Christmas at Strand House by Linda Mitchelmore

Author:Linda Mitchelmore
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008327033
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2018-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Lissy

It was gone ten o’clock before they all finished breakfast. Lissy told them that lunch would be whatever they could find in the fridge whenever they felt hungry or the various tins that were filled with Christmas goods. She would be serving the Christmas meal at about four o’clock.

Janey told them about the text she’d left for Stuart ending things for ever with him, and the one to her sister that had opened up new avenues of communication. She was, she said, still feeling a bit fragile seeing as it was only two days since she’d made her momentous decision to leave her marriage. She wanted, she said, to stay at Strand House and do some watercolours from the sketches she’d done on the beach after dawn. Lissy said that was fine by her. She was going to go for a long walk, along the beach to Goodrington and back seeing as the tide was way out, before she holed herself up in the kitchen cooking again. Did anyone want to join her?

‘Count me out,’ Bobbie said.

‘Count me in,’ Xander said which was exactly what Lissy had wanted him to say.

And now, here they were, Lissy having closed the front door behind them. Xander held out his hand for her to take. Lissy took it and together they walked down the steps to the road.

‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘With the house?’ Lissy said, knowing instinctively what he meant.

‘Yeah. Sell? It’d be a shame to see developers get it. You know, turn it into holiday let flats or something. This, of course, is a property developer speaking!’

‘Do you want to buy it?’ Lissy asked.

‘I’d love to, although I’d more than rattle around in it. My bank manager would have something to say about that, though.’

They’d reached the steps that led down to the beach where Lissy had seen Janey sitting sketching as the sun rose. Lissy wondered what sort of cashflow problems Xander might have but wouldn’t ask – she’d wait to be told. When people found out she was accountant many of them thought she would give free advice over a drink in the pub or a lunchtime meal in a café somewhere.

‘Beach or prom?’ Xander said.

‘Prom first, I think,’ Lissy said. ‘All the little kiddies will be riding their new bikes or be on their skateboards. I remember doing that one Christmas morning when we stopped with Vonny. I had a chopper that year.’

‘Prom it is, then,’ Xander said. ‘Watch your ankles with little girls getting to grips with their dolly pushchairs.’ He pointed to a gaggle of children and grownups about two hundred yards ahead who were walking towards them.

‘It was prams in my day,’ Lissy laughed. It had taken her a while to get the hang of steering one and she’d taken lumps out of various skirting boards at Strand House the Christmas Vonny had bought her one, not that Vonny had minded. Lissy was, she knew, the daughter Vonny had never been able to have.

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