Christmas at Strand House

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘Ah, got one.’ He shook it out. It looked more like a starched small tablecloth than a tea towel but at least it was big enough to go around him. He didn’t think Lissy would mind him borrowing it.

  He could hear them coming as he tied it around his waist, picked up a tray – no time to find glasses or a bottle but they’d get the drift he was going to be waiter for the night – and hurried out into the hall.

  They were coming down side by side, arms linked, Janey in the middle as though the other two had decided she needed a bit of support.

  ‘You look … incredible,’ he said as they all stepped onto the hall floor and burst into spontaneous giggles. ‘All of you.’

  ‘And you,’ Bobbie laughed, ‘look what the Irish would call a “right eejit”.’

  ‘No, he doesn’t!’ Janey laughingly remonstrated with her. ‘He looks like that TV chef. The French one. What’s his name? He’s got a big garden. Well, him, in his younger days.’

  Raymond Blanc. Xander knew which one Janey meant because his mother was a massive Raymond Blanc fan, watched all his programmes, had all his books, but was yet to cook a masterpiece from it. Certainly she’d never cooked anything from that, or anything else, that came anywhere near the deliciousness that Lissy was serving up. Not that he was going to risk his life by telling his mother that though.

  ‘I’m grateful you mentioned the younger day bit,’ Xander said.

  He was waiting for Lissy to comment, but she looked like a rabbit caught in headlights, just standing there looking at him, sort of frozen to the spot with shock. But beautiful. He hadn’t thought she could perfect how she’d looked when she’d stood in the doorway half an hour ago asking him to help move the table but she’d added some dangly earrings – crystal or something – and proved just how wrong he’d been. When Lissy made no attempt to move he wondered if, perhaps, he’d made a mistake taking the liberty of doing what he had.

  ‘If you ladies would care to take your seats,’ Xander said, desperate to break the ice a little, ‘I’ll fetch your drinks. As you see I’m new to this game and I’ve only managed to find the tray so far.’

  With that, Lissy pulled away from Janey.

  She walked over to Xander and linked her arm through his.

  ‘You can’t get the staff these days, can you?’ she giggled, grinning up at him. Then she turned to Janey and Bobbie and said, ‘It’s his first night, girls, go easy on him. Sit where you like, we’ll be back in a mo.’

  ‘Don’t rush it,’ Xander heard Bobbie say as Lissy steered him towards the kitchen.

  Schemer!

  Lissy pulled the door to a little but didn’t close it.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, taking her arm from his and he wondered why he suddenly felt bereft. He’d liked the feel of it there, liked the closeness of her, the scent of her. ‘I know she didn’t say, and I know she’s putting a huge face on it, but I could feel Janey shaking beside me. It can’t be easy doing what she’s done, then coming down to supper in a house she’s never been in before and wearing someone else’s clothes, so your mad antics have lightened the mood. None of us was expecting that.’

  ‘I did it as much for you as Janey,’ Xander said.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘I just said.’

  There was just a nanosecond of something between them. Some sort of understanding. Something that if one had leaned towards the other for a kiss then the other wouldn’t have resisted. He’d had that feeling with Lissy before, hadn’t he?

  ‘Anyway,’ Lissy said, the first to break the spell, ‘there’s a bit missing though. Hang on, I’ve got something here that will rectify matters.’

  She went over to a drawer in the dresser beside the window and brought out a make-up bag. Xander knew what a make-up bag looked like. Claire had had at least half a dozen of them around the house and he was beginning to suspect Lissy did, too.

  ‘I am not wearing lipstick if that’s in your plan,’ he said.

  ‘Not that.’

  She took out a mascara wand – Xander knew what one of those looked like, too – twisting off the lid.

  ‘Stand still,’ she said, coming to stand in front of him, so close. Oh, so deliciously close. ‘Pouty mouth.’

  It was all Xander could do not to put his arms around her, kiss her. Don’t rush it, Bobbie had said. She’d be waiting for supper a long time if Xander were to follow his instincts right now. But maybe now wasn’t the right time.

  ‘Oooh …’ It was tickling like the very devil.

  ‘And no talking,’ Lissy said, as she drew a moustache. ‘There. Perfect. There’s a mirror on the windowsill above the sink.’

  ‘I think I’m probably best not knowing!’ Xander laughed. ‘Now if you’ll show me what needs to be brought to the table and in what order, I’ll be waiter for the night.’ He noticed it was all laid out on the long kitchen island anyway and he wouldn’t have needed a BTEC in catering to work it out, but thought it best to ask.

  ‘But you’ll eat with us between courses,’ Lissy said.

  ‘If I’m invited.’

  ‘Open invitation. Always.’ Again that nanosecond of hesitation as though she wanted to say – or do – more but wasn’t going to. ‘There’s a bottle of white chilling in the door of the fridge. Another in the rack in the larder. Red wine will need to be uncorked. Can you manage that?’

  ‘Or die in the attempt,’ Xander told her, struggling to look serious, get himself into waiter mode.

  ‘There won’t be any need for that. If you spill it all over our gorgeous selves I might need to rethink that, though.’

  ‘You’re a hard task-woman,’ Xander said. ‘I’ll watch my step.’

  ‘Glasses over there where you found them yesterday. Don’t keep refilling mine because I’m intending to go to the candlelit service up at St Pauls.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. No ma’am,’ Xander said. He gave a little bow, one hand behind his back. He’d seen someone do that on TV in a play once.

  ‘The Reverend Mason would take a dim view of that. As would the rest of the congregation, many of whom will probably recognise me from when I went to church with Vonny when I stayed with her.’

  The Reverend Mason? Xander had been really enjoying this bit of play-acting with Lissy and he knew she was enjoying it too. But the vicar’s name brought him right back down to earth. Right back to the past. The Reverend Mason had officiated at Claire’s funeral. At St Pauls. He hadn’t been inside the place since.

  What if Lissy asked him to join her? Would he go? Could he go?

  ‘Yes, I expect the Reverend Mason would,’ Xander said. ‘But I’ll rustle up my best waiting skills to make sure that doesn’t happen, ma’am.’ He picked up the tray. ‘Now if you’d like to take your place at table I’ll be with you all shortly.’

  He had a fun evening to get through, an evening he had taken the liberty of suggesting, so he was going to do what Janey was doing and put a brave face on it. He’d worry about being back at St Pauls if he had to.

  Chapter 21

  Lissy

  ‘Vaseline, Xander,’ Bobbie said. ‘Wonderful for getting make-up off that’s stuck a bit. I’ve got some upstairs, I’ll go and get it. We’ll have you back to your normal handsome, macho self in no time.’

  ‘God, I hope so,’ Lissy giggled as Bobbie went upstairs, although if she were honest she quite liked the seven o’clock shadow look the smudged mascara was giving Xander.

  Janey had excused herself after supper saying she was going to have a rest until Lissy and Xander came back from the candlelit service at St Paul’s because she’d had a long day, and laughed so much her stomach ached. Xander had taken on a terrible French accent and they’d all laughed their way through supper.

  Xander had rubbed a hot, wet flannel over his gelled hair and got rid of his French waiter’s centre parting, but soap and water had failed to remove the dark shadow of his faux moustache.

  ‘If it doesn’t work, Lissy,’ Xander said, ‘it doesn’t matter
. I’ll still come to church with you.’

  ‘Sure?’ Lissy was having misgivings now. How she’d forgotten that Claire’s funeral had been at St Paul’s she couldn’t imagine, unless it was being caught up in all the Christmas preparations and her friend coming to stay.

  ‘Positive,’ Xander said. ‘It’s a candlelit service, right? It’s hardly going to be spotlight bright.’

  ‘No, no it’s not,’ Lissy said, although that wasn’t what she meant by her question.

  Bobbie came back then and set to work with the Vaseline removing the mascara moustache. Then it was a mad rush to find a torch so Lissy and Xander could use the public footpath that ran from the end of the cul-de-sac up to the tip of the headland, and across the railway bridge. It was only five minutes then to the main road and the church.

  ‘I’ve never been up here at night,’ Xander said, as they hurried along. Xander had taken Lissy’s arm and threaded it through his. A gentlemanly gesture in the dark.

  ‘Not many do I don’t think,’ Lissy said. She had the torch in her other hand, shining it from side to side on the path as they walked. ‘I used to sometimes. I like the darkness of it with no street lights or houses once you pass Strand House. I like it when it’s a clear sky and the moon is so bright you could read a book almost.’ And then, before she thought about what she was saying, ‘I brought Cooper here once but he couldn’t wait to get back to Vonny’s,’ came tumbling out of her mouth like a dam breaking almost. Cooper was in her background just as Claire was in Xander’s.

  Xander put his hand on Lissy’s where it rested on his arm.

  ‘You don’t mention him much,’ he said.

  ‘No. I don’t know why I did now.’

  ‘Memories, of whatever sort, are just that and that was one of yours I reckon. I’m guessing your divorce was acrimonious?’

  ‘A shock really. Acrimonious come the end. Cooper asked for it. He’d found someone else. Blamed me that I’d pushed him to it for all sorts of stupid reasons. The fact I earn more than he does was one of them. He even tried to claim part of my earnings in the settlement, but I was able to pay for a good solicitor and he lost that little battle.’

  ‘God. Really? I’m so sorry. That must have been hard to take,’ Xander said. He patted Lissy’s hand in a ‘there-there-everything-will-be-all-right’ sort of way. ‘It’s a well-known fact that people find it easier to blame someone else rather than accept their own bad behaviour. Tell me to mind my own and stop asking questions if you like but how did he take the fact you’ve inherited Strand House?’

  ‘It’s okay, I don’t mind you asking. I brought his name up. And the answer is he doesn’t know yet. Well, I haven’t told him. But seeing as we were divorced before Vonny died and I inherited then he can’t do a thing about it. Before that and he’d probably have got half.’

  ‘That’s a mercy, then,’ Xander said. ‘End of subject or do you want to talk some more about Cooper?’

  ‘End of subject!’ Lissy said. ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Right, turnstile coming up,’ Xander said. He gently removed Lissy’s hand from the crook of his elbow. ‘I’ll go first, shall I?’

  ‘Okay. But you do know the tradition of turnstiles, don’t you?’

  ‘Nope. What would that be, then?’

  Lissy took a deep breath. She knew exactly what she was going to say.

  ‘The folklore name for them is a kissing gate, and you have to kiss in a turnstile. For luck. That whoever you kiss going through a turnstile you will come with this way again.’

  Her arm through Xander’s and his hand on hers and the nearness of him in the dark – just the two of them under the moon and the stars – was making Lissy more relaxed, happier, than she had in a long time. Making her bold. This was the twenty-first century, for goodness’ sake, and women could make the running if they wanted to. And she’d just told Xander all he needed to know about Cooper – he was out of her life and she was a free agent once again. She’d dealt with her personal elephant in the room.

  ‘Ah, a kissing gate. Is that so?’

  ‘Yes. So folklore has it.’

  ‘And we, Lissy, have a service to get to and we’re never going to make it if I stop to kiss you now.’

  Xander stepped ahead of her, then swung the gate across so Lissy could step in.

  ‘Not that I don’t want to,’ Xander said.

  Lissy stepped on through, feeling a little foolish now. Perhaps that second glass of wine at supper had been a glass too much? She noticed Xander had merely sipped at the one glass he’d poured himself.

  Xander took Lissy’s hand as she stepped out of the turnstile.

  ‘I’ve got a ghost to lay tonight, Lissy. I haven’t been in St Paul’s since, well, since the last time we were both there; you and me and a lot of other people. For the first year after Claire died I wouldn’t even drive past it. I’d drive two miles around just to avoid looking at it.’

  ‘You don’t have to go now,’ Lissy said.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Xander said, quickening his pace, guiding Lissy along with him. ‘Little by little I’ve been letting Claire go. St Paul’s has been a bad memory for me and it wasn’t her fault, and it isn’t yours. This isn’t a step back for me, though, in case you’re wondering, it’s a step forward. Moving on. Understand?’

  Yes, Lissy thought, she understood. Xander was trying to tell her he was ready to move on now. Ready to begin a new relationship, and with her perhaps. God, but she hoped so.

  ‘Besides,’ Xander said as they reached the door of the church lobby. ‘We can always uphold the folklore of the kissing gate on the way back.’

  Lissy hadn’t expected to see Claire’s parents at the service. She and Xander were given a lighted tea-light in a glass dish in the lobby and guided to seats at the side of the church. The organ was playing something slow and gentle, not at all Christmassy. And then, as Lissy looked towards the altar where the Reverend Mason was walking towards the pulpit, she saw Claire’s parents, four rows in front of where she sat, but on the other side of the church.

  Had Xander seen? Not yet she didn’t think. She knew they’d barely spoken to Xander since their daughter had died. None of that was Xander’s fault. Or hers.

  The organ stopped playing and the Reverend Mason stepped towards the lectern but didn’t speak. There were a few moments of total silence, apart from the flickering of tea-lights and someone clearing their throat. And then a lone voice from the balcony at the back of the church filled the void. Silent night. A voice so pure that it brought a lump to Lissy’s throat and a shiver of something up her spine.

  The service had begun.

  Lissy didn’t think Xander had noticed Claire’s parents and she hadn’t told him that she had. He seemed to have enjoyed the service, singing the carols with gusto. He had a fine voice. Tenor. More than able to carry a tune, and unafraid to use it.

  Lissy held back, fiddling about with the order of service sheet and the hymn book on the ledge that ran on the back of the seats in front. Claire’s parents must have left while she was fiddling because when she looked up again they’d gone.

  But only as far as the lobby. As she and Xander made their way out, Claire’s parents were stood talking to another couple. Kisses and ‘Happy Christmas’ greetings were being exchanged between them.

  ‘Oh,’ Xander said. ‘Claire’s mum and dad.’

  ‘I know. I saw them earlier. Did you?’

  ‘No.’

  And with that Claire’s mother spotted them and the happy smile she’d had on her face dropped. She looked shocked.

  There was nothing for it. She and Xander would have to walk towards them now. And they’d have to stop and say something.

  Claire’s mother got in first.

  ‘Alicia,’ she said. ‘What a surprise. And you, too, Xander.’

  Xander extended a hand and Claire’s mother took it, her arm extended and rather stiffly, making it more than obvious she was fending off any thoughts Xander might have had abou
t a cheek kiss. Then there was a polite exchange of handshakes all round.

  ‘I heard that Strand House is now yours, Alicia,’ Claire’s father said.

  Alicia, and not the more friendly Lissy that they had always called her by. How alien it sounded, how cold somehow.

  ‘Will you be selling?’ Claire’s mother asked.

  ‘That,’ Xander interjected, ‘is a decision for Lissy to tell, I think.’

  He placed a hand in the small of Lissy’s back. An I’m-here-and-supporting-you-in-every-way sort of gesture.

  ‘Yes, I’ll let you know when I’ve made my decision,’ she said. There really didn’t seem to be much point in prolonging this conversation and Lissy wondered where the Christmas spirit had gone, where the remembered happy memories had gone, and the feeling of love and sharing that they’d all, presumably, felt at the service. ‘Happy Christmas,’ she finished.

  There was an exchange of rather half-hearted ‘Happy Christmases’ and then Lissy linked her arm through Xander’s and they left the church.

  When they were well clear of being in anyone’s earshot Xander said, ‘Crikey, that was cold enough to freeze an igloo. I think my hand’s still got frostbite!’

  Xander extricated Lissy’s arm from his and held her hand instead. It was indeed quite cold, but then it had been cold in the church and they’d had a chilly walk from Strand House with the wind coming in off the sea.

  ‘It was my heart that got frostbite,’ Lissy said. ‘Are you sad you came with me now?’

  ‘No. Two ghosts have been laid tonight, although I was only expecting one. Did you say there were sausage rolls and mince pies waiting for when we got back?’

  ‘I did.’

  Lissy wondered why the sudden change of topic. She soon found out.

  ‘How do you feel about walking back the road way? More of a stretch of legs after all that sitting?’

  It was nothing of the sort and they both knew it. Xander was avoiding the kissing gate scenario but couldn’t actually say the words. Lissy could understand that. It didn’t seem appropriate somehow after seeing Claire’s parents and the more than cool reception they’d got. Perhaps now just wasn’t the right time.