wasn’t better than it was.
But her mother had a point – how well did she know Janey, Bobbie, and Xander?
Feeling a little uneasy now with the memory of her last conversation with her mother still ringing in her head, she drove along in front of the house, reached for the radio-control fob on the keys in the ignition and opened the automatic garage door. There was room enough inside for at least four cars; her Mini was going to look a little lost, wasn’t it? Janey would be coming by train, and Xander possibly on foot because he lived just half a mile away in a cottage behind the harbour. Bobbie, too, had said only that she wouldn’t be driving down to Devon, not in the Christmas rush to escape London and the chaos of the M25.
‘Gosh, but Cooper is going to be so cross when he discovers Strand House is now mine,’ Lissy said aloud as she let herself in. ‘And mine alone.’
Not hers and Cooper’s to divide between them. It had been Cooper who’d asked for a divorce because he’d fallen in love with someone else.
‘Do I know her?’ Lissy had asked, knowing instantly how analytical the question was, and that she must be in shock. Her heart had jolted in her chest, missed a beat, and her breathing became erratic as she took longer breaths which took even longer to let out again. Sometimes, even now, she woke in the night remembering that feeling, fearful that that scenario had only just happened, and it wasn’t until she’d sat up, turned on the light, and seen that the bedroom was different now to how it had been when Cooper had shared it with her, with new everything, that she knew she was making a new life for herself now.
‘You’re making that sound as though you don’t care.’ Cooper had sounded more than miffed.
‘Really? What did you expect me to say? To beg you not to leave?’ Her mouth had been dry with nerves and she’d struggled to get the words out but get them out she had.
‘I’d still leave,’ Cooper had said. ‘Her name’s Nina.’
Lissy struggled to remember if he had mentioned anyone called Nina working in the same bank as he did; if, perhaps, he’d dropped that name into the conversation a few too many times and she’d failed to pick up on the clues. She felt her forehead furrow in concentration, and a pain arrowed through her head like gunshot.
‘Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,’ Cooper had said, almost with a snigger. ‘I can almost see the cogs going around. You don’t know her. I met her at the gym.’
And then Cooper had begun throwing clothes into black bin bags. And shoes. And all his motor racing magazines. He’d even had the audactity to take two pork chops from the freezer for his and Nina’s supper. It had been that last act that had told Lissy there was no saving her marriage now.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ Cooper had said after he’d carried the last of the sacks out to the car.
‘So will I!’ had been Lissy’s reply. ‘Through my solicitor.’
The divorce had been acrimonious, if swift, Cooper insisting everything was scrupulously divided in two. Lissy often thought he would have cut their friends in half if he could. What luck then, for Lissy, that the decree absolute had arrived a week before her godmother’s fatal heart attack.
‘And you are not going to give Cooper any more thought!’ Lissy strode purposefully across the black and white tiles of the hall and up the stairs to the large, master bedroom with its patio doors that opened onto a narrow balcony overlooking the sea she had already bagged for herself. She could fetch her luggage in later. Lissy went over to the bed, covered in pristine white bed-linen with broderie anglaise trim, and lay down. How fresh it all smelled. She was glad now she’d gone to the expense of paying a cleaner to come in once a week after Veronica had died, even though there was no one to clean up after. The hall tiles had gleamed the way they always had, welcoming her in, as they had when Veronica was alive. The teak banister rail smelled faintly of polish as she ran her hand along it on the way up, as it always had. Lissy rolled over onto her side and sniffed the pillow. Yes, the pillow still held the fragrance of the fabric conditioner – sea breeze – that Veronica had always used.
‘Oh, Vonny,’ Lissy said into the pillow, using the pet name she had always called her godmother. ‘Thank you for this wonderful gift, but I miss you so.’
She missed the warmth of her greeting and the scent of Shalimar on her godmother’s skin, and the depth of her loving. She knew she would miss always the myriad little ways Vonny found to spoil her – making shortbread biscuits on rainy days; filling a bath with what Lissy had discovered, when she was older and able to buy it for herself, was hugely expensive bath oil, and frothing it into a cloud of bubble so that only the tip of Lissy’s nose and her mouth had been visible; and letting her pick the first yellow peony from the bush even though they both knew it looked better on the bush than in a vase.
But this was a bedroom that needed to be shared. A bedroom that begged for her to wake up beside someone she loved and who loved her. They would sit up, propped against the huge hessian-covered headboard, and watch the sun rise over the water. And then they would make love, with no need to pull the curtains because no one could look in. There was nothing between Strand House and the continent.
‘And I have got to stop talking to myself! I’ve got three friends arriving soon and lots to do before then.’
The house had yet to be decorated for Christmas. There’d probably be some decorations of Vonny’s in a cupboard somewhere but Lissy didn’t want to use them. She had a fancy for a theme of some sort – silver and blue, or maybe gold and green. There was bound to be a shop in town somewhere that sold decorations and surely they wouldn’t all have been sold already. And flowers. Strand House had always been filled with fresh flowers when Vonny had been alive. White roses had been a favourite and Lissy decided that she would try and find some to honour her godmother’s memory. So many would be needed in a house this size – one little bunch of ten or so stems would look lost. Vases – she’d need lots of vases. And some smaller pots because she intended to put small posies in each of the rooms for her guests, something her godmother had always done for her, often picking buds of things, and interesting leaves from the garden – daisies even – to welcome her. Lissy looked around the room. Yes, that’s what she missed the most, perhaps … the little pot of hand-picked flowers on the bedside table in welcome. There probably wouldn’t be much in the garden in the way of flowers at this time of year but there’d be ivy and some evergreen shrub somewhere she could use with a few buds taken from shop flowers. Just as soon as Janey arrived she’d suggest they go into town and see what they could find, but they’d need to be back in time for her 2 p.m. Waitrose delivery.
She leapt from the bed and went to fetch her luggage.
Yes, perhaps the decision to ask Janey, Bobbie, and Xander to join her had been the right one. Maybe she was the loneliest one of them all.
Janey
‘Morning, sweetheart,’ the taxi driver said as Janey approached the open window of the passenger door.
‘Good morning. Are you free?’ Janey wasn’t in the habit of taking taxis but she knew the drill. The three taxis in front of this people carrier were already filling up with passengers who’d got off the train and were beginning to pull away.
‘Well, I’ll expect you to pay your fare, sweetheart. But I’m
