‘I don’t know what to do with this room,’ Lissy said when Bobbie came back with two steaming cups of tea and a plate with a couple of mince pies on it. That was another thing that Lissy couldn’t ever imagine doing – going into someone else’s kitchen and making tea, looking for something to eat. But it felt more than right seeing Bobbie do it.
‘This room? How?’
‘To decorate or not?’
The walls were painted a very soft shell pink. In the morning sun it was like being inside the petals of a dog-rose, Lissy had always thought. There was one very large mirror opposite the French doors that opened onto the small, front terrace, and just one small painting of a child – a little girl of about six with her dark hair in a plait down her back to her waist almost. Vonny had always said it reminded her of Lissy. In the painting the little girl was turning out a sandcastle from a bucket with the sea a cornflower blue in the background with petticoat frills of white foam at the water’s edge. As well as the three couches and the single, large chair, there were small tables beside them all. In Vonny’s day the tables had had books or newspapers on them, or an ornament or two – Vonny had loved ceramics – but Lissy had thought it all too cluttered; it didn’t go with the plainness of the walls somehow and the unfussiness of the starched calico covers of the couches.
‘So, you’re thinking of keeping it, then?’
Lissy shrugged. Was she? It would be a huge change. She could, of course, sell her flat in Princesshay and commute to Exeter daily. It wasn’t far. She could keep the practice on, maybe take on another senior partner so she’d have to go into the office less, but … was that what she really wanted? Now she’d spent Christmas making food for other people and not just herself as a diversion from a life she was fast coming to realise was less than satisfying, she knew there had to be change.
She took a mince pie off the plate and took a bite, swallowing it down with a couple of mouthfuls of tea.
‘I’m thinking,’ Lissy said, ‘that this room could do with a couple of big paintings in it. Not hundreds of them so whatever the paintings are of get lost to the eye because it’s just too much to take in, but something, well, monumental perhaps to go with the size of the room.’
‘And I’m thinking that’s a yes to my question about whether or not you’re going to keep the house.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Lissy laughed. ‘Thanks for your input.’
‘Sometimes it’s good to run our ideas past other people. And a bit more input, whether or not you want it … you could commission something from Janey, yes? God only knows the poor woman could use the cash. She’s said she’s going to give me the painting she did of me at that art workshop but she bloody well isn’t – I’m going to pay for it!’
‘Whoa! Whoa!’ Lissy laughed. ‘I’ll get myself out of the line of fire when that conversartion comes up because I think it might be important to Janey that you don’t.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ Bobbie said. ‘But we both know, you and me, that all this about paintings and redecoration and the like is just a diversion from telling me what it is you need to get off your chest.’
‘When are you leaving?’ Lissy laughed.
Not that she wanted Bobbie to leave right at that moment but it felt slightly uncomfortable that Bobbie seemed to be seeing inside her soul.
‘Not until you tell,’ Bobbie said, not at all put out by Lissy’s remark.
‘It’s about Xander …’
‘I thought it might be, you can’t take your eyes off him. And if Janey and I weren’t here you wouldn’t be able to take your hands off him either.’
‘Bobbie!’ Lissy said. She really was irrepressible.
‘Auntie Bobbie is waiting.’
‘You take no prisoners.’
‘Not usually. No.’
Lissy sighed.
‘Well, it’s not really Xander. It’s Claire. Something she told me.’ Lissy could still remember the feeling she’d got when Claire had told her because it had been so unexpected. How would she – Lissy – feel to be told she couldn’t have a child, if that was what she wanted most in all the world?
‘Which is?’ Bobbie prompted.
‘That she was about to leave Xander. She’d begun taking on more and more weekend classes so she didn’t have to be at home with him. Something happened to change the dynamic between them.’
Should she be telling Bobbie any of this?
‘Go on,’ Bobbie said.
‘They’d been for tests because a baby wasn’t happening for them. You know how much that means to Xander because he said so a night or so ago, didn’t he?’
‘He did.’
‘Well, the upshot is they were offered egg donation. Xander told me that, but Claire had also told me. The morning she was killed actually. She stopped on the dual carriageway to ring me. I did my best to dissuade her, but … well, we all know what happened then. I wish with all my heart now I’d been able to make her turn around and go back home. But then … ‘
‘But then you wouldn’t have Xander in your life as you do know,’ Bobbie finished for her. ‘Sometimes fate has different plans. What you’ve just told me is sad but you can’t change what’s happened. I think you know what you’ve got to do if you’re going to move this relationship on a step. You can’t keep it in. It’ll fester. It’ll spoil everything. You’ll always have that knowledge and it will come to you in moments you don’t want it to.’
‘You mean like when we’re making love?’
‘Surely, you’re not going to go that far!’ Bobbie gave Lissy a mock-shocked look.
‘No good closing the stable door after the horse has bolted,’ Lissy laughed.
There was a knock on the door then
‘Oh, they’re back,’ Lissy said. She got up to go and let them in.
‘No time like the present,’ Bobbie said. She swung her legs round off the couch and pulled herself to her feet and Lissy hoped she’d be able to be as lithe as Bobbie was when she was that age.
‘I’m feeling a bit anxious about it now,’ Lissy said. Together they were walking towards the hall.
‘I’ll take Janey upstairs,’ Bobbie said. ‘Clear the deck for you. I’ve got some things she might like to look through.’
‘Thanks,’ Lissy said.
They’d reached the door now and Lissy opened it. Her heart flipped deliciously at the sight of Xander.
‘All present and correct,’ he said.
‘And just the girl I want to see,’ Bobbie said. She reached out a hand to draw Janey into the house. ‘I’ve laid out some things you might like, Janey. Can you come upstairs with me?’
‘Now?’ Janey said.
‘Now.’
Lissy wanted to laugh because Bobbie very much did what it said on the tin, didn’t she?
‘Okay,’ Janey said. Together she and Bobbie walked across the hall to the stairs.
Xander began to follow them.
‘Xander …’ Lissy began.
He turned back to look at her.
‘Can it wait?’ Xander said. ‘I’m rather less than good to know right now. I am in dire need of a shower and a change of clothes. Skanky would describe how I am.’ He put a finger and thumb, clothes peg fashion, over his nose, and Lissy laughed.
She could do skanky if it was Xander. But she could see, now she was looking at him properly, that his legs had white patches where the salt had dried on them, and there were also a couple of dry patches on his chin.
Xander put a hand up to run his fingers through his hair.
‘Eurgh,’ he said. ‘See what I mean?’
Yes, Lissy saw – his hair was stiff with salt, but still she wouldn’t have minded doing her best to tussle it up for him.
‘Back in about ten,’ Xander said.
‘I’ll be waiting,’ Lissy said as Xander blew her a kiss and ran for the stairs.
Chapter 40
Janey
‘All of it?’ Janey said in disbelief.
Bob
bie had laid out at least six outfits on her bed and Janey wondered for a moment if she’d walked into some sort of fashion shoot. Everything was colour-coordinated, laid out in darkening shades from the palest blue to the deepest indigo – like an artist’s palette.
‘All of it,’ Bobbie said. ‘I’ve been around long enough to know what looks good on people. And you do the blues better than I do. You might need to shorten the trouser ends or the hem of that dress,’ she went on, pointing to a long-sleeved denim-coloured dress a bit like a seamless T-shirt only longer. ‘So … yours for the taking. You know, just in case when Xander and his heavies take you back to yours – or your ex-yours I should say – there’s nothing there because your husband’s cut it into strips and chucked it out of the bedroom window. It’s been known.’
While once that thought might have scared her, Janey could only laugh at the vision of it now.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘That did occur to me.’
‘Is there anything you’d miss if that happens?’
‘Not a lot. Underwear mostly. When the shops open tomorrow I’m going to have to go and get some.’
‘And have you got anything to get it with?’ Bobbie asked.
So direct. So Bobbie. No beating about the bush. Janey wished she could be a bit more like Bobbie and say what she meant which was something Janey had been afraid of doing for far too long.
‘Not a lot. Xander and I walked back via a cashpoint and there’s a bit more in my account than I thought. So good.’
‘Not a fortune though?’
‘No. £119 to be exact.’
‘Not so good,’ Bobbie said. She clapped her hands together. ‘But not insurmountable. Nothing is.’
Bobbie picked up the denim-coloured dress and held it out towards Janey.
‘Do you want to try it on?’
‘Now?’
‘Why not now? It’s going to be our last meal here together later.’
‘Our last meal,’ Janey said. How sad was that. She’d be staying on but with Lissy back in Exeter most of the week it would just be her rattling around in the huge house when she wasn’t in her room painting. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stay at Strand House for ever and then she’d be on her own again – but that had been her choice. But right now, after the meals they’d eaten together and the confidences they’d shared she’d miss everyone. And badly. ‘It’s been a wonderful four days.’
‘Hasn’t it just! Perhaps I should have said our last meal this time around. I’m sure there will be other times now, if not here then somewhere.’
‘I’ll hang on to that thought,’ Janey said.
‘You do that,’ Bobbie said. ‘But right now I think we should make an effort for tonight’s meal. Oh, God, sorry. Me and my big mouth again. That wasn’t meant to suggest you don’t make an effort, but …’
‘It’s okay,’ Janey said, putting up a hand to stop Bobbie’s flow. ‘I know what you mean. Even with the stuff I left behind I couldn’t hold a candle to you. Or Lissy for that matter.’
‘Never judge yourself by anyone else, Janey,’ Bobbie said. ‘Now, go and try this on.’ She pointed towards her en suite. ‘Splash any of my perfume you see in there around. Tip coming up. Spray it in front of you in a zig zag fashion and then walk into it like you’re walking through a cloud.’
‘Isn’t that a waste?’ Janey said, taking the dress from Bobbie. It really was a glorious shade of faded denim. Already in her mind she was thinking about how she could replicate it in paint – it was exactly how the sea looked sometimes in winter under a pale sky.
‘No laws against waste,’ Bobbie said. ‘Go.’
So Janey went. She came back out a few moments later and did a twirl for Bobbie. She was six years old again, and dressed for a party in a dress her mother had bought in a sale in Rockheys, with ribbons in her hair and shiny black patent shoes with a bar across. White socks.
‘The butterfly is emerging,’ Bobbie said. ‘Now this.’
She picked up a pair of indigo, wide-legged trousers, and a cowl-necked jumper just a few shades lighter. Janey, getting into the spirit of the moment, took them. And so it went on – outfit after outfit tried on and paraded in front of Bobbie and she was told she was more beautiful than the time before in each one.
‘The dress, I think. For dinner tonight,’ Janey said.
‘Perfect choice,’ Bobbie told her.
‘But I can’t let you do this for me and give nothing back.’
‘We don’t give to receive, Janey,’ Bobbie said. ‘Or at least we shouldn’t. In my opinion anyway. Always there will be those who have more to give and those who have less. Besides, it’s not as if I’ve had to pay for all that stuff!’ She waved an arm across the bed where the clothes she’d just given Janey were laid although not as neatly as they had been when Janey had come into the room. ‘Manufacturer’s freebies most of it.’
‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ Janey laughed.
Bobbie was just trying to maker her feel better about taking it all, and they both knew it.
‘Tax deductable expenses, then.’
‘I don’t believe that either!’
Bobbie pulled a wry face and tipped her head from side to side – it might be the truth, or it might not, the gesture said. She looked like one of those nodding dogs you still sometimes see on the parcel shelf of old cars driven by even older people, and Janey laughed. But she knew what she had to do now. She picked up the dress she’d chosen to wear to dinner tonight.
‘Wait there. I’ll go and put this on again. I’ll be right back.’
It didn’t take her long. She was back in no time, the painting she’d done of Bobbie at the art workshop in her arms, cradled like a baby. She’d worked on it back in her shed studio after that class – putting in shading, adding light on Bobbie’s chiseled cheek bones, deepening the green of the velvet chair on which Bobbie had posed.
‘Yours,’ she said, walking back into Bobbie’s room.
‘Oh …’
‘A gift. A Christmas gift.’
‘Lissy said no gifts,’ Bobbie said. ‘That was the rule.’
‘And you said yourself that rules are to be broken, so I’m breaking that one. For you.’
She held out the painting for Bobbie to take.
‘Oh …’ Bobbie said again. There were, Janey noticed, tears in her eyes. ‘I know it’s hardly modest of me to say so but, it’s beautiful. Both, you know, the artwork and, well …’
‘You,’ Janey finished for her.
‘That too!’ Bobbie laughed, taking the painting from her. She held it out in front of her studying it. Then she went over to the dressing table and propped it up against the wall and stood back. ‘Do you think I look better from a distance, though?’
Janey knew what she was getting at. She hadn’t ironed out the lines besides Bobbie’s eyes or the slight droop of Bobbie’s very small breasts. A few liver spots on the backs of her hands had been put in too. She hadn’t really known Bobbie very well then and she hadn’t considered for a moment they’d meet again or be here spending Christmas together. It had been an artistic study, nothing more. All the same Janey was pleased that she’d captured the essence of Bobbie, her style and the almost balletic way she held herself.
‘It’s figurative portraiture,’ Janey told her. ‘But if you don’t like it …’
‘I love it. I shall treasure it. Perhaps, now, with Oliver back in my life and three granddaughters who might look at it and be embarrassed beyond belief to see Grandma in the buff, it might be best not to hang it over my fireplace as had been my intention.’
‘No, maybe not,’ Janey laughed. ‘I could do you another one for public exhibition.’
She’d been making sketches of them all – back in her room and from memory – over the holiday.
‘For which I’ll pay.’
‘Something for the future,’ Janey said.
Future? Had she really said that? Just four days ago she hadn’t dared hope she’d have
one and now she most definitely did. There was still lot to be got through – like a divorce for a start, and all the banking details and wills and all sorts of things couples do until they’re not couples anymore – but Bobbie, Lissy, and Xander had shown her that she could. ‘Shall we go down now? Lissy might need some help.’
Bobbie wagged a finger at her.
‘Not yet. I’ve just heard Xander come out of his room. We’ll give them a few minutes alone, shall we?’
And then Bobbie winked.
‘What do you know that I don’t?’ Janey laughed.
‘Now that, my lovely young friend, would be telling. Besides we can’t go yet because it takes me an age to Polyfilla up my face.’ Bobbie picked up a tube of something and snapped off the lid. ‘Eyeliner. My trademark, along with my long silver hair – and God help anyone who calls it grey!’
‘Eyeliner,’ Janey said. She had a pot of tinted lip balm and that was about the sum of her make-up routine. And that was the way she liked it, but horses for courses and all that.
‘Want some?’ Bobbie said. She seemed to have finished expertly applying it and Janey was glad now she’d done the smokey eyelids and the eyeliner on Bobbie in the portrait. She’d thought at the time how incongruous it was that a nude model would be fully made up but now she’d got to know Bobbie better she could see the portrait just wouldn’t have been the same without it – it gave it soul.
‘Not at the moment, thanks,’ Janey said. ‘I’ll just sit here and watch your masterclass. Just in case, you know, one day I do.’
Chapter 41
Xander
He came downstairs, fresh from his shower, smelling – he knew – a lot sweeter than he had when he and Janey had got back from a quick visit to check on Felix, who was fine but giving him the cold shoulder still for not being there, and a trip to a cashpoint for Janey to check on her finances.
He’d heard Janey and Bobbie laughing in Bobbie’s room as he’d stepped out onto the landing just now.
Expecting Lissy to be in the kitchen preparing supper – so very effortlessly, with small, sure movements, that it seemed a miracle to Xander that such deliciousness arrived so quickly at the table - he went there first. No Lissy. He tried the dining room and then the sitting room. Perhaps she’d gone upstairs to change? He decided to check the laundry room but she wasn’t there either. And then he heard her voice. Quite cross but as though she was trying to keep the volume down. With a bit of a wobble though. Who could she be talking to? And where?
Christmas at Strand House Page 23