Christmas at Strand House

by Linda Mitchelmore

  She watched, in silence, as Hugh took photograph after photograph, so absorbed in what he was doing now that he didn’t speak either. For Martha it was a comfortable silence.

  ‘I’ll photoshop them later,’ Hugh said, holding his phone towards Martha. ‘But you get the gist.’

  Martha was surprised to find Hugh had taken at least twenty photos of the shells against the backdrop of her beach towel. They were all of the same thing and yet they all looked different.

  ‘I’d buy a card – a postcard or birthday card – with any one of these on it,’ she said.

  ‘Now, there’s a thought! Never thought of doing cards or postcards. Thanks for the tip.’

  Martha had finished her coffee, eaten one of Hugh’s Hobnobs, and knew she ought to go. Besides, Hugh seemed to have run out of things to say now they had exhausted the subject of the shells.

  And then Hugh surprised her.

  ‘There’s a fête on the green tomorrow. Two o’clock. Would you like to come?’

  ‘A fête?’ Martha’s father had always termed the village fête ‘a fête worse than death’ but they’d always gone anyway, she and her parents, and bought things they didn’t really need or want because they felt sorry for the stall-holders. She hadn’t been to a fête in years.

  ‘I know. Very old-fashioned things, but it’s for a good cause. They hold two or three during the summer on the green the other side of the promenade and I usually go if I’m in the area. Please say you’ll come.’

  ‘I don’t think I can,’ Martha said. She knew she didn’t have a good excuse if Hugh pressed the issue. It was beginning to feel like a date, this invite, and she wasn’t ready to date yet.

  ‘It’s for a good cause.’

  ‘From my childhood memories of fêtes, they usually are. The church roof or the Scouts’ trip to summer camp or somesuch.’

  ‘Neither of those,’ Hugh said. ‘This one’s for the local hospice. It’s where my brother spent his last few days.’

  Martha hadn’t expected that, but the actress in her made her hang on to her composure – a composure she didn’t feel inside. Inside she felt crass, and gauche, and uncomfortable, as though Hugh had fed her his final line on purpose to test her reaction.

  ‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ she said. ‘But I still can’t come. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

  She got to her feet and pulled at a corner of her beach towel.

  ‘Of course,’ Hugh said, standing up, although it took a second or two for him to get his balance because of his bad leg. ‘Thanks for the loan of the beach towel.’

  ‘And for the coffee and biscuits,’ Martha responded, pulling the towel towards her.

  It was only as she got halfway up the steps that she realised she’d left her newspaper on the sand where it had been underneath the beach towel. Well, she wasn’t going back for it now.

  But when she got to the door of her chalet and glanced round, she saw Hugh had made it to the top of the steps and was dropping her newspaper in a litter bin. The kindness of his action in getting rid of something about which she had been upset earlier brought a lump to Martha’s throat. He really was such a good and kind man, wasn’t he? But at the back of her mind was the thought that she couldn’t be entirely sure if the invite to the fête had been because she was Martha Langford or… Serena Ross.

  Martha tossed and turned all night. She’d been unforgivably rude walking off like that. Hugh had said his brother had died in the hospice and although she didn’t know how old Hugh was, his brother couldn’t have been very old either. Panic had made her behave the way she had and she was going to have to get over that.

  Martha took a mug of tea and a round of toast and marmalade out onto the deck at half past eight the next morning. She took one of the throws and draped it over her knees while she sat at the metal bistro table and waited for Hugh to emerge from his chalet for his morning run.

  But there was no Hugh that morning. Martha waited until almost ten o’clock then went in search of him.

  ‘Well, good morning. This is a nice surprise,’ Hugh said, opening the door to her knock, as though the fact she’d rebuffed him the day before hadn’t happened. He was in checked pyjama bottoms but naked from the waist up. And his feet were bare. His hair was damp and curling every which way as though he was fresh from the shower and she’d knocked and interrupted him just as he was about to put a comb through it.

  ‘I’ve come to apologise for my appalling behaviour yesterday,’ Martha said. ‘I meant it when I said I was truly sorry to hear about your brother’s death, but I was rude to rush off the way I did without asking you about it. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Apology accepted,’ Hugh said. ‘After Harris – that was my brother’s name, by the way – died there were people who crossed the street to avoid saying anything to me at all.’

  ‘Oh God, that’s awful. Sometimes people simply don’t know what to say, I suppose, and say nothing rather than say the wrong thing. I’ve done it myself.’

  ‘It’s exactly that,’ Hugh said. ‘I’d ask you in but this is serious bachelor-pad land at the moment. I’m going to have to give it a thorough going over before I hand it back to my parents.’

  Martha tried to peek around him to test the truth of his statement but his not inconsiderable body was blocking her view.

  ‘I can be messy on occasion,’ she said. ‘As more than a few flatmates have mentioned! But, well, I just came to say I’m truly sorry for how I reacted and if you want to talk to me about Harris, I’ll be happy to listen. But I’ll go now.’

  ‘Okay. As you see, I’m hours behind. But how do you feel about joining me for a spot of lunch later? The Shoreline does a mean burger, and lots of interesting fish, and salads for the diet-conscious. Do you know it?’

  ‘Give me a rough direction.’

  ‘Halfway between here and the harbour. Keep going in a straight line. You can’t miss it. It’s got fantastic views.’

  ‘I think I know where you mean.’

  ‘Good. Harris and I used to eat there in the holidays. I could tell you about him.’

  ‘I’d like that, Hugh,’ Martha said.

  ‘So would I. So, can I ask you to meet me there?’ Hugh asked. ‘About one o’clock?’

  ‘Of course,’ Martha said. She hadn’t planned her day beyond apologising to Hugh, but now she had a lunch date – was it really a date so early in the acquaintance? – she thought she might get into her newly purchased running kit and go for a run. It might help to clear her head. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  ‘Me too, Martha Langford,’ Hugh said with a grin.

  He was letting her know it was as Martha he was wanting to get to know her, not just because she was also known as Serena Ross, wasn’t he? Martha’s heart lifted a little.

  Martha was early, only about fifteen minutes, but she decided to go on in and find a table.

  Oh! Another surprise because there were full-length windows on three sides, the ceiling was very high with Raffles-style fans, and the whole place was filled with light. Outside there was a small balcony along two sides. Tables and chairs were set up outside but Martha decided it wasn’t quite warm enough to sit out, although a few people were.

  She chose a table for two, by the window facing the sea. The restaurant was built over the road, closed for the summer to traffic, and with the tide high it was as though she was sitting in the prow of a ship. She hadn’t expected that – it was almost like being on a cruise in the Mediterranean if she allowed her imagination to run away with her. She picked up the menu. Lots to choose from. Was Hugh going to offer to pay or should she suggest they go Dutch. If they went Dutch it would be easier to say, ‘Well, that was nice, but I don’t think we have a future together.’

  Red snapper or crab? Quinoa salad or pesto pasta?

  ‘Penny for them,’ Hugh said.

  ‘They might cost a little bit more than that.’ Martha laughed, looking up into his smiling face.

  Hugh laid a hand
of greeting, briefly, on Martha’s shoulder and sat down opposite. ‘Thanks for coming.’

  ‘I’m glad to be here and, seeing as I had my first ever run this morning after I left you, I’m rather hungry.’

  ‘Really? The first? Ever?’

  ‘Yep. Although I’ve been guilty of being a bit of a gym bunny in my time, and daily dance lessons when I was at stage school.’

  Talking about this now, it was starting to feel as though it was all in the past for her. Was it? Could it be?

  ‘Did you like it? The run, I mean.’

  ‘I’ll let you know tomorrow what opinion my calves have on that,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘It gets easier,’ Hugh said. ‘As most things do.’

  And the smile on his face seemed to freeze, and although he was looking at Martha it was as though he was also looking inside himself.

  ‘Do you want to talk about Harris before we eat? You said earlier you used to come here with him so it can’t be easy being here with someone who isn’t your brother. We could just order a drink and talk? I’m not going to die of hunger if we postpone lunch for a while.’

  ‘I didn’t have you down as a mind-reader,’ Hugh said. ‘But yes, I was thinking about Harris. I imagined for a moment that he was going to come marching in, tell me it was my turn to buy the drinks – he always said that, even though I bought far more rounds than he ever did.’

  ‘And you wish you could be buying that round now?’

  A waiter arrived at their table. ‘What can I get you?’ he asked.

  ‘Just a drink for the moment for me,’ Martha said. ‘We’ll eat later. Okay with that, Hugh?’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ Hugh said. ‘I’ll have a pint of local ale. And you, Martha?’

  ‘Prosecco if you have it,’ Martha said.

  ‘We sure do. Won’t be a moment.’

  ‘That was inordinately kind,’ Hugh said. ‘To realise I was struggling a bit there. I seemed to have lost all power of thought and speech for a second.’

  ‘We all need a bit of help and understanding sometimes,’ Martha said. ‘Tell me about Harris.’

  ‘It’ll be easier if I show you.’ He took out his phone from his jeans pocket. ‘I’ve got hundreds on here. I’ll spare you the baby brother photos.’ He looked up from scrolling through and smiled at Martha.

  ‘I can probably live without seeing those,’ she said, doing her utmost to lighten what was, to Hugh, a difficult moment. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Sports teacher. With a bit of English on the side. Rugby was his game, although he was pretty good at just about everything he tried – tennis, cricket, water sports of every description. Here. That’s a good one.’

  Hugh handed the phone to Martha, and a good-looking chap, with hair fairer than Hugh’s and a big, rugby player’s frame, smiled out at her. Despite the physical differences, she could see the likeness between the brothers.

  ‘How did he die?’ Martha asked, handing back the phone.

  ‘Leukaemia,’ Hugh said. ‘He responded to treatment at first and we all held our breath with hope, but then it just stopped working for him and he shrunk before our eyes. It was swift in the end.’

  The waiter came back with their drinks then.

  ‘Can you come back in about half an hour, mate?’ Hugh said.

  ‘Sure can. Enjoy your drinks.’

  ‘Nice bloke,’ Hugh said. ‘But I think it’s plainer than day that we’re not enjoying much at the moment.’

  ‘It can’t be easy for you,’ Martha said. ‘But I’m not sad I’m here. How long ago did Harris die?’

  ‘Just over two years. It’s still a bit raw. It’s why I try to go to as many of those fêtes as I can and help them raise a bit of money so others can get the care Harris did. Although what I’m going to do with yet another teddy bear won on the tombola I don’t know!’

  ‘Offload it to a charity shop?’ She was feeling guilty now that she hadn’t gone along with Hugh, but there was no point saying so. Hugh just needed to talk. About himself. About Harris.

  ‘I could. But a stupid part of me thinks Harris wants me to have the stupid things. They’re tactile. Look… sorry, Martha, I know I’m being less than a thrilling lunch companion. I can be a right miserable sod at times. It’s why I’ve been known to drink myself stupid more often than was good for my liver, although I’m over that bit now. It’s why I turned into a bit of a recluse, turned down commissions. And it’s why my long-term relationship broke down. Violins time, eh?’

  Martha had a feeling that, with this remark, he was subtly letting her know he was unattached at the moment.

  ‘What was she called? Your long-term girlfriend? If you don’t mind telling me?’

  ‘No. I don’t mind. Abby. Abigail. Losing her was like losing Harris all over again but time has healed me more quickly there. And I realise now she could have been more understanding. Harris had only been gone three months when she walked out. And so, here I am, trying to put all the pieces of my life back together, along with my broken leg. Doing my best to live again. But I’m being a right bloke, aren’t I, talking about me all the time?’

  ‘I did ask you to,’ Martha said. ‘And besides, you must know a fair bit about me if you’ve ever watched TV or been to the cinema. Or read the newspapers.’

  ‘Yeah, that must suck at times, too, having every bit of your private life splashed across the media.’

  ‘It does. But I don’t have to take it any more.’ The restaurant was beginning to fill up now and people had come to sit at tables either side of Martha and Hugh. She couldn’t risk anyone overhearing what she was saying. ‘Shall we order now?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Hugh said.

  ‘And then we can think, perhaps, of something we can do that will put our respective lives back on track.’

  Running, it seemed, was the activity that suited them both. Hugh ran on the beach at least three times a day, while Martha preferred to run along the promenade, but only twice a day. If they saw one another in the distance they waved, but Hugh hadn’t issued another invite to lunch, or dinner. And Martha wasn’t entirely sure she wanted another invite because she still wasn’t entirely convinced Hugh wouldn’t suddenly send photos of her to some agency. She’d told her parents she was staying with a friend until the hullabaloo had died down, and that she was fine, and would call them soon. Friends texted her and left voicemails but she didn’t reply to them either, having told anyone who needed to know the same story she’d told her parents. Sometimes she saw Hugh on the beach, bending to photograph something lying in the sand, or focusing on something out at sea. A couple of times she’d got that feeling a person gets when someone is looking at them and she’d turned to look up at the headland above the chalets, and Hugh had been there. There was a wonderfully panoramic view of the bay from up there and he’d probably been taking landscape, or seascape, shots. He’d obviously seen her, because he’d waved to her as she turned.

  But here was Hugh now, walking towards Martha’s chalet where she was sitting on the deck, hat on to shield the low light from her eyes, reading in the late-afternoon sunshine.

  He had a bottle of wine in one hand, and two glasses hanging from the fingers of the other.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Hugh said, walking up the steps of Number 23. ‘But my motto these days is never to drink alone, and I fancied a drink, so I hope I can persuade you to join me.’

  ‘Is the sun below the yardarm?’ Martha said, smiling.

  ‘It is somewhere in the world.’ Hugh laughed back. He set the bottle and glasses down on the patio table and took a corkscrew from his jeans pocket. ‘So, can I pour?’

  ‘You can,’ Martha said. ‘I might have some nibbles to go with that – some crisps and savoury crackers, and two or three varieties of cheese.’

  ‘Sounds divine,’ Hugh said.

  Hugh had poured her a very full glass of wine when she got back with the nibbles.

  ‘To you,’ Hugh said, handing the wine to her.
r />   ‘Cheers,’ they said as one, chinking glasses.

  ‘I’ve come to thank you,’ Hugh said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For having lunch with me the other day. I’d never have been able to go in there had you not been waiting for me. I was hiding behind a pillar waiting for you and watched you go in. But now I’ve faced my demons and I’ve been in there alone. Just coffee and cake, but I did it. I sat where we sat having lunch and, really, it was fine.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Martha said, cradling her glass in her hands. ‘Unless it’s that I was happy to join you, and I’m glad you’ve faced that particular demon.’

  ‘We’ll drink to that then,’ Hugh said, holding his glass out towards Martha to clink again.

  ‘Onwards for us both!’ Martha said, holding her glass high as Hugh reached over to touch it with his. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed but when I’ve been running I haven’t worn my hat. And my hair’s been tied back at the nape of my neck.’

  ‘And no one came up and accused you of anything? Not that anything you may or may not have done is anyone else’s business.’

  ‘No. No one. I think there might have been two or three people who recognised me because, when people do, a sort of disbelief that it could be me running towards them, or in the queue for an ice cream, comes over their face like a veil. And then, when I’ve gone, they whisper to their companion, only often it’s louder than a whisper and I catch my name on the breeze… Serena Ross.’

  ‘Be careful who you pretend to be or you might forget who you are.’

  ‘Gosh, that’s a very profound statement,’ Martha said.

  ‘Not mine, I’m afraid. I’m quoting, only I’ve forgotten who for the moment. Is that how it’s been for you for a while? With the acting name, I mean.’

  Martha nodded. ‘I see that now. These past few days have been good. Since you showed me the shells on the beach and pointed things out to me, I’m seeing more, if that makes sense.’

  ‘Perfect sense. And ‘seeing more’ is my cue to come in with a suggestion. My mission here is twofold. There was the chance to share a bottle of wine, of course, but it was also to tell you there’s a small boat that does wildlife trips, coast-hugging. It leaves from the harbour early. Would you like to join me? Can you do early?’