Christmas at Strand House

by Linda Mitchelmore

‘Happy Christmas both of you,’ she said, kissing first Janey’s cheek and then Lissy’s.

  ‘Let the day begin,’ Lissy said, disentangling herself from Bobbie’s hold. ‘I’ll need to get the pastries in the oven. While they’re cooking I’ll prep the scrambled eggs. With smoked salmon this morning because it’s a special morning. That okay with everyone?’

  Everyone said it was so she went to the range of double ovens, lit one, then fetched the pastries.

  Janey and Xander exchanged Happy Christmas kisses.

  ‘Hey!’ Janey said. ‘What about Xander, Lissy? No kiss for him?’

  ‘We’ve already done that,’ Lissy said, reddening.

  Well, well, well. Bobbie smiled to herself who’d have thought it! She looked at Xander who gave her the merest vestige of a wink. Yes, that kiss had happened, and if she were a betting woman she’d put money on it that it wasn’t the air kiss variety.

  Chapter 26

  Lissy

  It was gone ten o’clock before they all finished breakfast. Lissy told them that lunch would be whatever they could find in the fridge whenever they felt hungry or the various tins that were filled with Christmas goods. She would be serving the Christmas meal at about four o’clock.

  Janey told them about the text she’d left for Stuart ending things for ever with him, and the one to her sister that had opened up new avenues of communication. She was, she said, still feeling a bit fragile seeing as it was only two days since she’d made her momentous decision to leave her marriage. She wanted, she said, to stay at Strand House and do some watercolours from the sketches she’d done on the beach after dawn. Lissy said that was fine by her. She was going to go for a long walk, along the beach to Goodrington and back seeing as the tide was way out, before she holed herself up in the kitchen cooking again. Did anyone want to join her?

  ‘Count me out,’ Bobbie said.

  ‘Count me in,’ Xander said which was exactly what Lissy had wanted him to say.

  And now, here they were, Lissy having closed the front door behind them. Xander held out his hand for her to take. Lissy took it and together they walked down the steps to the road.

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘With the house?’ Lissy said, knowing instinctively what he meant.

  ‘Yeah. Sell? It’d be a shame to see developers get it. You know, turn it into holiday let flats or something. This, of course, is a property developer speaking!’

  ‘Do you want to buy it?’ Lissy asked.

  ‘I’d love to, although I’d more than rattle around in it. My bank manager would have something to say about that, though.’

  They’d reached the steps that led down to the beach where Lissy had seen Janey sitting sketching as the sun rose. Lissy wondered what sort of cashflow problems Xander might have but wouldn’t ask – she’d wait to be told. When people found out she was accountant many of them thought she would give free advice over a drink in the pub or a lunchtime meal in a café somewhere.

  ‘Beach or prom?’ Xander said.

  ‘Prom first, I think,’ Lissy said. ‘All the little kiddies will be riding their new bikes or be on their skateboards. I remember doing that one Christmas morning when we stopped with Vonny. I had a chopper that year.’

  ‘Prom it is, then,’ Xander said. ‘Watch your ankles with little girls getting to grips with their dolly pushchairs.’ He pointed to a gaggle of children and grownups about two hundred yards ahead who were walking towards them.

  ‘It was prams in my day,’ Lissy laughed. It had taken her a while to get the hang of steering one and she’d taken lumps out of various skirting boards at Strand House the Christmas Vonny had bought her one, not that Vonny had minded. Lissy was, she knew, the daughter Vonny had never been able to have. ‘Buggies were only just beginning to be popular. God, that makes me feel ancient, saying that?’

  ‘So, how ancient is ancient for you?’ Xander asked.

  ‘A man should never ask a lady her age.’ Lissy laughed before adding, ‘I’m thirty-six.’

  ‘Ah. So how do you feel about going out with an older man? I can give you five years.’

  Two little girls on scooters came hurtling towards them and Lissy and Xander were forced to let go of hands and weave around the children.

  On automatic pilot their hands reconnected within seconds. How good it felt, her hand in Xander’s.

  ‘Hardly an age gap,’ Lissy said. ‘But does it matter if there is? Vonny’s husband was a good ten or more years older than she was but they couldn’t have been happier.’

  ‘And you can feel that happiness in the house, I think. I never thought I’d hear myself say something like that. A bit of a hippy thing for a builder to be saying, but there it is.’

  Xander gave her hand a little squeeze, and Lissy squeezed back.

  ‘I’ve always felt it,’ Lissy said.

  ‘So, back to my earlier question. What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Keep it. Somehow. In just two days with you all being there I know it’s the right thing to do. I’ve been unhappy running my practice for a while now. It’ll probably take time to find a buyer and sell my flat in Princesshay but time is what I have at the moment.’

  ‘And do what?’ Xander said.

  They’d got as far as the pier now. The lights were flashing on the helter-skelter and Lissy could hear the beep of the one-armed bandits up above them as they walked underneath. There was even a queue at the ice cream stall and anyone could have been forgiven for thinking it was midsummer, except Lissy was bundled up in a coat and boots and had a beanie on her head, and Xander was wearing a donkey jacket and a scarf around his neck, although he was still wearing shorts.

  ‘I could do what Vonny did and run it as an upmarket B&B. I’d need to make myself a totally private bolthole though. Somewhere guests couldn’t find me to ask for more teabags for their hospitality trays, or if they could hang wet bathing costumes on the line.’

  ‘I could help with that,’ Xander said. ‘The builder in me – well, frustrated architect really – has been making plans. You know, the old if-it-were-mine-this-is-what-I’d-do-with-it scenario.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I’d put an L-shaped conservatory around the kitchen. And then I’d extend the laundry room out into the garden to butt onto the end of it and make that a sort of den. The kitchen’s so vast you could carve out a bit to make another laundry room, easy peasy. I’d put in a woodburner in the sitting room for the winter – central-heating radiators always seem totally lacking in warmth and atmosphere to me. My sitting room faces the sea so I know how cold it can be sometimes, even with central heating. Out the back you’d be cosy in the winter and then it would be a bolthole in the summer.’

  ‘Gosh, you have thought all this through! But am I guessing correctly here that you need the work?’ Lissy said. She could feel Xander’s professional enthusiasm for a project and yet there was something deeper as well.

  ‘Got it in one.’ Xander took a deep breath. ‘But you’ve missed a trick?’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I want you to stay. I like to think we’re at the start of something that could be very special between us. I like to think you’ll be on one end of the curve of the bay and I’ll be on the other in our own spaces until, well … until I’ve got something to offer you.’

  ‘I don’t need you to offer me anything, Xander,’ Lissy said. ‘Let’s not get in too deep, eh? Why don’t we just enjoy the moment? I feel the same as you – that we’re at the start of something that could be very special. I’ve come more alive just being around you these past two days than I have in ages. There’s a sort of fizz inside me.’

  ‘Me too,’ Xander said. Again, a little extra pressure on Lissy’s hand. ‘But I need to lay my cards out. I don’t want you thinking that my eyes have suddenly gone off like cash registers knowing you’ve inherited Strand House, and that I’m trying to cash in because I’m not.’

  ‘I think I’m a better judge
of character,’ Lissy said, ‘than to think that.’

  ‘That’s a nice thing to say. Thank you. Anyway, here it is … confession time. I’ve got big decisions to make in the New Year. I’ll need to lay my blokes off, hopefully only for a short time. I should have done it before but I couldn’t ruin their Christmases. They’re family men, all of them. Good blokes.’

  ‘I like your idea for the conservatory and the makeover of the laundry room,’ Lissy said.

  ‘I hoped you might,’ Xander grinned at her. ‘So, you’re considering going with the B&B option?’

  ‘Not completely. I don’t think that would be all that challenging. I mean, how many different breakfasts can a girl make?’

  ‘Today’s was awesome,’ Xander said. ‘Made a change from cornflakes and a couple of rounds of burnt toast because I always forget to check it under the grill and get side-tracked feeding the cat or something.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can find for you tomorrow, then,’ Lissy said.

  And the day after, and the day after that.

  ‘You put all sorts of mouth-watering photos up on your Facebook page,’ Xander said.

  ‘And Instagram,’ Lissy said.

  ‘Ah, I’ve yet to embrace that. I only got into Facebook when I had to close down Claire’s account. I looked you up and then, after the funeral, I found Janey’s and Bobbie’s pages. I love Janey’s art. I’ve offered to buy a couple of things but she always says she’s not selling.’

  ‘I think she’s coming round to a change of heart on that,’ Lissy said.

  She’d have to now she’d be funding herself. She must remember to mention again that Janey could stay on at Strand House after Christmas if she wanted or needed to. It could be a mutually useful arrangement – a safe haven for Janey while she thought through the rest of her life, and a house-sitter for Lissy while she sold her practice. Gosh, had she really said that – sold her practice? It was starting to feel like more than a reality.

  ‘Yeah, she’ll have to, poor woman,’ Xander said.

  Xander bent to pick up a mussel shell, the two halves still joined. It had a mother-of-pearl glow to it, and Lissy suddenly had a vision of a pot of steaming mussels, with herbs and white wine. Crusty bread. A glass of Chablis. Oh yes, her thoughts were all going in the right direction now, weren’t they? This walk with Xander was just what she’d needed to clear her head.

  ‘She’ll get there,’ Lissy said. ‘Bobbie, too. I’m beginning to read between lines there. I’m not sure what I’m reading but there’s a sort of sadness, I think, despite her cheery, and very fast, way of talking.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m thinking that, too. But Bobbie’s Facebook pages are off my radar really with the clothes and the shoes and the bags and the hats and all the stuff she puts up, but there’s something about the constant joy she gives the people who follow her. I read all their comments but never comment myself.’

  ‘We shouldn’t be talking about them behind their backs,’ Lissy said. She was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable about that. It was something she’d always made a conscious decision to avoid because running a business she knew how dangerous it could be to share a confidence only to have that confidence passed on as gossip.

  ‘No. It’s not mean stuff though, is it? And I’d say it to their faces. I think, the bottom line is that we both want the best for them, that’s all. It felt sort of right to keep you all in my life seeing as you’d been in Claire’s. I haven’t noticed you taking photos of what you’ve served up for us, though. Have you?’

  ‘No,’ Lissy said. ‘I decided to keep off all social media over Christmas. Besides, the photos I put up are impersonal – just food I’ve been experimenting with, and only for my own consumption, although sometimes I take the bakes into the office and share them around. Cooking for you all has more … well, more love in it, I suppose.’

  ‘Aw, that’s a lovely thing to say. We certainly love eating it. Had enough of the prom?’ Xander asked, steering Lissy towards the next set of steps coming up that led down onto the beach.

  She was happy to be steered. The steps were steep and uneven, worn away by centuries of footsteps and the tides, covered in places in barnacles and the traces of fossilised egg cases. Xander let go of her hand, and took her elbow instead, the better to steady her. Such a gallant gesture and Lissy couldn’t help but make a comparison between him and Cooper who had only ever put himself first, although she knew it was more than stupid to make comparisons.

  ‘My humble abode coming up,’ Xander said, as they neared the harbour. ‘Would you mind if I stopped off to check on Felix?’

  Lissy had been there before, of course, when she’d dropped Claire off after one of their girly, learning new things, weekends. She’d never stopped for long – just a cup of tea or coffee before she drove back to Exeter. But she couldn’t remember anyone called Felix having been there.

  ‘Felix? A lodger?’

  ‘No. My cat.’

  ‘I love cats,’ Lissy said, pulling Xander along now towards where she knew an alleyway went up to his cottage.

  Would they, she wondered, make it to Goodrington now? Would they?

  Chapter 27

  Xander

  The second Xander opened the door to his cottage and began to usher Lissy in, he knew he was making a massive mistake. His father’s advice to his teenage self came back to him, echoing loud in his mind. So loud he thought for a moment that Lissy could probably hear it.

  ‘Don’t even think about making love to a woman, Xand, unless it’s in a place that looks as though you’ve taken trouble over it. Especially the first time. Round the back of a pub will not do. Remember, your brains are not in your bollocks, son.’

  Xander had been hugely embarrassed over that conversation at the time. Amused, too. His father had always called a spade a shovel and his sex advice had been no different. Short and to the point. By and large, Xander had stuck to those rules, the times he and Claire had made love on the beach in the darkness excepted. But those times had been her choice as much as his own.

  So, what was he thinking now, bringing Lissy here? Upstairs in his bedroom he knew the bed was unmade from when he’d got out of it. There were probably socks lying about somewhere. The socks of Claire’s he’d felt unable to throw away were still under his pillow. If they were to make love on the couch he knew it would be liberally sprinkled with Felix’s fur. Lissy deserved better than that.

  ‘Um,’ Xander said, closing the door gently behind Lissy. ‘I’m not sure about this now.’

  Another of his father’s favourite sayings had been that honesty was the best policy. His gut feeling when they’d been walking along, their hands firmly clasped together, fit together like two pieces of a jigsaw, was that Lissy wanted to make love as much as he did. Making love and being in love weren’t the same thing. He’d done a fair bit of the former before Claire and after, but he’d only ever been in love with Claire. In lust a few times, and there was an element of that in his feelings for Lissy but, back to that honesty thing, he was beginning to fall in love with her. He was beginning to accept that now.

  ‘Nor me,’ Lissy said.

  She was looking at an enlarged photo of Claire, bare feet, long floaty skirt pulled up over her knees, running out of the sea. The sun had caught the splashes of water she’d been kicking up and there seemed to be a halo of light around her shock of loose curls. Xander loved that photo but Lissy didn’t need to be seeing it now, did she?

  ‘Beautiful photo,’ Lissy said.

  ‘I’ll never part with it,’ he said, knowing now that whoever he shared his life with in the future – and he hoped with all his heart that that would be Lissy – she would have to understand that Claire would always be with him.

  ‘Nor should you,’ Lissy said.

  ‘Coffee?’ Xander said. ‘Tea? The milk might be a bit iffy though.’

  God, he was sounding like a pimply teenager now and not the assured lover he’d been told more than a few times that he was, alt
hough he found that hard to believe.

  ‘Or we could carry on with our walk?’ Lissy said. ‘I didn’t think it would affect me quite so much coming in here and Claire not being here.’

  ‘No,’ Xander said.

  ‘I’ll never have to do this for the first time ever again though,’ Lissy said. ‘You know, come in here and see all Claire’s photos because I couldn’t expect you not to have them around, and neither would I want that. Bobbie said that about meeting Claire’s parents at St Paul’s – I’d never have to do that for the first time again. There’ll be other times for us.’

  Xander felt like punching the air at her words.

  ‘God, I hope so,’ he said.

  Lissy turned and smiled up at him. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

  ‘So, back to the walk? Probably the better idea because, well, there are two ladies back at Strand House expecting dinner this afternoon and goodness knows what state of exhaustion we’d be in if we … well, you know.’

  Oh yes, Xander knew. And then an idea came to him at the mention of Janey and Bobbie. They – and Lissy – would be dressing for dinner, wouldn’t they? He was a right scruff bag by comparison. He couldn’t play the comedic French waiter again either. But he did have a dinner suit upstairs, still in its polythene wrapping from when it had come back from the dry cleaner’s after a business dinner he’d attended.

  ‘Be with you in five,’ Xander said. ‘Just got to fetch something.’

  Chapter 28

  Janey

  Janey came downstairs – wearing a pair of randomly splashed leggings, like someone had used them to paint walls and rubbed the brushes off on them, and a powder blue, cowl-necked, Angora jumper that Bobbie had loaned her – to find Bobbie sitting on the largest couch, her legs tucked up underneath her, reading.

  ‘Ah, there you are Bobbie.’

  ‘The very same,’ Bobbie said, putting down her book and sliding her reading glasses up onto the top of her head.

  Even that gesture looked elegant and worthy of a photograph in Janey’s opinion. Or a painting. Now she was thinking about it more she was seeing opportunities everywhere.