There was a door on the opposite wall of the laundry room. He’d assumed it was a cupboard of sorts but he saw now that it was slightly ajar. Lissy sounded to him, as though someone was stressing her out for some reason. Well, not on his watch, they wouldn’t be. He strode across the room, stopped at the door and listened. If she’d heard him then she’d know he was close and there for support.
‘No, Cooper. Absolutely not. You haven’t got a leg to stand …’
Cooper. Lissy’s ex-husband. She’d not talked about him to Xander much but he’d assumed that was because there wasn’t a lot to say, apart from the fact he’d tried to claim a portion of Lissy’s salary as part of the divorce settlement. Fat chance, mate, Xander thought, knowing he should go right now.
He heard her sigh as she was obviously being interrupted, and when he heard no answering comment from Cooper he guessed this was a phone call and that Cooper hadn’t got into the house somehow and he wouldn’t have to go in there and punch his lights out. Lissy had probably gone in there to take it so no one overheard. That old chestnut that eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves popped into his mind. His heart was racing though.
‘Do what you like, Cooper,’ he heard Lissy say. ‘Solicitor, barrister, judge if you want. But I can save you the time because I’ve already found out my legal position in all this and Strand House and everything that comes with it is one hundred per cent legally mine. You are owed nothing. Got that? Nothing! Now sod off. I’ve got guests here and supper to cook …’
That’s my girl! Stand up to the bullying bastard! He expected Lissy to come out then and he began to move away as quietly as he could so she wouldn’t know he’d been there but then he heard her sigh again.
She said, ‘Yes, there is someone. Not that I have to have your permission.’ Again, a little pause while Cooper was, presumably, saying something. ‘You don’t need to know his name. Then again, perhaps you do, and for the record he’s worth ten of you. Xander. And before you ask, yes, I do think we have a future. So I …’
Another exasperated sigh from Lissy and Xander wondered why she didn’t just put the phone down and then block his number as Janey had blocked Stuart’s.
‘I’ll pretend you didn’t say that,’ Lissy said. Her voice was icy now. It had lost that slightly edgy, nervous tone. ‘If I thought for a second Xander might be a golddigger, as you put it, I wouldn’t have taken things as far as I have.’ Lissy paused for breath and Cooper must have said something because then Lissy said. ‘Oh, for God’s sake Cooper, it might not be the news you want but get over it. Okay?’
It obviously wasn’t okay because Xander could hear Cooper’s very angry voice now although not the actual words.
‘Well, since you ask, it started a long time ago. I wasn’t unfaithful to you if that’s what you’re thinking. I kept those feelings very much to myself but I don’t care who knows now. It’s not a secret anymore. Goodbye!’
Xander heard the click as Lissy killed the call. It sounded almost like gunshot in his ears. So much for eavesdroppers not hearing good of themselves! He’d heard enough to melt an igloo, never mind the cockles of his heart.
Move, Xander, move before …
The door was flung open and Lissy stood there. She looked more beautiful in anger than Xander could ever have thought she would – tears were running down her face and she was pink with the emotion of dealing with the call. She ran her hands through her hair and then swiped at her tears with the back of her hand.
‘You heard?’ she said.
‘Most of it,’ Xander said. He held out his arms and Lissy walked into them. She placed the side of her head against his chest, tucking her head under his chin. What a fit! What a perfect fit! ‘Not a Christmas present you needed or wanted that call, eh?’
‘No. But it’ll be the last. I’ve blocked him,’ Lissy snuffled into him. ‘Sorry, I’m soaking the very lovely shirt you’ve put on.’
‘This old thing!’ Xander joked. ‘Soak away.’ He wrapped Lissy more tightly in his arms and rocked her gently. ‘What’s that room you were in anyway? I assumed it was a cupboard door when I came in here before.’
Lissy pushed herself away from him a little.
‘Come and look.’
Their hands linked and Lissy led the way.
It was a small room – only a little bigger than the en suite in Xander’s room. A set of French doors looked out onto the back terrace. There was a wood-burner in the corner with a basket of logs beside it. Two bucket chairs, piled with cushions. It didn’t seem to go with the 1930s look of the rest of the house somehow. Could he, he wondered, incorporate this into his plan for the L-shaped conservatory he’d drawn for Lissy? Hmm, something for the future he’d just heard Lissy say she wanted. Plenty of time, then, to ask that question.
‘It’s like a rabbit warren, this place,’ Xander said. ‘I had no idea this was here.’
‘That’s how Vonny always wanted it. It was her bolthole. She jokingly called it her library, even though she only had about a dozen books. It’s where she went when she had guests. There seems to be more of her here than in the rest of the house. I cleared lots of her things away but I left this til last. Hardly room to swing a cat she always said but she loved the secretiveness of it. Do you understand?’
‘And now it’s helped you tell Cooper your secret? About me? About us?’
‘I suppose it has. I hadn’t thought of that, but yes, it has. I hope you didn’t mind me saying?’
‘How could I? That was all my birthdays and all my Christmases rolled into one. Besides, Lissy, I’ve got a cat. Not that I’m in the habit of swinging it.’
‘Ha ha,’ Lissy laughed. ‘I know. Felix. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about him. Do you think, you know, at some time in the future, once we’ve sorted out our lives as they are now, that he’d be happy to move?’
‘Move?’ Xander said, knowing just what she meant – move to Strand House. But he’d tease her along. ‘Move where?’
‘Here, of course!’ Lissy swung round to stand in front of him. ‘Had that call gone on you’d have heard me say that, well, I’m sure you can guess the rest.’
‘Yeah. So very perceptive of you to come to the conclusion that I’m not a golddigger, and …’
‘Oh, shut up and give us a kiss,’ Lissy giggled.
So, Xander did.
‘Xander,’ Lissy said, when they came up for breath, ‘there’s something I’ve got to tell you. Something I know which you need to know, too.’
Xander’s heart started to plummet and his mouth went dry.
‘Okay …’
‘Something Claire told me. Just before she died.’
‘Best tell,’ Xander said. Whatever it was he wanted to know now.
‘Claire told me she was leaving you. She wasn’t happy with the egg donation option you’d been offered and she wanted to set you free to have a child with someone who could make one with you. We had that conversation the morning she died. I tried to dissuade her but we both know now that I didn’t manage that. She said she’d found a flat to rent in Teignmouth …’
‘Teignmouth,’ Xander said. Claire had been spending a lot of time in Teignmouth. He’d assumed it was taking the fitness classes she ran but …
‘Are you cross? That I’ve told you?’
‘No.’
‘Bobbie said keeping the secret would only fester inside me if I didn’t tell you. You told me about the tests and I should have said that I already knew but I didn’t. But I needed to tell you that I already knew. Are we still friends?’
For answer, Xander cupped Lissy’s face in his hands, tilted her head up to face his. He bent down and kissed her, a pure sweet kiss.
‘We’re more than friends, Lissy. No going back for either of us now. No secrets.’
‘No secrets,’ Lissy said, kissing him. ‘But there is something else. I don’t know how I’d feel if I were to be told what Claire was told. I don’t know if I can have a child or not … ‘
/> ‘But you’d like one?’
Lissy nodded.
‘But … and this is all a bit hypothetical at the moment … if we become a couple and I can’t have a child, knowing now that you would love to be a dad, I would consider all options. God, this is getting a bit deep, isn’t it?’
‘Just scratching the surface, I’d say,’ Xander said.
There didn’t seem to be anything to add to that so Xander didn’t. He kissed Lissy instead and she made it very obvious she was happy to be kissed.
‘Cooee! Anyone home?’ Bobbie’s voice ringing out in the echo that was Lissy’s kitchen, eventually parted them.
‘We’ve been summoned,’ Xander said, breaking the kiss.
‘But we’ll resume at a later hour.’
‘I’ll hold you to that!’ Xander said.
Chapter 42
Lissy
‘Boxing night supper,’ Lissy said, placing a Le Creuset of pot-roasted venison in the centre of the table. Hardly traditional – because didn’t people usually eat cold cuts for at least three days after the twenty-fifth of December? – but then this had hardly been a traditional Christmas for any of them. ‘One of my Blue Peter moments.’
Everyone laughed, knowing exactly what she meant – one she’d made earlier. Which she had. She’d made it the night before leaving for Strand House back in her flat in Princesshay with venison bought from the Powderham Estate and then driven down with it, placing it in the freezer until it was time to give it its moment in the sun, as it were.
‘Redcurrant sauce to go with it,’ she said. ‘Also a Blue Peter moment. Plates, Bobbie, please?’
Lissy had pre-carved the meat in the kitchen so it was just a matter then of serving it out.
‘God, but that smells heavenly,’ Bobbie said, as Lissy placed a very generous portion on a plate and Bobbie handed it to Janey. ‘Do you think you could teach me to cook like this?’
‘And me,’ Janey said. ‘I mean, take the mashed potato.’ She reached for the pottery serving dish decorated with chickens that Lissy had bought in the market in Totnes. ‘It’s so fluffly, like a cloud. Or a rumpled-up duvet.’
‘Now there’s a description!’ Lissy laughed. ‘I think it would be a first if I were to describe mashed potato like a rumpled duvet. Not even Jamie Oliver’s thought of that, I shouldn’t think.’
She couldn’t really take any credit for the mashed potato though because it was a melange of ideas gleaned from magazine cookery features or television programmes – potatoes, steamed, and then pressed through a sieve before adding single cream instead of milk before stirring in leeks softened in butter with a dash of lemon.
She carried on serving out the venison and everyone helped themselves to the carrots Lissy had roasted with garlic, thyme, rosemary, and sage. And the beans – French beans steamed briefly so that they still had a bit of crunch.
‘I thought,’ Xander said, ‘a carrot was a carrot was a carrot. You know, peeled and pre-cut in a bag that you chuck in a saucepan and …’
‘Boiled to death!’ Bobbie said.
There then followed a lively discussion of meals remembered from their childhood which had all been, pretty much – before the advent of celebrity chefs – over-cooked vegetables with overcooked meat.
‘Seriously, though …’ Janey said as they were all tucking into a deep lemon tart that contained six lemons and as many eggs and – Lissy knew – more cream than it was sensible to eat in a single sitting, but hey, this was Christmas. ‘Seriously, I think you’ve got the makings of a business here, Lissy. You could run workshops, a bit like that one we all met on, but not just cooking. How about painting, and maybe Bobbie giving people tutorials on how to throw their clothes together so they look like they’ve stepped off the front page of Vogue or something? This is—’ Janey carried on, waving her arms around the hall which seemed to have become the place to eat in the house ‘—a healing house. Look what it’s done for us all.’
Janey picked up her glass of wine and sipped.
‘A healing house,’ Lissy said. ‘I like that.’
Janey was right, of course, because it had healed her being here with Vonny after her parents’ acrimonious divorce. And there had been a weekend after Cooper had told her he wanted a divorce when she’d come down and Vonny had filled her with scones and jam and cream and let her cry and cry, holding her in her arms and saying nothing – no homilies about how it would for the best, and that everything would be all right. But maybe she knew she didn’t have to say any of that because Lissy knew now, beyond doubt, that it was for the best and everything was going to be all right.
‘Penny for them,’ Xander said. Lissy felt his foot touch hers under the table.
‘Worth far more than that,’ she said. ‘Every single one.’
‘It’s healed me,’ Janey said. ‘I know there’s a way to go for me before I’m who I really am again but it’s started the process.’
‘Good,’ Lissy said.
Bobbie was pushing a portion of tart around her plate as though wondering if she should eat it or not.
‘Leave it if it’s too much, Bobbie,’ Lissy told her. ‘I’m over-generous with my portions.’
‘With everything I’d say,’ Bobbie told her. ‘You can’t have known, Lissy, that Oliver was going to get in touch yesterday, but have it on record that I’m glad that call came when I was here, with you all. In this house. I agree with Janey, it is a healing house. And I am going to eat this last portion of tart if it’s the last thing I ever do! Which I hope it won’t be!’
‘Oh, it won’t,’ Lissy said. ‘I wonder,’ she carried on, ‘where we will all be one year from now?’
‘Well,’ Xander said, whippet-fast, ‘I’m rather hoping I might be spending it here. Or with you in my cottage. I don’t know that Felix will take kindly to me abandoning him two Christmases in a row.’
‘We’ll work on that,’ Lissy said.
‘I …’ Janey said, draining the last of her wine and putting a hand over her glass when Xander went to fill it up for her. ‘I want to have started selling my paintings. There’s a gallery on Sands Road and I’m going in there just as soon as I can with some of my work. I’ll need to get it framed and they do that as well. I’m going to ask if they’ll sell them for me on commission. It will be a start.’
‘And an online gallery,’ Lissy said. ‘You could have one of those as well.’
‘A foot in both camps,’ Xander agreed. ‘Although it might help your case that I rowed for the Scouts with James who runs that gallery!’
‘Not what you know but whom,’ Bobbie said, sounding serious and Lissy thought she looked on the verge of tears. There was definitely a catch in her voice when she said, ‘Different people come into our lives at different times for a different reason. And then sometimes they go out of them again.’
‘Oliver, you mean,’ Lissy said. There was no need to tiptoe around the issue because Bobbie didn’t need that anymore.
‘Oliver,’ Bobbie said. She smiled at Lissy in a knowing sort of way and she wondered if Bobbie meant having Sebastian back in her life, too, although she wasn’t going to mention him at the moment.
‘Yes, Oliver,’ Bobbie went on. ‘But not just him. I’ve told Lissy, you two, but someone else has come back into my life. Or could be back in it. Sebastian. I searched for him on Facebook and sent him a Friend request. He answered with almost indecent haste, I have to say. I was more than flattered, and the old heart did more than a bit of a flutter, I can tell you.’
‘Good,’ Lissy said. ‘Friending is a start.’
That’s all she and Xander had been for years – friends, because Claire had been hers and he’d been married to her. Despite the memory of that almost-kiss that wouldn’t die that’s all they’d been. But not anymore.
‘Yes,’ Bobbie laughed, ‘and there are two people not a million miles from me who’ve moved friendship on a notch, I’d say.’
‘Too much information!’ Janey laughed.
/> ‘Possibly,’ Bobbie grinned. ‘I won’t go into details, but to answer your question, Lissy … one year from now I like to think I might be spending my first ever Christmas with my son. And his family. If that’s what they all want. Oliver went out of my life although never from my thoughts, but he’s back now. Some don’t come back, sadly.’
Bobbie leaned over and patted the back of Xander’s hand.
‘Like Claire, you mean,’ Xander said. ‘There were good times and then not so good times, but if we’re sensible we hang onto the good and – as the Beatles had it back in the day – “with a little help from our friends” we let the not so good go. This house has definitely helped with that. And you, Lissy. Well, all of you. Shall we have a thoroughly narcisstic touch? A toast? To us?’
Instinctively all four reached for their glasses.
‘Just a dribble, Janey,’ Xander said, pouring in half an inch of the very excellent Rioja they’d all been drinking with the pot-roast venison. ‘Can’t have a toast without a drop of the hard stuff, can we?’
‘To us!’ they all shouted, all happy, all happily a little bit tipsy. And then they all chinked glasses and Lissy thought it sounded like bells tinkling somewhere in the distance. There came an echoing tinkle and all four of them looked up towards the chandelier that hung over the table, holding their breath as three crystal droplets flickered towards one another and back again, the sound melodic.
Claire? Vonny? Maybe Vonny’s husband? A shiver of something Lissy didn’t really believe in rippled up her spine and over her shoulders. Whatever it was that had made those crystal droplets move didn’t matter.
‘That,’ she said to the others, ‘is the magic of Christmas making its presence felt, I think.’
Christmas at Strand House Page 24
