can wait for the next one.’
She only had a small wheeled suitcase. It had been packed for ages with a few essentials like a change of underwear and some nightclothes, a dress and a spare pair of shoes. Her emergency exit luggage she always called it, all ready in case Stuart’s drinking and his temper put her in fear for her life. Up until now she’d been able to calm a situation, get herself out of danger by escaping to the bathroom or with the promise of a steak dinner when Stuart had sobered up. But she’d always known there’d be a time when she’d need that exit luggage and she’d come to her senses and was getting out before that time came, before a thump on the arm became much more, before a restraining hand went from her wrist to her neck.
‘Same charge, love, whether there’s one of you or half a dozen. Now you stay right there and I’ll come round and help you. I’m guessing you’re not a famous film star, or that Kate Moss, or foreign royalty or you’d be filling this taxi up with luggage.’
‘No,’ Janey said. ‘None of those.’
Janey knew she ought, perhaps, to wheel her case to the back of the taxi so the driver could load it but she felt frozen with fright at what she had done.
The taxi driver had reached her now. He loomed over her – at least six foot four inches to Janey’s scant five feet two. Standing facing him Janey, was just about level with the badge pinned to his jacket: Sam Webber, Ace Taxis.
‘Are you going to let that thing go, love, so I can get it in the boot? Or are you one half of its Siamese twin? You seem very attached. Your knuckles have gone white you’re gripping on that tight.’
And she could still keep on gripping it tight and go back into the railway station, find the other platform and take the up train back to Totnes, and home. It wasn’t far. Stuart was probably still crashed out on the couch and wouldn’t even have noticed she wasn’t there.
Janey had left before dawn, the previous night’s phone call still fresh in her mind.
‘Who was that?’ Stuart had asked when Janey put down the phone. He made it sound as though she ought not to have answered the phone in the first place.
‘Suzy.’
‘I might have known. That sister of yours is a total waste of space. What crisis is she having now?’
Yes, Suzy did seem to have more crises in her life than anyone else Janey knew, but then her health wasn’t as good as most people’s either. And Suzy’s son, Daniel, had learning difficulties and problems with mobility, while her six-year-old twin daughters needed a lot of attention as well. Janey wondered how she coped sometimes.
‘I might need to pop over there tomorrow,’ Janey had told Stuart, her voice a wobble with the lie she was telling. Would Stuart be able to detect that or was he too drunk? She hoped the latter. ‘Give her a hand with all the last-minute Christmas things.’
Janey had looked around the room, the only nod to Christmas by way of decoration was a few cards on the mantelpiece and a faux Christmas tree about a foot tall in a plastic pot. Janey hadn’t even bothered to put any tiny glass baubles on it this year. Or the miniature fairy on the top. Her sister’s house, she knew, would be full of colour and glitter and delicious smells of mince pies and brandy. And laughter. Despite all Suzy’s problems her house was always full of laughter. But then, Suzy didn’t have a husband like Stuart. And Janey wasn’t going there anyway.
‘Be her slave more like,’ Stuart had said.
And it was the word ‘slave’ that had made Janey’s decision for her. The only person she was a slave to was Stuart. And he didn’t exactly have her chained up so she couldn’t leave.
‘I’ve had more than a bit of practice,’ Janey said, her voice no longer wobbly.
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Whatever you want it to,’ Janey said, a snake of fear rippling up her spine – a spine that seemed to be straightening as she stood there in front of Stuart challenging him, possibly for the first time. ‘There’s plenty to eat in the fridge, and more than plenty to drink seeing as the spare room has got cases of wine and twelve packs of beer from floor to ceiling.’
‘Won’t even miss you then, will I?’ Stuart said, opening yet another can of Foster’s.
And now here she was, on her way to spending Christmas with Lissy and Bobbie. And Xander. She’d only ever met Xander at his wife, Claire’s, funeral, which was sad. She wondered what she might talk to him about, or he her. The only thing they had in common was the fact they’d both known Claire. And that they were all alone at Christmas. Well, that was the story she’d told Lissy who had invited her to Strand House for the festivities. Festivities! How Lissy had got hold of her landline number Janey had no idea and wasn’t going to ask but she was glad that she had. She might not have left otherwise. That phone call had been just the push-come-to-shove that she needed.
Janey fingered her mobile in her coat pocket, feeling for a vibration which would probably mean Stuart had woken up and found the note she’d tucked beside the tin of teabags on the kitchen counter. I’VE LEFT AND I’M NOT COMING BACK.
‘I don’t know where you are, sweetheart,’ the taxi driver said, ‘but it sure isn’t here with me on a bit of tarmac that needs replacing, because doesn’t it almost wreck the tracking of this taxi every time I drive over it.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ Carefully, Janey unpeeled her fingers from the grip of her wheelie case and flexed her fingers. Her knuckles cracked, like popping corn. ‘Lots on my mind. Christmas and that.’
‘Oh gawd, yes, Christmas. Right old fandangle, isn’t it? The wife starts preparing back in September and heaven help me if I don’t make all the right noises when she shows me what she’s bought for this one and that. I expect you’re the same. Most women are.’
Not me, Janey thought. As her marriage had slowly died so had her joy in any sort of celebration. But all that was about to change, wasn’t it?
‘Right then, sweetheart,’ Sam said when he’d got Janey’s case on board and had closed the huge, hinged, rear door. ‘Where’s it going to be? Paris? Rome? Or maybe Moscow if you’ve got your thermals in that case?’
Usually, Janey hated anyone she didn’t know calling her ‘sweetheart’. But right now, it was welcome. It was as though this tall, kindly, man who reminded Janey of her long-dead granddad, knew she needed that familiarity. His cheery chatter was a balm for her bruised soul. Bruised, not broken, she told herself.
‘Strand House. It doesn’t seem to have a number,’ she said, taking the piece of paper from her pocket on which she’d written the name of what was to be her home for the next five days, and Lissy’s mobile phone number. ‘TQ5 1QS if that helps.’
‘Cor, blimey,’ Sam said. ‘That’s posh, sweetheart. Strand House. But then, there’s lots of posh around here.’
‘You know it?’
‘I do. So, sweetheart, will you ride there in style beside me in the front or do you want to queen it in the back? You’ll rattle around a bit but you could practise your regal wave.’
‘In the front, please,’ Janey said, getting in. ‘Is it far?’
‘No
