Christmas at Strand House Read online

  Xander remembered, still stroking the cat, how he’d laughed because the cat had looked like a living version of the cartoon cat in the Felix cat food adverts. So Felix he had become. And now Xander was reluctant to leave him for four days even though it was only a mile along the prom from his cottage to Strand House.

  ‘I could pop home every day to see you, old boy, if you like.’

  Felix purred, pushed his head further into Xander’s hand as if to say, ‘How could you give up on all this affection I’m dishing out, man? Abandon me if you must. Leave me to Eve Benson’s ministrations if you must.’

  ‘I know it’s no hardship having Eve look after you. And don’t think for a second, I don’t know you spend half your day in her house anyway, because I do.’ Xander increased the pressure of his hand on Felix’s head and then ran it along the full length of the cat’s back. Felix stirred, stood up, stretched. ‘Had enough of that then, have you, old chap?’

  Xander stood up too and began clearing his lunch things. There was no need for him to be at Strand House until five o’clock. And what a surprise that had been, to get Lissy’s invite to spend Christmas there with her, and Janey and Bobbie. He knew Lissy, of course, because she’d been of Claire’s oldest friends, but Janey and Bobbie he’d only met the once – at Claire’s funeral. It had been kind of them to come but in all honesty, he couldn’t remember them. He’d probably pass them in the street as though they were strangers. Had he, he wondered, made a grave mistake accepting Lissy’s invitation? What did any of them have in common? What would he talk to them about? It wouldn’t add anything to the festive spirit, would it, if he said he’d been mourning Claire so long he never thought he was going to feel like himself ever again and that his building business was suffering. Really suffering. A few days ago, he’d been called in to see his bank manager and been told that his overdraft could not be increased. It was only a small business and if he’d been the sole workforce then he could sell his cottage, find a flat somewhere for him and Felix, pay off his debts. But he wasn’t the sole workforce; there were Tom, Josh, and Ethan in the equation too. Each with families to support. Ah yes, families. How he wished now that he and Claire had had one because then he’d have someone who looked like her around, someone who had her genes, the essence of her. But Claire hadn’t wanted children.

  ‘I wouldn’t have minded a couple of kids, Felix,’ Xander said as Felix lapped noisily at his saucer of milk. ‘Christmas is for kids really, isn’t it?’

  Felix looked up at him and walked towards the catflap.

  ‘Oi, you!’ Xander shouted after him. ‘I hope you’re going to say goodbye.’

  But Felix – as the cartoon of old had it – kept on walking and went out.

  With a sigh Xander put his dishes and the saucepan he’d used to heat the soup he’d bought from the supermarket in the dishwasher, found a tablet – the last, so he’d have to remember to buy some more as soon as Christmas was over – and switched it on, even though the thing was only a quarter full.

  He had some Christmas cards still to write and hand deliver. He’d driven down to Kingsbridge to see his mother at the weekend and hand-delivered that one, along with a bunch of roses and a silver bracelet he knew she’d like because he’d been with her when she’d pointed it out in the window of Silver Dollar the previous week.

  ‘I don’t like to think of you on your own, Xand,’ his mother had said in Bailey’s Bistro where they’d gone for coffee.

  ‘I won’t be on my own. Lissy will be there. And two of her friends, Janey and Bobbie. They all came …’

  ‘Don’t think about that time,’ his mother said, cutting him short. They’d both known how he was going to finish the sentence – to Claire’s funeral. ‘It doesn’t help. I know it hurts you still that she’s not here but, well, don’t you think it’s time to date again?’

  ‘Date?’

  Such an old-fashioned word, date. Did people still use that term? Xander supposed they did because wasn’t there a programme on TV called Blind Date or something like that?

  ‘Yes. Date. You know, you see someone you like and you invite them to the cinema or for a meal. And …’

  ‘For God’s sake, Ma, I’m forty-one years old, not fourteen!’ He’d looked at his mother’s crestfallen face and felt bad about snapping at her like that. Felix and his mother, he wouldn’t have survived without either of them back then. His mother had let herself in, cleaned the house while he was at work, taken his dirty laundry and brought it back the next day, ironed and in a neat pile. She’d left meals too – single portions of cottage pie, or fish pie, or a stew. Single portions that, as kind as it was for her to have made them, had only accentuated his one-ness.

  ‘I know, Xand, I know,’ she had said. ‘But you’re young still and have a lot of life yet to live. I’m going to play the “mother card” now and say I think it’s time, now Claire’s been gone three years, that you start to live it again. And …’

  ‘Ma! Leave it!’ Xander’s turn to interrupt this time.

  ‘See,’ his mother said, nonplussed this time at Xander’s reaction. ‘I said we shouldn’t have brought up the subject of Claire and the funeral … it always sparks a bit of a falling out, doesn’t it? Anyway, how well do you know Lissy? I know Claire talked about her a lot and they used to go away for girly weekends.’

  That was so like his mother to spark a bit of a disagreement and then move the subject on to something else.

  ‘Lissy?’ he said. And it was then that there was a sort of screen play going backwards in his mind. Dancing with her at his and Claire’s wedding. She’d been wearing a strappy dress the colour of a kingfisher’s breast, and long dangly earrings that glittered under the lights of the dancefloor. He remembered being slightly the worse for wear after more than a few glasses of champagne and a couple of glasses of real ale. And Lissy had been rather tipsy too. In his head, Xander saw the lights dip, saw himself pulling Lissy closer to him, feeling the warmth of her against the powder blue shirt he’d been wearing. Smelled the fragrance in her hair. They’d sort of pressed even closer together until their lips had all but touched before Xander pulled away. There’d been a connection, something almost primeval, in that moment. A sort of what-might-have-been realisation for them both. He’d danced with just about every woman at his wedding reception, as Claire had with the men. But none of them had given him that rush of feeling that Lissy had. He’d put it firmly to the back of his mind and whenever Lissy fetched Claire when they went off on a girly weekend or brought her back he was careful not to hug too close, not to let his lips linger on Lissy’s cheek when he leaned in to kiss it, in case those feelings came back. Too dangerous for a married man to have those feelings. And besides, Lissy probably didn’t even remember that dance.

  ‘What a flipping ego, thinking that she might!’ Xander shouted to himself now. ‘This won’t do. A right bundle of misery you’re going to be at Strand House if you turn up in this mood, aren’t you?’

  And that was another thing. Xander had found that being alone he spoke to himself far more than was probably healthy, just so he could hear a voice, even when that voice was his own. And thoughts. He couldn’t remember thinking as much when Claire had been with him. But that was all he seemed to have done lately – think. All sorts of random things came into his head: things they’d done, things they’d argued about, things they’d made up about, as all couples do at times. Too many thoughts.

  Well, he’d try and banish those as of now. Cards to write and deliver, a small case to pack because he could run back home in fifteen minutes or so if he needed anything, Eve Benson to pop in and see and give the Christmas hamper that he’d bought her for Christmas in thanks for her ministrations to dear old Felix, and then he’d shower and change and present himself at Strand House. Lissy had emailed to say ‘Strictly no exchange of Christmas presents, and the entire weekend is on me, celebrating my unexpected windfall’ but some champagne would probably be welcome and unlikely to be in exc
ess of requirements if the memories of his and Claire’s wedding in particular, and women when they got together in general, were anything to go by. Funds could still run to a couple of bottle of fizz, but after this Christmas break Xander was going to have to give some serious thought to an overhaul of his finances. And his life.

  Just a few minutes before five o’clock, Xander rang the doorbell of Strand House. It was answered almost immediately.

  ‘Nearest the church door, last one in, I see,’ Lissy said, smiling widely, her eyes gleaming, and looking just as beautiful as Xander remembered. Perhaps his mother had been right after all? She leaned forward to kiss his cheek. ‘Come on in.’ And it was probably just as well that his hands were full and he wasn’t able to put his arms around her and hug her tight. She had no idea how much her invite was starting to mean to him.

  Chapter 7

  Bobbie

  ‘Could I take a look at that one, please?’ Bobbie said to the assistant in a shop called Silver Linings opposite the railway station.

  Still in her travelling clothes, but having changed her stilettos for low, wedge-heeled black leather ankle boots, Bobbie had walked the half-mile into town. Xander was yet to arrive but she didn’t think for a second he’d mind that she wasn’t at Strand House when he did get there. She told Lissy and Janey that after an almost six-hour journey in a taxi she was sorely in need of exercise and fresh air. And the air was certainly fresh, colder than London, but then there was always a heat to London from the lights of buildings and the traffic and the general thrum of the place.

  ‘I’ll open the case for you,’ the assistant said. ‘I’ll just find the key.’

  Bobbie had spent a good half hour browsing the shop and the assistant had left her to it, not pressured her at all to hurry up and choose because – Bobbie, realised now – it was almost closing time. Bobbie liked that – the space to be left to make her own choices. Okay, so Silver Dollar wasn’t Oxford Street or Regent Street, but this little shop in a typical seaside town had some good things. She’d been spoilt for choice really. There were watches in a number of styles, hip flasks, and medallions (necklaces for men really) and quirky little desk ornaments but in the end Bobbie had settled on a watch. It was hardly Philippe Patek but she hoped Oliver would like it, or at least accept it for the love in which it was given. Whenever that giving might be. Certainly not over the Christmas period while she was at Strand House.

  Lissy had said there were to be no exchanges of presents at Strand House but that didn’t mean Bobbie didn’t have a present to buy. She did. For Oliver. Like she’d done every Christmas for the past forty-four years. Forty-four!

  ‘A good choice,’ the assistant said, unlocking the cabinet and lifting out the watch Bobbie had pointed to. ‘Timeless design but with a slightly quirky edge. For someone special?’

  ‘Oh yes. Someone very special,’ Bobbie said, her voice suddenly husky. It still surprised her that it always went husky, and her heartbeat quickened, and sometimes she even felt a little faint, whenever she voiced that she’d had Oliver in her life for forty-four years, and while she’d not seen him for almost all of those forty-four years he was never far from her mind. He came to her in odd moments: in a supermarket queue when she might see a man around the age Oliver was at that time and wonder if her son wore his hair like that, or had a fancy for a pink shirt, or brogues; when she was washing up a few dishes and imagining Oliver reaching for a teatowel to help – such a companionable thing to do, washing up and drying dishes with someone; when she saw a pregnant woman, holding hands with her man, who was proudly carrying a bag from Mothercare or some other baby clothes shop.

  ‘Gift-wrapped, then?’ the assistant said. She turned her head slightly to glance at the clock over her desk. ‘Oh, I’ll just close up. But I’m not hurrying you. Gift-wrapping won’t be problem. You can browse a bit more while I do it if you like.’

  ‘I will,’ Bobbie said. ‘Thank you.’ Her voice and her heartbeat returned to normal now.

  But there was nothing else she wanted or needed really. She had enough jewellery – precious and costume – to stock a shop of her own.

  Chapter 8

  Janey

  ‘This feels a bit strange, doesn’t it?’ Janey said now she was alone with Xander. Bobbie had gone for a walk saying she needed exercise and fresh air after the journey, but Janey had the suspicion she’d gone present-buying for them all, which Janey hoped she hadn’t as she had no money with which to reciprocate. Lissy was in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches to the evening meal, so she said, and she’d also said she didn’t need help doing it. She’d told Janey to sit with Xander and chat. She’d given Janey a bottle of Pinot Grigio and two glasses to chat over. ‘That’ll loosen my tongue,’ Janey had said nervously. She wasn’t used to small talk, or very much talk at all to be honest.

  ‘Would that be good strange, or bad strange?’ Xander said. ‘Hey, give me that bottle because you’re in dire danger of snapping the neck off. Your knuckles have gone white.’ He reached towards her for the bottle that Lissy had already uncorked. ‘And the glasses, Janey. They look like rather fragile, quality glasses from where I’m standing.’

  Janey did as she was told. She was used to doing what she was told around Stuart because to resist only exacerbated whatever terrible situation she was in.

  ‘I think, Janey,’ Xander said, setting the glasses down on a side-table in the sitting room and filling them, and handing one to Janey, ‘that Lissy won’t mind if we sit down.’ He patted the couch nearest him, but there were four in the vast room from which to choose, plus a single arm chair by the window. All were covered in some sort of white linen, like the boiled and bleached teatowels Janey remembered from visits to her grandmother when she’d been small.

  Janey sat on the nearest one.

  ‘So, back to strange – what’s strange, Janey?’

  ‘Us being here,’ Janey said, taking a sip of wine. ‘I mean, we’ve been friends on Facebook and you’ve messaged me about my paintings, so we sort of know one another, but not really.’

  ‘Time to make amends, then. And four days to do it in.’

  Janey pressed her lips together, fearful emotion would spill out. Xander was being so kind, so courteous of her, and doing his best to put her at her ease when ease was the last thing she felt at that moment – she was tense, everyting pulled tight, wondering if Stuart had found her note yet and what his reaction would be when he did.

  ‘I only had four days getting to know Claire, but it felt as though I’d known her forever,’ Janey said. ‘She was so kind inviting me to join her and Lissy for a drink after the first class. Bobbie came, too, because Claire said the others seemed in awe of her, how beautiful she was to paint. People were going off in little groups to go for a meal or a drink or a walk or something and Claire said Bobbie looked lonely so she invited her along too and … oh God, sorry. It must hurt to have her name brought up at every turn and now I have.’

  Janey took a huge gulp of wine so words that perhaps ought not to be said didn’t come splurting out.

  ‘It’s okay. People around me, who knew Claire well, and who break their necks not to mention her so that it seems for them, and me, she never existed, upset me more. You’ve mentioned her name for the first time and I haven’t gone to pieces, have I?’

  Janey shook her head.

  ‘And I expect, over this Christmas break we’re all on, her name will be mentioned a few more times as well before we all leave again on the 27th. Shall we have a little toast, you and me?’ Xander sat down beside Janey and raised his glass. ‘To memories of Claire, whatever form those memories take.’

  God, how kind he was. His kindness was like some sort of balm to Janey’s bruised soul. She hadn’t known men as kind as this existed.

  ‘To memories of Claire,’ Janey said, as they clinked glasses. Her memories of Claire were all good ones. How vibrant and full of life she’d been. How beautiful. How she was absolutely rubbish at art on that wee
kend workshop but it didn’t seem to matter. She was with her friend, Lissy, and learning something new, and she was having fun. And laughing. It seemed to Janey that Claire had laughed constantly that weekend, her head thrown back with the weight of her laugh so that her café au lait curls rippled. And she’d been generous in her praise of Janey’s life-drawing, urging her to do something with it. Sell her work, or teach, but – Claire had said – Janey had to do something, or Claire would come and shake a big stick at her … that last over more than a few glasses of wine in the White Hart. But now she could never come and shake that stick, could she? And Janey was yet to do something with her art.

  ‘Now, tell me about you. What have you been doing since I last saw you?’

  ‘Um …’ Janey said and then clammed up.

  ‘Which was at Claire’s funeral. So, now we’ve got that word out of the way as well.’ Xander smiled gently at her. ‘And that was three years ago. It’s a myth, you know, that men only ever want to talk about themselves. I know you’re good at art because Claire was full of how good you are when she got back from the workshop, or whatever it was.’

  ‘Was she?’

  ‘She was, indeed. And it must have been fulsome praise if I’ve remembered. So, how’s that going? I’d like to buy something but you’ll never sell me anything. Any reason?’

  Because Stuart says it’s no better than a six-year-old could do. Because stupidly I let myself believe that. Because to go against his wishes would have meant another tirade of abusive words and possibly some fists thrown in as well.