Christmas at Strand House Read online

  Janey couldn’t tell Xander any of that, could she? And neither should she. She blinked back tears, but one escaped and she brushed it away hastily with the back of her hand.

  But Xander saw.

  ‘Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me a thing. I must be right out of practice at talking to women if I’m making you cry. I’m sorry. Here, have a top-up.’

  Xander reached for the bottle and topped up her glass.

  And then Bobbie came breezing in, filling the room with her vibrant clothes and her even more vibrant personality and Janey had never been so pleased to see anyone in her life. She felt herself relax. For now.

  Chapter 9

  Lissy

  Lissy was thrilled with the way the house was looking. Everything had been left to the last minute – the buying of decorations and the catering – but it was all coming together now, looking Christmassy. Janey was at one end of the kitchen island making a wreath for the front door, and she was at the other. Xander and Bobbie were in the sitting room doing a catch-up. She could hear Bobbie laughing now and then at whatever it was Xander had said.

  ‘We ought to have bought a wreath from the greengrocer in Parkside when we were in town, Janey,’ Lissy had said when they got back and she realised that although they’d bought bags and bags of baubles and four packs of lights, six bunches of white roses that she’d put in one huge vase on the dresser in the hall, there was nothing with which to dress the door.

  ‘They’d have been too small anyway. Your front door’s huge – only Westminster Abbey’s got a larger door.’ And she’d giggled, and with that giggle Lissy hoped that a little of the Janey she’d got to know three years ago was coming back.

  ‘I could make one,’ Janey said. ‘If there’s any greenery in the garden. But you can make a wreath out of anything really.’

  ‘Really? Scarves?’ Lissy asked. She’d cleared a lot of Vonny’s old clothes, keeping just a few classic, designer pieces, and all her scarves, pressed and neatly folded in the bottom of the chest of drawers in the room that was now hers. ‘Costume jewellery?’

  ‘Perfect,’ Janey had said.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Lissy asked now. She had her hands in a large aluminium bowl rubbing fat into flour – a huge labour of love because Lissy hated the feel of it under her fingernails. It was the only part of cooking she didn’t like because the rest of it she absolutely loved … the smell of fresh ginger never failed to lift her spirits, and the fresh green of basil leaves made her think of sunny afternoons lying in Hyde Park on lush grass when she’d been a student in London; the texture of orange and lemon peel, like some sort of aromatic skin eruption; the lush softness of roasted sweet potatoes. After Cooper left she didn’t cook much for a few months because she had no personal appetite and no one to cook for. But then she began experimenting and eventually it had led to putting up photos of what she’d cooked on Facebook and Instagram – experimenting with foods that Cooper had never liked and refused to eat, like Jerusalem artichokes and anchovies and pineapple rings dipped in batter, fried and sprinkled with sugar. It had been cathartic then, but it had opened her mind to the fact there were other things in life apart from running her accountancy business – such as making pastry for savoury whirls she intended to serve as nibbles before dinner.

  ‘It’s going fine,’ Janey said, dragging Lissy’s thoughts back to the present, to the room she was in with her friend, with two other friends in the sitting room and making food for them she hoped they’d like but which she knew they’d appreciate for the effort she’d put into it for them. ‘You?’

  ‘Getting there,’ Lissy said.

  She had the filling to make – sundried tomatoes, mozzarella, and spinach – but she could do that while the pastry was resting in the fridge. Once she’d made it! She was running late with dinner – salmon she’d already cooked, with new potatoes she’d yet to cook and salad that would only take five minutes to put together – but it didn’t matter much. None of them had a time schedule, after all. And besides, she hadn’t said what time she’d be serving dinner so none of them would know it was late anyway, would they?

  ‘There!’ Janey said, picking up the huge wreath she was working on and turning it this way and that.

  ‘That is so good, Janey,’ Lissy said. ‘That’s not going to go out with the Christmas rubbish … you know the ripped apart crackers and the festive napkins and so on.

  ‘It’s not finished yet,’ Janey said. ‘Another ten minutes should do it and then I’ll ask Xander to help me hang it. Anyway, what are you going to do with all this jewellery?’

  Lissy looked up as Janey wound an amber necklace around a plaited red and gold scarf, the whole thing glinting under the overhead downlighters.

  ‘I haven’t given it a thought, to be honest. Not my thing any of it but it seemed too good to take to the tip. Charity shop? That’s where I took most of her books and some ornaments, not that Vonny had much of either.’

  And what a horrid job that had been, throwing Vonny’s shoes and most of her bags, and clothes that had seen better days into the relevant skips at the community tip. She shivered, remembering how she’d felt a traitor almost doing it.

  ‘Well, let me know which charity shop you take them to and I’ll go and buy some back. These scarves are gorgeous. Fabulous colours. I’ve picked out all the scarves that are Christmassy … anything with red in it, or green, with a bit of gold thrown in.’

  ‘Good. Lovely,’ Lissy said, awed at how deftly Janey had plaited and twisted and woven the scarves around old wire coat-hangers she’d cut to shape with some pliers Lissy had found in a drawer in the kitchen. How talented she was. ‘But take what you want once Christmas is over. You’re welcome.’

  The two women carried on working at their respective tasks in silence. How peaceful it was, Lissy thought.

  ‘You like cooking, don’t you?’ Janey said in her gentle voice as though, perhaps, she’d been reluctant to break the silence.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Did Coo …’ Janey began but then didn’t seem to know how to go on. Lissy saw a flush on the side of Janey’s neck.

  ‘Did Cooper like my cooking? Is that what you were going to say?’

  ‘Mmm’ Janey said, nodding. ‘Oh, God, sorry. I shouldn’t have even thought it.’ Janey began twisting another string of beads around the scarves as though her life depended on it.

  ‘Yes, you should. We’re friends. Friends can say things to one another that sometimes even family can’t say. And besides, it’s said the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and all that. But to answer your unasked question,’ Lissy said, ‘yes, he did like my cooking. In the beginning. But if he didn’t like it enough to stop him going off to exchange it for third-rate, reheated Chinese takeaways with radio-active coloured sauces, then that’s up to him.’

  ‘Oh!’ Janey said, putting a hand to her mouth.

  ‘It’s okay, you can laugh, you know,’ Lissy said.

  So Janey did.

  ‘It’s all coming back now. The time we spent together at Dartington doing that course. We laughed a lot, didn’t we Lissy?’

  ‘We did. And we’ll laugh some more this Christmas. Deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ Janey said. ‘There!’ Janey held the wreath out in front of her, twisting her head this way and that to look at it. ‘That’s just about done. Mustn’t over-gild the lily. Less is more sometimes.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Lissy said. ‘Once it’s on the door it will feel like Vonny is here welcoming us back in from wherever it is we’ve been.’

  Initially full of misgivings that she’d made too rash a decision inviting them all for Christmas, she was changing her mind by the minute. This house needed people in it. It needed laughter, and friendship, and … and love.

  The doorbell rang then.

  ‘Oh, blast. Who can that be?’ Lissy said, her hands, covered in raw pastry. An Amazon delivery perhaps? Her mother always sent presents via the internet and she’d not re
ceived anything from her yet. To run her hands down the sides of her apron and answer the bell or not? Janey had that second picked up a pair of dangly crystal earrings and was attaching them to the bottom of the wreath. ‘Can one of you get the door!’ Lissy yelled in the direction of the sitting room and Xander and Bobbie.

  She heard movement. Good, they’d heard her.

  ‘Will do!’ Bobbie yelled back.

  Bobbie’s heels clacked on the hall tiles as she hurried to the door. And then Lissy heard them again as she scurried back towards the kitchen. She stood in the doorway.

  ‘For you, Janey. There’s a man at the door asking for you. He …’

  ‘No!’ Janey said, cupping her hands over her mouth. She swayed on the high stool, slumped forward.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Bobbie said rushing to catch Janey as she slid towards the floor. ‘I was going to say,’ she went on, turning to look, shocked, at Lissy, ‘I asked what he wanted but he said he had something of hers and he needed to see her. Who the hell is he and what has he done to this poor woman?’

  ‘You see to Janey,’ Lissy said. ‘Xander and I will sort this out.’

  ‘Xander!’ Lissy yelled, tearing across the hall. ‘I need you.’

  There was a very tall man – sixties? – in her hall, the front door shut behind him. He was holding something in his hand. A smartphone?

  ‘Who are you?’ Lissy asked as Xander came to stand by her. He put an arm on her shoulder as if to say, ‘I’ll protect you, don’t worry’. That simple gesture put a lump in Lissy’s throat. ‘Oh, I remember you now. You’re the taxi driver.’

  ‘The very same. Sam. Ace Taxis. Forgive me for taking liberties closing the door but you were paying to heat the street with it wide open.’ His smile was broad and, Lissy decided, genuine. But he looked embarrassed now.

  ‘I don’t think anyone’s ordered a taxi,’ Lissy said, the hint of a question in her voice.

  ‘Not me, anyway,’ Xander said. He put slight pressure on Lissy’s shoulder as though to remind her he was still there.

  ‘No, no they haven’t. But the thing is I brought a young woman here earlier today. Before lunchtime it was. Fairish hair down to here.’ He put the side of his left hand halfway down his right arm to show where her hair had come. ‘Wearing a black coat, she was. Swamped in it. Anxious. I’ve got her phone.’

  ‘Oh,’ Lissy said, a massive sigh of relief taking the tension from her. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Well, not entirely,’ Sam said. ‘I need to make sure I give this phone to the right person because …’ He lowered his voice, looked into the distance behind Lissy and Xander and then towards the staircase. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Janey,’ Lissy said. She could see this man – Sam – meant Janey no harm now. ‘She’s in the kitchen.’

  ‘Yes, that would be the name,’ Sam said. ‘I sensed there was something up with her the second I picked up the fare. She looked lost in that coat of hers like it was two sizes too big in the first place or she’d shrunk two sizes since buying it. And scared, she looked scared. This confirms it.’ He waved the phone towards Lissy. ‘She must have dropped it down beside the seat. I was just parking up for the night when I heard its ringtone. Frightened the life out of me it did. On and on it went. I know I should have switched the thing off but curiosity got the better of me. Anyway, whoever it is was was threatening her with all sorts. Filthy language like you wouldn’t believe. Sounded drunk to me.’

  ‘Oh, poor Janey,’ Lissy said.

  ‘Got a daughter the same sort of age, I have,’ Sam went on, as though he was in no hurry to leave. ‘Stuff’s happened to her over the years, poor maid.’

  Lissy couldn’t help smiling at Sam’s use of the Devonshire term ‘maid’. Vonny had used it all the time when Lissy had been younger. ‘You’re more drowned than a drowned rat, maid,’ was what she always said when Lissy had come back dripping and covered in sand from the beach.

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this, Sam,’ Lissy said, aware now how Xander’s arm was still around her and how good it made her feel. Safe. Cared for. But it was only the sort of gesture anyone would make to comfort another in a time of stress. ‘But I’ll take over now. Thank you for your concern. Not many would have bothered.’ She reached out a hand for Janey’s phone and Sam handed it to her.

  ‘Some Christmas it’s going to be for her, poor woman,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll let myself out.’ He turned to go. Then he turned back again. ‘Got it lovely in here, you have. All it needs, in my humble opinion, is a stonking great floor-to-ceiling tree, decorated to within an inch its life, in this barn of a hall. Maybe two. And that’s me sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted.’

  ‘D’you know,’ Xander said. ‘I think you’re right. We’ll go and get one tomorrow, shall we, Lissy?’

  ‘I think we must,’ Lissy said.

  ‘Happy Christmas anyway, you guys,’ Sam said.

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ Lissy and Xander said as one.

  Chapter 10

  Janey

  ‘I lied,’ Janey said. ‘Stuart and I haven’t separated. Well, not legally. I’ve left him. I left a note under the tin with the teabags in it.’

  ‘When?’ Bobbie asked gently. She sat beside Janey on the couch – one of Janey’s hands held between both of hers – where Xander had half dragged, half carried her, after she’d come round from her faint. ‘When did you leave?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘Does he know you’re here?’ Lissy asked.

  ‘No. Not unless he’s hacked into my emails and found the details but I doubt it. He was still in a drunken stupor from the night before. As always. Well, not always. He drinks moderately in the week in termtime. He can hardly turn up drunk at nine o’clock for his first maths pupils, can he? But he goes on benders at weekend and in the holidays. I couldn’t take any more. I should have left him years ago.’

  Janey felt her shoulders drop down from somewhere near her ears just saying the words – words she’d thought for years but never thought she’d utter.

  ‘Lots of us stay in relationships longer than is good for us. Sometimes it’s just too scary to go it alone,’ Lissy said.

  Is that what it had been like for Lissy, Janey wondered, surprised at Lissy’s comment, because the emails they’d exchanged after Cooper had left Lissy had suggested otherwise … that Lissy had been heartbroken. Maybe she was seeing things in a new light now she was divorced. Divorced. Oh my God, Janey was going to have to deal with all that. She was going to have to see Stuart at some stage but she wasn’t going to be alone with him ever again. She’d ask her brother-in-law to be with her. Or a solicitor.

  Janey looked at Xander and then Bobbie and they were both nodding, as though they agreed with what Lissy had just said.

  ‘Have you listened to Stuart’s call?’ Xander asked. ‘Sam said, well, he said it wasn’t the nicest Christmas message.’

  A bubble of laughter fluttered inside Janey – Xander was trying to lighten the mood, trying to comfort her.

  ‘No. I’m not going to,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t have said anything I haven’t heard before. He’s a fair bit older than me,’ Janey went on. ‘Did I say?’

  Her three friends shook their heads. There was so much none of them knew about each other.

  ‘Sixteen years.’

  ‘Really?’ Lissy said, eyes widening in surprise and leaning forward as though wanting to hear better. And more.

  Lissy sat on the couch beside Xander, opposite her and Bobbie. Lissy had crossed her legs as though holding herself, and her emotions tight, but Xander was sitting, legs sprawled and Janey thought he looked so comfortable, the house might have been his not Lissy’s.

  ‘My mother warned me about the age difference,’ Janey said.

  ‘Oh, mothers!’ Bobbie laughed. ‘They don’t always get it right, you know, Janey.’

  ‘I know. But mine sort of did. She warned me that the age difference would throw up all sorts of issues, if not in the b
eginning but as time went on. She said that Stuart and I had been brought up in different eras with different music and different politics. We’d had a different education – Stuart went to uni, I didn’t – and been subjected to different morals in our upbringings. That’s what my mother said.’

  ‘And your father?’ Lissy asked.

  ‘I must have had one,’ Janey said with a shrug. ‘But he was never mentioned. My mother married Grant when I was six and then they had Suzy. If I bought up the subject of my real father my mother swiftly changed it. So I stopped asking. It just wasn’t worth the hassle.’

  ‘And does your mother know? About Stuart? How your marriage has been for you?’ Lissy again. Janey could tell she really cared, and that she wasn’t being nosy, just trying to get the fuller picture.

  ‘I told her once. I went to her, covered in bruises, and all she said was I’d made my bed and I’d have to lie in it. She and Grant are living in Spain now.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Lissy said. ‘All these mothers swanning off to live abroad, leaving their children!’

  ‘With respect, Lissy,’ Bobbie said, rather sharply Janey thought, ‘sometimes people – even mothers – have to do what they have to do. And what’s more, you and Janey are hardly children anymore.’

  If Lissy was taken aback at Bobbie’s comment, she covered it well, although Janey noticed Xander turned sharply to look at her, checking she was okay.

  ‘You’re right, of course.’

  ‘And,’ Janey said, unable to let the subject of Stuart go although she knew she had to or it was going to spoil this whole Christmas break, wasn’t it? ‘He liked Freddie Mercury. So Eighties’ music and I was only a child then listening to Postman Pat!’

  ‘Postman Pat and his black-and-white cat,’ Xander said in a sing-song voice.

  And then there was what was possibly the most bizarre moment Janey had ever had, or would have, when they all sang the Postman Pat song. Bizarre, but heavens how it lightened the mood.