‘Well, we made it,’ Oliver said. Why did he always have to state the obvious? They could all see they’d made it. They were on the bloody boat. Funny to think that when they’d met, back at university, he’d been the one to open her eyes to all sorts of things, with his unusual way of seeing the world. The way he spotted things around them that other people would have missed. But these days … ‘We’re on the ferry.’
More deep breaths, Daisy. Peace and joy for the season would be a lot easier if the M25 hadn’t been such a nightmare. Of course, it always was, and she’d known, somewhere at the back of her mind, that it would be worse today, so close to Christmas. She’d even realised, a few weeks ago, that they’d need to allow extra time for the journey because of it. But somewhere during the preparations for their trip that information had got lost in a fog of present wrapping, the scramble to write cards for all the people she’d forgotten, and the late night piecing together of a shepherd’s outfit for Jay’s Nativity play the following day.
Peace and joy had been in sadly short supply at number 11 Maple Drive for the last month.
‘Can I have my phone back now?’ Bella asked from the back seat – the first thing she’d said since losing at Twenty Questions forty minutes earlier.
‘No.’ Daisy didn’t even think before she answered, and regretted it when the inevitable follow-up question came.
‘Why not?’
Yes, Daisy. Why? Why on earth are you making this even more difficult on yourself?
She sighed. Because she wanted it to be perfect. She wanted her family to enjoy being around each other. Just for once, she wanted the stress and the constant merry-go-round of school and activities and work and nappies and emails and screens to stop. She wanted them to all just have Christmas, the way it used to be, when she was child.
Except in some decrepit chateau in France that her parents had fallen in love with and bought, for some reason. Some reason that probably wasn’t ‘to make Daisy’s life more difficult’ but felt like it, sometimes. Most of the time, actually.
Who really bought a chateau on a whim, anyway? Only her parents. And since they’d only moved in a few weeks ago, they’d be lucky if there were actual beds to sleep in when they got there. God only knew what sort of a state the place was in. This whole Christmas had ‘disaster’ stamped on it from beginning to end. Or it would, if Daisy wasn’t so damned determined to drag it back from the brink of awful towards ‘perfect family Christmas.’ She wouldn’t mind a little help with that, though.
‘Because we’re going to go and have dinner together on the ferry,’ Daisy said, as calmly as she could manage. ‘And it’s going to be lovely.’
Bella gave a heavy, exaggerated sigh. Beside Daisy, Oliver gave a smaller one.
‘What about Claude?’ Jay piped up. ‘Can he come?’
‘Of course he can,’ Oliver answered. ‘He’s part of the family, too. Right?’
‘Right,’ Daisy answered, wondering if the restaurant allowed dogs. That was probably something else she should have checked when planning the trip. In fact, she probably should have booked them a table. She’d thought about it, then forgotten.
Apparently fourteen years of baby brain had rendered her incapable of following a thought from beginning to—
‘Urgh!’ Bella wrinkled up her nose. ‘Do you smell that? Is that Luca or Lara?’
Oliver grimaced. ‘Both, by the stink of it. Where did you pack the change bag, Daze?’
‘The change bag?’ What had she been thinking about? Something to do with dinner, maybe. Well, it was gone now. ‘I thought you packed that?’
‘Did I?’ Oliver looked puzzled. ‘Maybe it’s in the boot with Claude, under the twins’ present.’ The epically large, noisy mistake of a present. Every time they’d gone over a bump the damn thing had started singing ‘Old McDonald’.
Why? Daisy wanted to ask. Why put the one thing we’re most likely to need to get to in the most inaccessible place?
Did husbands get baby brain too? She was starting to think they might.
Oliver showed no signs of hunting down the errant change bag, so Daisy unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the car door to inspect the boot. The on-board shops would probably sell nappies and wipes anyway, right? And they had changes of clothes for the twins in the suitcase, at least. This wasn’t a disaster. Calm. Peace and joy. Those were her watchwords. She wasn’t going to let a little something like a missing change bag derail her festive plans. Even if it did have the twins’ favourite teething rings in. And actually, possibly her purse.
No. It would be fine. It would be in the boot. Oliver was a bit rubbish sometimes, and she might not always be the most on-top-of-everything mum on the block, but between them surely they’d managed to pack a bloody change bag. Right?
Holding her breath, Daisy popped open the boot. She blew out with relief and grinned. One change bag, fully packed, sat right next to Claude’s crate, only half under the Old McDonald monstrosity. See? Not so rubbish. It was all fine.
‘Come on then, Claude,’ she said. ‘I bet you’re busting for a wee, too.’ She moved to unlatch the crate door, and realised it was already open. Daisy rolled her eyes. Typical Claude. Too lazy to even bother escaping when he had the option. Even now she could see through the bars that he was still sleeping!
She reached in to poke him. ‘Time to wake—’ Her finger sank into the soft, plush, close cropped fur and stuffing. She blinked, gulped, and felt heat and blood racing to her head as the world started to pulse in time with her heartbeat. She needed to sit down. Or run. Or down a gin and tonic. Or all three at once, if that were even possible. ‘Up,’ she whispered, as the horrible truth sank in.
That wasn’t Claude. The dog in the crate wasn’t their beloved family pet. It was Jay’s stupid bloody soft toy!
Panic began to spread through her veins. Suddenly, nothing else mattered – not Oliver sulking, not the twins’ stupid present, not Bella’s teenage strops, not Jay whining about his tablet, not even the ridiculous chateau in France they had to trek out to for Christmas. Never mind the bloody change bag. This was a disaster.
They had to get back to Maple Drive, to Claude.
Immediately.
Thirty-three hours and fourteen minutes until Christmas Day. Holly totted up the time left in her head, and ignored the small voice at the back of her brain that added that in that case there were only fifty-seven hours until the whole thing was over for another year, and she could go back to her ordinary life, instead of the excessively jolly, Pinterest worthy, craft and baking haze of caster sugar and spray glue she’d been living in for the last month.
She didn’t want Christmas to be over. Of course she didn’t. She loved Christmas – always had, ever since she was tiny. She hadn’t lost that festive feeling even when she was a sulky teenager, or declared that ‘Christmas isn’t as fun as it used to be’ when she became a cynical twenty-something. Nothing had ever dimmed her love of Christmas in the last twenty-seven years, and she wasn’t about to let Sebastian bloody Reynolds ruin this one, even if it meant she had to make every single cake, biscuit, decoration and gift she had pinned on her ‘Creative Christmas!’ Pinterest board.
Okay, so this wasn’t exactly how she’d expected to spend the first Christmas in her new home, here on Maple Drive. Back in February, when Sebastian proposed, she’d expected to be hosting family and friends for Christmas nibbles and drinks, not to mention her parents and in-laws for the big day lunch itself. She’d imagined her whole house decorated in tasteful red-and-white Scandi style, with hints of silver here and there for a little sparkle. There’d be perfectly coordinated wrapped presents under the tree. She, Sebastian and Perdita would each have their stocking hanging by the fireplace, and there’d be a personally painted family plate on the hearth ready to hold Santa’s mince pie and sherry. Greenery would twine up the bannisters, twinkling with tiny fairy lights. And she and Sebastian would curl up on the sofa to watch It’s A Wonderful Life, or The Muppet’s Chris
tmas Carol, and sip nice wines and eat fancy finger food and be ecstatically happy and, oh yes, married.
Instead, her home looked like an explosion in a kids’ craft room. In a desperate effort to regain her Christmas spirit, even if she was single and alone this December, she’d thrown herself into crafting a homemade Christmas. Sebastian had always hated her hobbies – he far preferred to spend his money on the most expensive, most talked about items, and couldn’t understand why Holly would even want to make things herself. Sometimes, she suspected that Sebastian had never understood her.
Holly smashed the staple gun against the ‘Santa Stop Here!’ sign she was making, so hard that the staple buckled and went pinging across the kitchen. She sighed. She’d have to go and retrieve it before Perdita stabbed her paw on it. Her precious – but admittedly rather entitled – cat would never forgive her.
Perdita had never really liked Sebastian. Turned out, Perdita had a point.