Don’t fucking out them!
Mercifully, it seemed that Cass already knew. Or if it was news to her, she didn’t comment. “Yeah. She had to have three months off work. The road was closed for a couple of days. I saw pictures of the crash site – it’s a miracle she made it out alive.”
“That gives me such confidence, travelling these roads,” Saskia said, and Kivi pursed her lips. “I’ve been meaning to interview Miss Berry, actually.”
“I wouldn’t ask her about the accident,” Cass said. “She’s not breathed a word about it whatsoever, in public. The only reason I know what happened is because of Petra. Petra is Miss Berry’s deputy, and she happens to be one of our closest friends these days. I’m not sure Miss Berry would even let you interview her. She’s very guarded. Very… private.”
“I’ve heard she’s intimidating,” Saskia said.
“Oh, definitely,” Cass agreed. “But she’s polite enough. And everyone respects her. If you do interview her, just don’t push her. Otherwise you will be… verbally obliterated, shall we say? Not to mention frozen by the ice in her eyes.”
In fact, Saskia gave Miss-Berry vibes sometimes, but Kivi didn’t say anything. It was good to get to know Cass a bit better. In their last meeting, the effervescent Heather had done most of the talking. But Cass certainly wasn’t a shrinking violet, as she proved over the course of the day. She calmly but confidently asserted herself, both when it came to their preferences and her dietary requirements. Kivi supposed that living with allergies came with a hefty dose of assertiveness. How else would one survive?
It was actually Saskia who seemed to shrink. During the car journey, she had grown steadily quieter, and she was more than happy to let Cass and Kivi do all the talking with the caterers. She sat quietly, following the conversations back and forth the same way she had done at the initial meeting with Cass and Heather, but didn’t offer any comment.
When they finished with the caterers and went for a late lunch at a café in Lygate shopping centre, Saskia seemed to strugglewith her salad. It was by no means a sad, wilted-looking affair – in fact, it positively burst with lettuce and spring onions and prawns. Kivi kept a close eye on her while carrying on a conversation with Cass. Her gut feeling was still that something was going on there.
Perhaps it was just her driving. There was still every possibility that Saskia was simply a scatterbrain who forgot to eat now and again. But there was also every possibility that her eating habits were something moreclinical,and while Saskia was a grown woman who could very well take care of herself… Kivi was a mum-friend and a worrier at heart. And the last thing she wanted was any more collapses on the stairs. So she watched, subtly, and Saskia eventually managed about two-thirds of the salad.
