Ruby

In the margin

Nothing dramatic happens in the weather for weeks at a stretch; it simply stays wet. Ruby has no speech about that and no theory either, and a guest who has spent three days under low cloud tends to find the absence of commentary a relief. She arrives, the coat goes over a chair, and the room ends up warmer than she found it. English, quiet, and none of it spent on the forecast. Twenty-five, and on a grey week she would rather be asked for ninety minutes than for sixty.

Ruby decides which bookings she takes and may decline any of them; she sets the limits for what a session includes, says what they are, and may end a visit at any point, as the terms set out.