Christmas at Strand House Page 6

  ‘Freddie Mercury was one helluva performer,’ Bobbie said. ‘It’s an age difference thing. There’s quite a gap between my age and you three.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, so there is,’ Lissy said. ‘It didn’t seem to matter much at the art workshop though, did it?’

  ‘No. And it doesn’t matter now really,’ Bobbie said. ‘I was just saying.’

  Bobbie was right – the difference in their ages didn’t matter at all, not back then and not now in Lissy’s beautiful house with Christmas to look forward to together. Janey’s head was a mishmash of thoughts and she struggled to find something to say – she was finding it slightly embarrassing now that all the attention was on her.

  ‘Thanks,’ Janey said. ‘All of you. For being so kind …’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ Bobbie said, giving Janey’s hand a squeeze. ‘It’s what friends are for.’

  ‘Oh my! Gosh! Is that the time?’ Lissy said jumping up. ‘Janey, will you be okay here with Bobbie while I get on with supper?’

  Janey nodded.

  ‘No one’s going to harm you anymore, Janey,’ Lissy said, her tone softening. ‘Not if the three of us have anything to do with it. You’re safe here. Right, gang?’

  ‘Right,’ Xander and Bobbie agreed.

  Janey hoped not, but surprised herself with what words actually came out of her mouth.

  ‘I won’t let anyone hurt me. Not anymore.’

  Bobbie let go of Janey’s hand and put an arm around her shoulders, gave her a squeeze, but when Janey turned to look at her she saw there were tears in Bobbie’s eyes. What, she wondered, had Bobbie had to put up with in her life?

  Again, a silence fell over them all, soft as gossamer, not uncomfortable.

  ‘I think it’s time we had some Christmas music. Vonny loved Christmas music, the carols and the classical stuff.’ Lissy went over to a dresser, opened a drawer and brought out a handful of CDs. ‘Player’s over there, Bobbie. Can I leave you in charge of light entertainment?’

  ‘You can.’

  ‘And help yourself to drinks.’ Lissy waved an arm towards the drinks trolley. ‘Oh, and Xander, could you put the wreath Janey made on the front door?’

  She marched over to the couch, the hostess taking charge of the situation again, and reached out a hand to help Xander up, although he didn’t exactly look reluctant when he took it.

  Well, well, well … what might happen there, Janey wondered, as Bobbie put a CD in the player and Bing Crosby began to croon.

  Chapter 11

  Xander

  ‘I hope it’s not all going a bit Pete Tong,’ Xander said.

  ‘What?’ Lissy asked. ‘This savoury swirl filling? It firmed up a bit when we were in there with Janey. I’ll need to loosen it, fill the pastry, and then whack it in the top oven.’

  Xander watched as she lobbed in a tablespoon of mascarpone and gave it a vigorous stir. He began to salivate, thinking about supper. A side of salmon sat in a dish, covered in some herb or other and slices of lemon ready, he supposed, to go in the oven when these swirl things were done. Claire had never made swirls. Or cooked salmon for that matter. Cooking hadn’t been Claire’s thing and the few times she’d attempted it had been total disasters so that they’d had to go up to the Boathouse to eat or get a takeaway.

  ‘No, not that,’ Xander said. ‘I meant your plan for a jolly, ho ho ho, Christmas break. All Santa hats and stockings and champagne and mince pies.’

  ‘The plan is still on track, if running late a little,’ Lissy said, smiling warmly at him. Her cheeks looked like little crab apples glistening with the effort of her cooking under the downlighters of the kitchen island. ‘Although I’m right out of stockings, I’m afraid. The felt variety with Christmassy logos on, I mean.’ She pressed her lips together and gave him a cheeky look.

  Was that a wink? Xander gulped.

  Before he could think of how to reply that wouldn’t have been ‘I bet you’d look dead sexy in stockings’ which would be sexist and inappropriate in anyone’s opinion, Lissy filled the conversational gap.

  ‘If you mean Janey having the shock of her life and a bit of a wobble, then it’s not spoiling anything for me. Is it for you?’

  ‘No. I was a bit out of my depth with what to say though. Poor Janey. I’m right out of my comfort zone with men who abuse women, and I’ve met a few. Employed a few before I found out their true colours and then got rid of them again. It’s a mercy that was the taxi driver at the door and not Janey’s husband or I’d have done him over. Anyway, I’ll get this wreath Janey made on the door and then I’ll come and give you a hand. I’m a fairly domesticated example of the male species.’

  Xander picked up the wreath along with a ratchet screwdriver and a couple of screws Lissy had put ready. Crossing the hall, he could hear Bobbie and Janey laughing. He let out a sigh … thank goodness for that.

  He had the wreath fixed in minutes and now, with the front door firmly closed, he stood with his back to it looking out to sea. The moon was up, casting its beam towards him. How strange it was that wherever anyone stood looking out to sea the moon’s beam always came directly at them, putting them in a sort of lunar spotlight. In high summer, on hot nights when it was too clammy and uncomfortable to sleep in their bed, he and Claire had often walked along the beach in the moonlight, when all the holidaymakers were tucked up in their holiday accommodation or in a club somewhere. Hand in hand. Until Claire always raced away from him shouting back at him that the moon’s beam was on her which was a cue for Xander to race in the opposite direction and yell that no, she’d got that wrong, the beam was on him. And then they’d run towards one another colliding in a slightly wobbly fashion as the sand shifted under their feet, their lips eventually meeting. On more than a few occasions those kisses had led the way to other things, the way kisses do, and they’d thrown caution – and the possibility of a conviction for a breach of the peace – to the wind and made love under the pier, tucked under the overhang of the ice cream kiosk.

  Xander stood and let memories of Claire wash over him but he was struggling these days to remember the scent of her, the feel of her skin on his, the exact depth of the brown of her eyes, and that scared him at times.

  ‘I hope you’re at peace,’ he whispered into the night before turning and going back into the house. Memories wouldn’t bring Claire back. He still had a future and it was time he got on with having one. Everyone he knew said so.

  ‘Do you need any help?’ Xander asked, when he went back in to join Lissy.

  She was washing down the evidence of pastry making and savoury swirl mixture that had spilled out onto the worktop. There was a delicious smell filling the kitchen now.

  ‘Please. You could pour me a drink. Glasses in the cupboard over there.’ She pointed to a floor-to-ceiling range of shelves and cupboards. ‘Second row of cupboards down on the far left. There’s a bottle of white open in the fridge. Have one yourself unless you’d prefer beer. That’s in the larder.’ Lissy waved an arm towards a door Xander deduced was the larder.

  ‘I’ll join you with the wine,’ Xander said, fetching the glasses. He took a bottle of Viognier – the only bottle in there that was already opened – and poured two glasses. ‘This is one vast kitchen you’ve got. I reckon the whole floor plan of my cottage would fit in here!’

  ‘Most people’s would, I expect,’ Lissy laughed. ‘It was quite a surprise when I was told Strand House was now mine. And everything in it.’

  ‘Claire spoke very fondly of this place,’ Xander said, a tad cross with himself that just a few moments ago his thoughts had told him it was time to move on and now he was going back again.

  ‘We had some good times here.’ Lissy had finished wiping down and was now taking plates and bowls from a cupboard in the island. ‘Vonny was very welcoming. She never minded that we came back from the beach covered in sand with bits of shell sticking to us. Or seaweed between our toes. I’ve got a ton of photos back in Exeter. I was going to thin them down b
ecause if there’s one of Claire and me with our arms around one another’s necks, making stupid faces at the camera, there must be dozens, if not hundreds. But, well, after she died I just couldn’t.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Xander nodded. He knew the feeling. He’d kept all of Claire’s clothes for two years before dealing with them – charity shop donations mostly. But still there was a pair of socks – neon pink with yellow butterflies on them – that he couldn’t bear to part with. Claire had always worn them in bed on cold nights. Xander still slept with them under his pillow.

  ‘Claire always came here. I rarely went to her house, even though it’s only a couple of houses down the road.’

  ‘She said. Her parents still live there.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Lissy said. She was rather noisily searching out cutlery now. ‘I’ve thought about calling to say hello. Do you think I’d be welcome, or …’

  ‘I’m not,’ Xander cut in. ‘They’ve more or less cut me off. There was the funeral that we organised together and I gave her mother all Claire’s jewellery, except her wedding and engagement ring, but after that if I rang to say I was thinking of popping over they always said they were busy or going out or it wasn’t convenient or something. I got the hint in the end.’

  ‘Oh, that’s so sad for you. I’m sorry. But I suppose people grieve in different ways, Xand,’ Lissy said.

  Xand? Only Claire had ever called him Xand, and his mother sometimes, and he’d always resisted letting anyone else call him that. Hearing Lissy say it gave him a good feeling.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ And I’m being bloody gracious saying that because I was a very supportive son-in-law to them. He’d even done any jobs they’d needed doing around their house for free. Because they were family. But not anymore, it seemed.

  Lissy took a tea towel from the airing rack of the cooker and began polishing the cutlery with it. She sniffed the air. ‘Ah, the savoury swirls are done, I can smell them.’

  She took them from the oven, placing the hot baking tray straight onto the granite working surface. Xander had put in more than a few granite worktops for people. Horrendously expensive stuff, granite. And heavy. It always took at least three of them to carry and fit it.

  ‘Salmon in next,’ Lissy said. ‘Then there’s the salad to throw together and the potatoes to boil. Shouldn’t be long now until we’re all sat down. My stomach’s beginning to rumble and I dare say Janey at least will be wanting something to eat – something to sort her blood sugar levels after her shock. I was going to set the table in the dining room but I’m thinking maybe in here, around the island, might be best. Less formal. What do you think?’

  Xander thought Lissy was sounding slightly anxious now. Worried perhaps that she wasn’t being the perfect hostess or something. From where he stood, Xander thought she looked pretty perfect to him with her long, slim nose, full lips, and flawless skin. Lissy had a slight Mediterranean look about her and somewhere in the depths of his mind Xander remembered Claire saying once that Lissy’s great grandmother had been Italian. Yes, that was the look – Sophia Loren in her younger days.

  ‘I think eating here would be best. I’m hardly dressed for formal dining. However, before you throw me out for having the wrong kind of clothes, I have brought new chinos and my very best Paul Smith shirt to wear on Christmas Day.’

  ‘I’m not going to throw you out,’ Lissy said so quietly Xander only just caught her words. ‘I’m glad you’re here. Really glad. Okay?’

  ‘Very okay,’ Xander croaked out. Something was happening here between him and Lissy, he could feel it. He cleared his throat, pushing back an emotion he wasn’t sure of. That getting to know a new woman feeling? He hadn’t felt that in a long time. ‘I’ll set the cutlery out while you see to the rest of it, shall I?’

  ‘Please. Christmassy napkins are in the end drawer of the island. Any ones will do. There’s loads in there.’

  Xander was glad of something to do as he rifled through the end drawer that did, as Lissy had said, have loads of napkins in there, because what he really wanted to do at that moment was put his arms around Lissy, bury his head in her hair. The slightly tipsy dance they’d shared at his wedding came back to him. The feeling he’d had then that the chemistry between them could lead to other things, was threatening to overwhelm him now. Not that there was anything to stop him letting it take hold now, was there? He so wanted to kiss Lissy.

  Too soon, man, too soon.

  Xander mentally brought himself to his senses and got on with the job in hand. He settled on some napkins that had black and grey fir trees on a white background. Those should do. They matched the black and white of the kitchen floor tiles. Almost.

  ‘Right,’ Lissy said. ‘That’s the salmon in.’ She opened the fridge and pulled out the chiller basket, brimming with salad stuff. Then she lit the gas under the potatoes. ‘I’m going to have to shift if we’re going to sit down to eat this before midnight.’

  ‘Right,’ Xander said, although he wouldn’t have minded being alone with Lissy a bit longer. Until midnight. And after. And …

  ‘Going back to what we were talking about earlier,’ Lissy said, turning from the stove to look at him. ‘I wrote to Claire’s parents as soon as you told me what had happened, and then again after the funeral. They didn’t respond. I found that sad and I admit to being a bit put out because Claire had been in my life since I was six years old, as had they. But then I gave it some thought and I can’t imagine anything in the whole world that’s worse than losing a child, and I haven’t got any to lose. But I know a couple of people who have been in that living nightmare of a scenario and it looks like the scariest, saddest place.’

  ‘Did you want children?’ Xander asked. ‘From your marriage? No, scratch that, that question is way out of order. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. The short answer is I wouldn’t have minded children, but Cooper wasn’t keen. Maybe having them with Cooper wasn’t the right thing for me?’ Lissy shrugged in an I-don’t-know sort of way. Her eyes had widened as though she was asking his opinion on whether children with Cooper would have been a bad idea.

  ‘Now that you’ve split, maybe not,’ was all Xander could think of to say.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Lissy said. ‘I’m a child of a broken marriage and it still hurts like hell so … anyway I went on the pill – which is probably too much information!’

  All information received and stored, Xander thought, but didn’t say.

  ‘Anyway,’ Lissy went on when Xander didn’t respond to that comment, ‘my practice is hyper-busy, so it was perhaps a blessing in a way that children didn’t happen for us. I don’t know how I’d have coped running a business and looking after children. And this conversation is getting a bit deep as Christmas conversations go! Shall we change the subject?’

  ‘Knitting?’ Xander joked. ‘Twelve-box sudokus? Neither of which I do, by the way.’

  ‘Phew!’ Lissy laughed. ‘Something else we have in common.’

  ‘I’m feeling a bit spare part,’ Xander said, quietly thrilled that he and Lissy seemed to be laying their cards in front of one another as it were. Trading information. Getting to know one another just a little bit more. ‘Anything else I can do to help?’

  ‘There is. Could you get four large glasses and four small out of the cupboard and give them a buff up with this?’

  Lissy reached for another tea towel and threw it towards him.

  Xander found the glasses and began polishing vigorously. Neither spoke for a few minutes, each getting on with their respective tasks. But Xander found he didn’t like the silence. He needed to hear Lissy’s voice again.

  ‘I often wish Claire and I had had children,’ he said. ‘I’d have something of her now around me always. A little girl that looked like her and a little boy I could have done boys’ stuff with. But she …’

  ‘I know, Xand,’ Lissy said. ‘She said. All the tests and everything. I’m sorry …’ Lissy’s voice trailed away as though she’d de
cided she’d said too much.

  Of course Claire would have told Lissy about the tests they’d both had when children just didn’t happen for them. Women talked about stuff like that – more than men did. He swallowed hard. Well, he was a man and he was talking now. He had to know so he had to ask?

  ‘Did Claire tell you that after so many tests we began to wonder if we were on the payroll at the hospital, the only option for us was egg donation?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lissy said.

  ‘And that Claire didn’t want to go down that road?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lissy said again.

  ‘She said the child would be mine but would never be hers and I said that that was rubbish because she would be carrying it for nine months and it would absorb the foods she ate and what she drank and feel her heart beating next to it.’ Xander had to stop speaking because he was almost choking with emotion now.

  ‘I know,’ Lissy said. She reached out a hand to touch him gently on the arm. ‘Look, Xand, I’m really sorry that you’re hearing all this now but in a way it’s a relief for me that you know that I knew because, well … I don’t like secrets, and that was a big one I was carrying. I was sad for Claire but now I’m feeling really sad for you as well. We tend not to think how it is for the men.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Xander said. ‘We didn’t argue much, Claire and me, but we did debate that one long and hard. In the end I decided it had to be Claire’s decision.’

  ‘I know,’ Lissy said sadly.

  ‘We slept apart for the first time in our marriage that night and … oh God, we were going to change the subject and now …’

  ‘I know that, too,’ Lissy said. ‘Claire called me that last morning …’

  ‘When?’ Xander interrupted. A thought had just struck him – had she been talking on her mobile to Lissy when the accident had happened?

  ‘About nine o’clock. She was putting fuel in the car and talking to me at the same time. I could hear the pump whirring, and traffic noise. Does that put your mind at rest?’