Christmas at Strand House

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘I noticed that,’ Xander said. ‘Probably the hard flooring. Ceramic tiles. Parquet.’

  ‘And the stripped boards in the bedrooms. Well, there is in mine. Rugs, as lovely as the ones in this house are, don’t really soak up much sound.’ Bobbie walked over to the dresser where bottles stood on silver trays. Glasses, up-ended, were on a folded tea-towel beside them. ‘Are you joining me? Whisky? G&T? I see Lissy’s put out some cans of Fever Tree.’

  ‘Not for the moment, thanks. Despite what people might think, not all builders drink pints to cool down. Besides, Lissy will probably serve wine later. That’ll do me.’

  ‘What do you build, then?’ Bobbie asked. She’d poured herself a G&T – no lemon she noticed but beggars couldn’t be choosers – and went and sat in the middle of the largest couch to admire Xander’s handiwork with the Christmas tree decoration. Very artistic as it happened.

  ‘Extensions. I do a lot of those. People like to enlarge a kitchen downstairs and then put a bedroom on top while they’re at it. Squeeze in a downstairs loo if I can fit it in and it doesn’t contravene building regulations and has the required number of closing doors so it’s hygienic. Fitted kitchens. Garden walls. Flights of steps. Anything anyone wants really.’

  ‘Right,’ Bobbie said. ‘So, let’s have a flight of imagination here, Xander, and say Strand House were yours, what improvements would you make?’

  ‘Have you been reading my mind or something?’ Xander laughed.

  ‘Might have,’ Bobbie said. She took a sip of her G&T – a double but who was counting? ‘But quite possibly not reading the things you think I am.’

  ‘Meaning?’ Xander said.

  Meaning that I am picking up on the fact you are falling in love with Lissy even if you don’t realise it yourself yet. And she with you. The air positively crackled between them sometimes when they looked at one another or brushed in passing.

  Bobbie shrugged.

  ‘A woman has to keep a bit of mystery. So, back to the building. What improvements could you part Lissy from her cash over?’

  ‘Look, Bobbie,’ Xander said. He put down the box of silver stars he’d been hanging and turned, fully, to face her. ‘I don’t know what sort of bloke you think I am but that thought – parting Lissy from her cash – has never entered my head. Yes, this is a very valuable house, as is just about everything in it. I have no designs, no designs whatsoever, on it. Okay?’

  Oh God, she was doing it again. First Janey, then Lissy, and now Xander.

  ‘Sorry. I can’t stop opening my mouth and putting my foot in it today. It’s a bit of a lame excuse but I’m feeling a bit stressed at the moment. It wasn’t easy offering someone clothes. I didn’t want Janey to be insulted by the offer, but we all know she came with next to nothing. I’ll take a big swig of this drink and come and help you with that tree.’

  ‘We’re all feeling a bit stressed in our own ways, I think,’ Xander told her. He reached for a box of decorations he’d put on a footstool beside the couch Bobbie was sitting on. ‘Take this. This is one Claire bought the Christmas before she died.’

  He held up a glass angel about three inches high. It glittered in his hand under the overhead light. There was a lump in Bobbie’s throat thinking about that.

  ‘An angel,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t believe for one minute that’s what she is, though,’ Xander said. He came and sat on the arm of the couch.

  ‘She had her faults?’ Bobbie asked. She got the overwhelming feeling that Xander needed to talk and perhaps, her being older, he would find it easier.

  ‘Plenty,’ Xander said. ‘As we all do.’ He was turning the glass angel over and over in his hand and it seemed to Bobbie as though shards of light were being emitted from it, like lasers.

  ‘You can tell me if you think it might, well, help. No one’s expected you to get over losing Claire in five minutes.’ She wondered if Xander might be referring to the baby issue he’d mentioned at supper the night before but didn’t want to ask.

  ‘Thanks.’ Xander waved his free hand around the room and said, ‘She’d have had this place trashed in no time. Messy, that was Claire. Housework was so not her thing. Or cooking. If I didn’t investigate the laundry bin now and then the stuff would have been up over the top and making its own way to the washing machine. And she got a bit wrapped up in her fitness classes as well. Three a day sometimes. She was working her way up to being paranoid about what she ate because she was so conscious of putting on too much weight which wouldn’t have been a good look for the business she ran, would it?’

  Ah. Xander was waiting for an answer here, wasn’t he? Bobbie knew all about not wanting to eat – not even so much as a lettuce leaf sometimes – in case she put on a nano-gram and lost a booking for being overweight.

  Xander wouldn’t want to hear all that, would he?

  ‘But you loved her?’

  ‘Yes. Unreservedly. But I think,’ Xander said, back now to turning the glass angel over and over in his hand as though he was glad he had something to do, ‘Claire must have told her parents things I thought were just between us. Or told her mother anyway. I could get cross sometimes about Claire’s messiness and I’m not proud of that now. Her parents have barely spoken to me since she died. It’s like Claire had never done a thing wrong in her life and I’ve become the baddy because I didn’t look after her well enough and she was killed.’

  ‘Xander,’ Bobbie said, getting up. This was all getting a bit heavy. ‘I am going to get you a drink whether you want one or not. You only need to sip it. I need another anyway.’

  She poured a Scotch for Xander and topped up her glass with gin, then came and sat back down.

  ‘I liked Claire,’ Bobbie said. ‘I liked her very much from the get-go. She was full of fun and so beautiful. She had such a dirty laugh, didn’t she?’

  ‘Oh, God, yes. Yes to all of that.’

  Xander took the Scotch from Bobbie and sipped at it.

  ‘I didn’t know her well enough to comment with any authority but I will say this … from the benefit of having a few more summers under my belt than you have and, probably, having been around the block a few more times. When people die young – think Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Princess Diana, and for the blokes, JFK – they tend to achieve some sort of sainthood in the eyes of the public. They never got old or fat or ugly – well, maybe Judy Garland went to seed a bit, but the others didn’t. And it was all about the voice with Judy, not the looks, I’d say. Anyway, they remain in people’s minds as they were in their heyday, beautiful and talented. Claire’s parents will have that sort of mindset about it all.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, you’re probably right.’

  ‘And what remains in people’s minds, long after the people they love or admire have gone, is the youth and the beauty, and the future that was snatched away, leaving only sadness and the sheer bloody unfairness of it all.’ Bobbie took a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘And then, added to all that, is the fact – in Claire’s case – she didn’t make them grandparents. Most people hold a lot of store by that.’

  ‘And they’re blaming me for that?’ Xander said. He looked stricken.

  ‘I’m not saying they are, but they could be. Especially if, as you said, Claire used to talk to them about personal stuff. But you can take it from me, you are not to blame for anything. It takes two to tango.’

  Xander spluttered into his Scotch.

  ‘Christ, Bobbie,’ he said, ‘but you have one hell of a way with words!’

  ‘Not always the right ones or in the right order though.’

  ‘Those will do for me,’ Xander told her. ‘Thank you.’ He leaned down and kissed Bobbie on top of her head. I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘Me too,’ Bobbie said, relieved she hadn’t offended Xander by anything she’d said although she’d have stood by her reasons for saying it. If, Bobbie had always believed, people share their intimate feelings with you then they have to be prepared to hear t
he truth sometimes.

  ‘Claire talked a lot about you after that weekend. She was in awe of you, I think. She said although she was body conscious and body aware she’d never have been able to take her kit off in front of people. Especially …’ Xander put a hand to his mouth.

  ‘At my age,’ Bobbie finished for him.

  ‘You’d still get wolf-whistles from my lads,’ Xander said.

  ‘Which are a bit sexist these days, but I’m not likely to be bringing a prosecution against anyone if they did. Shall we get this tree finished, now we’ve sweated all the heavy stuff?’

  ‘Yeah, best had,’ Xander said.

  He put down his now empty glass and went and hung the little glass angel at the top of the tree.

  Good. Bobbie liked to think by hanging it there he was letting Claire go a little bit more. Well, not letting go, but making a bit of space for someone else to come into his heart.

  The door opened then and Lissy came in, stopping with the door frame making it look as though she was the subject of a painting, Bobby thought. Lissy had changed for dinner, dressed now in the most amazing pair of wide-legged dog rose pink trousers and a creamy satin blouse. She’d piled her hair on top of her head and stuck some sort of diamante ornament in it. Bobbie heard Xander’s deep intake of breath at the glorious sight of her. Well, well, she’d been right – Xander was on the point of letting someone else in. He just needed a bit of help to do it.

  ‘Hope I’m not disturbing anything,’ Lissy said.

  ‘Nothing I wouldn’t do or say in front of a vicar,’ Bobbie said, and Xander laughed.

  ‘Good, good. Only I’m thinking we could eat in the hall underneath the chandelier. With the tree looking stunning reflecting in all the mirrors it’s the perfect place. Less formal than the dining room, not as casual as the kitchen. I’ll need a bit of help carrying the table in though. Good idea or not? What do you think?’

  ‘I think it’s your house. Your decision,’ Bobbie said.

  ‘Xander?’ Lissy asked.

  ‘I think, Lissy,’ Xander said, ‘you are utterly, utterly amazing in every way.’

  Chapter 19

  Janey

  ‘It’s me,’ Janey said, the second her sister, Suzy, answered the call. She kept her voice low. The others were down in the hall setting up the table ready for supper and she’d escaped to change into the clothes Bobbie had loaned her. And ring Suzy. Someone had just put ‘Do you think they know it’s Christmas’ in the CD player.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘Why not? Are you in trouble?’

  ‘No.’

  Troubles don’t go away just because it’s Christmas, was on the tip of Janey’s tongue but she couldn’t say it.

  ‘What then?’

  Janey hadn’t thought through what she was going to say next. She was still thinking about it when Suzy said, ‘Oh, I can hear music. Are you in a bar?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, wherever it is come back. Stuart’s making our lives hell here, ringing every hour or so – day and bloody night.’

  ‘Has he been over?’

  ‘What do you think? Any more points for drink-driving and he’d lose his licence, right? And probably his job as well once the school found out. But as it’s the holidays and there’s no school he’ll be drunk, as per usual. Don’t tell me that whatever’s got into your head with all this madness you’ve forgotten that little item of importance? I wonder sometimes how well you know that man, Janey.’

  Gosh, but her sister was cross, and Janey knew she had to take some of the blame for that because she hadn’t informed her at all about what she’d done.

  ‘Too well.’

  ‘That’s up for debate,’ Suzy said. ‘What isn’t in question, is that Gary’s getting more than fed up.’

  So, Stuart had been in touch. Nice of Suzy to contact her – not. Janey was hurt that her sister hadn’t called to to see how she was, seeing as she’d known for years what Stuart was like. She decided to give her sister the benefit of the doubt. It was, after all, Christmas and Suzy had a lot to do.

  ‘What’s he been telling you?’

  ‘Well, after he found out you’re not here like you told him you were, he’s been calling you all sorts of delete-expletive liars. He said you’re having an affair. He said whoever it is must have a bloody big van or something because all your painting stuff had gone. He’d have trashed it if it hadn’t.’

  ‘Well, he won’t be able to,’ Janey said.

  It was all safe enough with Fred and Annie, with Guinness on guard. And besides, Stuart hadn’t spoken a word to either of them since the day, six years ago, that she and Stuart had moved in next door to them.

  ‘That music’s bloody loud, Janey,’ Suzy grumbled. ‘I can tell what’s playing – ‘Do you think they know it’s Christmas’. Talking of which, it is Christmas. I’m guessing here you’ve left Stuart for person, or persons, unknown. What a time to leave anyone! Christmas!’

  Yes, it was loud, and Janey had a hunch Lissy – or maybe one of the other two – had turned it up loud aware that she might be needing to phone home. Not that she was going to do that.

  ‘Is there ever a right time?’ Janey asked, suddenly feeling bold. The scales were falling from her eyes now. While she’d supported her sister over the years, buying things for her nieces and her nephew when Suzy couldn’t afford to, and helping look after them for weeks on end when Suzy had been ill or simply been unable to cope, she hadn’t had a lot of support in return. She needed it now but a few more scales fell off and a sadness, like a particularly wet and soggy woollen blanket, swamped her soul that maybe her sister wasn’t going to be there for her in her hour of need.

  The three people downstairs in Lissy’s hall, happily setting up a table for Christmas Eve supper had given her more support in the past twenty-four hours than she could ever have thought they might.

  What was it people said? You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. A lump lodged in Janey’s throat thinking about the little baby that had been Suzy and how she’d been like a second mother to her. What fun she’d had making dolls’ house furniture for Suzy and how proud she’d been of her little sister when she’d taken her to school on her first day.

  ‘I don’t want to choose between you,’ Janey said in a whisper. ‘But you’re making me.’

  ‘Eh, what was that? What with that din going on wherever you are and the kids racing up the stairs in some mad game of Festive Star Wars, I didn’t catch that.’

  ‘I said, say Happy Christmas to everyone. I’ll be in touch.’

  And then Janey killed the call. She didn’t know what she ought to be feeling. No one could tell her which was the right thing to be feeling, could they? But all she felt was blessed relief that she’d got away from Stuart. The skirt and jumper Bobbie had loaned her was laid out across her bed. And now there were some shoes stood neatly to attention beside it. Lissy had slipped in and left them for her.

  Janey pulled off her socks, then got out of her clothes. She stood in front of the full-length mirror. The last lot of bruises Stuart had given her were looking less dark. She touched a finger to the one above her left breast – it had lost its purple lividness now and had a greeny-yellowish tinge; it had been why she’d had to refuse Lissy’s offer of sharing a double room the night before – she couldn’t risk Lissy seeing. She wouldn’t have been able to face the shame that she’d let Stuart do that to her. ‘No one can hurt you without your permission’. Janey remembered seeing that once in the doctor’s waiting room when she’d plucked up courage to go and ask for some help before she’d chickened out and asked the doctor instead for a prescription for migraines she didn’t get.

  ‘It doesn’t hurt anymore,’ she said to her reflection.

  Stuart had been careless when the abuse had begun, giving her bruises that showed – her face, her arms in summer. He’d got cannier lately. But these were the last. The last! T
here weren’t going to be any more. Not ever. From anyone. Didn’t everyone know it was normal for people to repeat bad patterns? Well, not her. It had taken too long to come to this point and where she was going from here she really had no idea but she knew that one, or all, of the three friends downstairs would help and advise her. They were helping already.

  She went over to the dresser and picked up one of the towels that Lissy had left for her. Lissy had also left some toiletries, quality stuff from the Body Shop.

  ‘For sensitive skin,’ Janey read.

  Had she known all along? Or guessed?

  Janey showered and dried her hair, dressed in Bobbie’s clothes and Lissy’s shoes but instead of feeling alien as she thought she might, when she looked in the mirror she saw only a woman who had forgotten how to be pretty, but was.

  Chapter 20

  Xander

  Xander knew it was hopeless for him to consider competing – or even matching – the women for smartness at supper. They were all upstairs now putting finishing touches to whatever it was women put finishing touches to. He didn’t think Lissy could perfect how she’d looked standing in the doorway asking him and Bobbie to help her move the table. His heart had missed a beat there.

  So, he decided to go for the ‘fun’ element Lissy had hinted at about eating in the hall. It still looked pretty classy in there to him; the black-and-white tiles, the oversized mirrors on opposite walls, the floor to ceiling tree loaded to the gunwales with glittery bits, and the double-width staircase curving from one corner to the level above. Xander had been to a friend’s wedding at one of the big hotels in Torquay and the foyer of that hadn’t looked a million miles away from the one at Strand House.

  ‘Right,’ he said, opening and closing drawers in Lissy’s kitchen. He’d dressed in black jeans and the tightest white T-shirt he owned. He’d given himself a centre parting, wetted down with a slick of styling gel he’d had in a Christmas present from his mother a couple of years ago, part of a set he’d not used until now. He considered finding something black to draw a moustache with above his top lip but decided against it in case it was more semi-permanent than he wanted it to be. And now he was looking for the biggest white tea towel he could find.