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

Xander increased the pressure of his hand on Felix’s head and then ran it along the full length of the cat’s back. Felix stirred, stood up, stretched. ‘Had enough of that then, have you, old chap?’

      Xander stood up too and began clearing his lunch things. There was no need for him to be at Strand House until five o’clock. And what a surprise that had been, to get Lissy’s invite to spend Christmas there with her, and Janey and Bobbie. He knew Lissy, of course, because she’d been of Claire’s oldest friends, but Janey and Bobbie he’d only met the once – at Claire’s funeral. It had been kind of them to come but in all honesty, he couldn’t remember them. He’d probably pass them in the street as though they were strangers. Had he, he wondered, made a grave mistake accepting Lissy’s invitation? What did any of them have in common? What would he talk to them about? It wouldn’t add anything to the festive spirit, would it, if he said he’d been mourning Claire so long he never thought he was going to feel like himself ever again and that his building business was suffering. Really suffering. A few days ago, he’d been called in to see his bank manager and been told that his overdraft could not be increased. It was only a small business and if he’d been the sole workforce then he could sell his cottage, find a flat somewhere for him and Felix, pay off his debts. But he wasn’t the sole workforce; there were Tom, Josh, and Ethan in the equation too. Each with families to support. Ah yes, families. How he wished now that he and Claire had had one because then he’d have someone who looked like her around, someone who had her genes, the essence of her. But Claire hadn’t wanted children.

      ‘I wouldn’t have minded a couple of kids, Felix,’ Xander said as Felix lapped noisily at his saucer of milk. ‘Christmas is for kids really, isn’t it?’

      Felix looked up at him and walked towards the catflap.

      ‘Oi, you!’ Xander shouted after him. ‘I hope you’re going to say goodbye.’

      But Felix – as the cartoon of old had it – kept on walking and went out.

      With a sigh Xander put his dishes and the saucepan he’d used to heat the soup he’d bought from the supermarket in the dishwasher, found a tablet – the last, so he’d have to remember to buy some more as soon as Christmas was over – and switched it on, even though the thing was only a quarter full.

      He had some Christmas cards still to write and hand deliver. He’d driven down to Kingsbridge to see his mother at the weekend and hand-delivered that one, along with a bunch of roses and a silver bracelet he knew she’d like because he’d been with her when she’d pointed it out in the window of Silver Dollar the previous week.

      ‘I don’t like to think of you on your own, Xand,’ his mother had said in Bailey’s Bistro where they’d gone for coffee.

      ‘I won’t be on my own. Lissy will be there. And two of her friends, Janey and Bobbie. They all came …’

      ‘Don’t think about that time,’ his mother said, cutting him short. They’d both known how he was going to finish the sentence – to Claire’s funeral. ‘It doesn’t help. I know it hurts you still that she’s not here but, well, don’t you think it’s time to date again?’

      ‘Date?’

      Such an old-fashioned word, date. Did people still use that term? Xander supposed they did because wasn’t there a programme on TV called Blind Date or something like that?

      ‘Yes. Date. You know, you see someone you like and you invite them to the cinema or for a meal. And …’

      ‘For God’s sake, Ma, I’m forty-one years old, not fourteen!’ He’d looked at his mother’s crestfallen face and felt bad about snapping at her like that. Felix and his mother, he wouldn’t have survived without either of them back then. His mother had let herself in, cleaned the house while he was at work, taken his dirty laundry and brought it back the next day, ironed and in a neat pile. She’d left meals too – single portions of cottage pie, or fish pie, or a stew. Single portions that, as kind as it was for her to have made them, had only accentuated his one-ness.

      ‘I know, Xand, I know,’ she had said. ‘But you’re young still and have a lot of life yet to live. I’m going to play the “mother card” now and say I think it’s time, now Claire’s been gone three years, that you start to live it again. And …’

      ‘Ma! Leave it!’ Xander’s turn to interrupt this time.

      ‘See,’ his mother said, nonplussed this time at Xander’s reaction. ‘I said we shouldn’t have brought up the subject of Claire and the funeral … it always sparks a bit of a falling out, doesn’t it? Anyway, how well do you know Lissy? I know Claire talked about her a lot and they used to go away for girly weekends.’

      That was so like his mother to spark a bit of a disagreement and then move the subject on to something else.

      ‘Lissy?’ he said. And it was then that there was a sort of screen play going backwards in his mind. Dancing with her at his and Claire’s wedding. She’d been wearing a strappy dress the colour of a kingfisher’s breast, and long dangly earrings that glittered under the lights of the dancefloor. He remembered being slightly the worse for wear after more than a few glasses of champagne and a couple of glasses of real ale. And Lissy had been rather tipsy too. In his head, Xander saw the lights dip, saw himself pulling Lissy closer to him, feeling the warmth of her against the powder blue shirt he’d been wearing. Smelled the fragrance in her hair. They’d sort of pressed even closer together until their lips had all but touched before Xander pulled away. There’d been a connection, something almost primeval, in that moment. A sort of what-might-have-been realisation for them both. He’d danced with just about every woman at his wedding reception, as Claire had with the men. But none of them had given him that rush of feeling that Lissy had. He’d put it firmly to the back of his mind and whenever Lissy fetched Claire when they went off on a girly weekend or brought her back he was careful not to hug too close, not to let his lips linger on Lissy’s cheek when he leaned in to kiss it, in case those feelings came back. Too dangerous for a married man to have those feelings. And besides, Lissy probably didn’t even remember that dance.

      ‘What a flipping ego, thinking that she might!’ Xander shouted to himself now. ‘This won’t do. A right bundle of misery you’re going to be at Strand House if you turn up in this mood, aren’t you?’

      And that was another thing. Xander had found that being alone he spoke to himself far more than was probably healthy, just so he could hear a voice, even when that voice was his own. And thoughts. He couldn’t remember thinking as much when Claire had been with him. But that was all he seemed to have done lately – think. All sorts of random things came into his head: things they’d done, things they’d argued about, things they’d made up about, as all couples do at times. Too many thoughts.

      Well, he’d try and banish those as of now. Cards to write and deliver, a small case to pack because he could run back home in fifteen minutes or so if he needed anything, Eve Benson to pop in and see and give the Christmas hamper that he’d bought her for Christmas in thanks for her ministrations to dear old Felix, and then he’d shower and change and present himself at Strand House. Lissy had emailed to say ‘Strictly no exchange of Christmas presents, and the entire weekend is on me, celebrating my unexpected windfall’ but some champagne would probably be welcome and unlikely to be in excess of requirements if the memories of his and Claire’s wedding in particular, and women when they got together in general, were anything to go by. Funds could still run to a couple of bottle of fizz, but after this Christmas break Xander was going to have to give some serious thought to an overhaul of his finances. And his life.

      Just a few minutes before five o’clock, Xander rang the doorbell of Strand House. It was answered almost immediately.

      ‘Nearest the church door, last one in, I see,’ Lissy said, smiling widely, her eyes gleaming, and looking just as beautiful as Xander remembered. Perhaps his mother had been right after all? She leaned forward to kiss his cheek. ‘Come on in.’ And it was probably just as well that his hands were full and he wasn’t able to put his arms around her and hug her tight. She had no idea how