Christmas at Strand House: A gorgeously uplifting festive romance!. Linda Mitchelmore

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СКАЧАТЬ in silence – if you like. Or I could keep wittering on because the old boy that’s me, who’s been around the block a bit, thinks you might be needing a bit of company.’

      ‘I do,’ Janey said. ‘Need a bit of company.’

      Sam started the engine and indicated he was pulling out.

      ‘So, you’ve come away from somewhere else for Christmas, then? That’s my guess because you don’t know where Strand House is.’

      ‘You guess right.’

      ‘Well, Strand House is pretty big so there’ll be company once you get there. Rich old biddy used to live there, ran it as a sort of upmarket B&B – boutique hotel or somesuch – for years but she’s dead now. I got a lot of trade ferrying guests to and fro back in her day. And her as well when she wanted to go into Torquay for a bit of shopping and the like. I have no idea who owns it now.’

      ‘I do. She’s called Lissy. She’s a … a friend.’

      Janey had few friends – well, none unless you counted Megan who ran the newsagent with whom she’d been at school – because Stuart discouraged it. Friends with bigger incomes than hers would only fuel jealousy, was what Stuart had said. And he hadn’t wanted her to go out to work either because that only put ideas in people’s heads and encouraged extra-marital relationships. Janey had her suspicions that Stuart had had one of those with a colleague at the school where he worked. When she’d challenged him, Stuart had cut her down to size – with his words and with his fists. Why, oh why, hadn’t she left before? What was she going to do now that she had? Another shiver snaked its way up her back and over her shoulders. She felt for the phone in her pocket again. No vibration. She was safe for the moment.

      ‘Well, I hope she’s a friend, this Lissy, if you’re spending Christmas with her. I mean, most of us spend Christmas with family who we’d never in our right minds choose as friends, but there we are, all shackled up together, for the duration. We all might have a better time of it if we could spend it with friends. And I hope this blooming taxi isn’t bugged because if the wife gets to know I said that she’d strangle me.’

      Janey didn’t think for a minute that Sam had a hard time of it with his wife and family at Christmas. He was just being self-deprecating and trying to make her laugh in the process, wasn’t he?

      ‘I could be a private detective for all you know,’ Janey said. A giggle escaped, fizzing up from inside her somewhere where giggles had long been buried, like bubbles in a glass of lemonade. It made her cough a little. ‘You know. Hired by your wife to check up on you.’

      ‘Yeah, and I’m that Richard Branson, moonlighting to make a few bob.’ Sam indicated he was going to overtake a bus, and Janey breathed in because there was hardly any space between it and an oncoming car. She was still holding her breath when Sam said, ‘You can breathe out now, sweetheart. I’ve done that before you know. Not killed anyone yet. Anyway, this Lissy, got a family, has she?’

      Had she? Janey had no idea. When they’d met at the art weekend in Dartington none of them had got around to sharing histories. She knew only that Lissy had been married then and wasn’t now. And that Claire had been married to Xander back then but wasn’t now because she’d been killed in a road traffic accident. And Bobbie, who had been the model for that life-drawing art class – she didn’t know much more about her other than that she was good fun and impossibly glamorous, and she saw Bobbie’s face in a magazine or a Sunday supplement sometimes. Bobbie put up Facbook blogposts dripping with glamour shots that were a world away from Janey’s experience but sometimes, when she was more down than usual, she’d look at Bobbie’s page and be transported to her world if only for a little while. Lissy had still been married to Cooper when they’d all gone to Claire’s funeral and the opportunity for asking if they’d left children in the care of grandparents hadn’t arisen. But then none of them knew much about her either, did they? They probably knew she was good at art. Xander had popped up on Janey’s Facebook page a couple of times asking to buy a painting from her, but she’d said no, it wasn’t for sale. She wondered why she’d said that because if she’d sold a few paintings she’d have had some savings instead of the nothing she had now.

      ‘A family?’ Janey said, her brain being dragged back to the present with great difficulty, as though it was being pulled through treacle filled with bits of gravel. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

      ‘What does she do then, this friend of yours?’

      ‘She’s an accountant. With her own practice.’

      ‘Now there’s a useful friend to have!’ Sam turned to Janey and smiled broadly. ‘Help you fiddle your taxes and that. You’ll have to give me her details.’

      Janey didn’t pay taxes. She had no income on which to pay them, and the cheerful banter she’d been having with Sam seemed to be leaching out of her. Perhaps she’d already said too much, divulged too many confidences.

      ‘Oh, I don’t know that I can. It might not be professional or something. I don’t really know about these things. We’ve only met up a couple of times although we do pop in and out of one another’s lives on Facebook and an email now and then. We went to an art class together and a funeral and that’s about it really.’ The words seemed to be gushing out of Janey, like water through a crack in a lock gate.

      Janey took her mobile from her pocket, checked it quickly and slid it back in again.

      ‘Oh dear, do I suspect someone’s telling porkies?’

      ‘I … I—’ Janey began.

      Sam cut her short.

      ‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me, sweetheart, but I’ve had an uncomfortable feel about you since the moment I saw you there like a rabbit caught in headlights, not knowing where it was you were going. Got a daughter your sort of age, and I’d like to think someone would be concerned for her if she was in a spot of bother. I know I’m a soft touch but I’m a bit worried about you. Anyway, here we are. Strand House coming up.’

       Chapter 3

      Lissy

      Lissy heard a car pull in the drive. Janey had arrived. She went to the door to welcome her. There’d been no one to welcome her to Strand House, arms outstretched in greeting, but she could welcome the others the way Vonny had always welcomed her, couldn’t she?

      ‘Oh, is that all you’ve brought? One small case?’ Lissy asked as the taxi driver carried it up the three shallow steps to Strand House, Janey doing her best to keep pace beside the man’s long legs. Lissy thought her friend looked tired and anxious. She stepped closer to Janey and gave her a hug, and could feel the thinness of her despite the thick, wool coat she was wearing; it smelt slightly damp and musty as though it had been in a cupboard until now. Janey stood still, accepting the embrace but not responding and Lissy wondered what might have happened to make her like this because at the art workshop where they’d met Janey had been relaxed and happy, immersing herself in her art. In the evenings, a glass of wine in her hand, Janey had joined in the conversation easily enough, everyone hugging one another goodnight at bedtime. But now …?

      ‘No Kate Moss, is she?’ the taxi driver said and Lissy gave him a look that said ‘you have over-stepped the mark, mate.’ ‘Shall I carry it inside?’

      ‘I’ll СКАЧАТЬ