‘Of course it is.’ Henri’s voice dripped with disdain.
‘It’s a genius idea,’ Daisy said, wrapping an arm around Bella’s shoulder, which Bella promptly shrugged off.
‘Did you find the key yet? So we can get the phones out?’ Bella asked.
‘Not yet,’ Daisy admitted.
‘It’s astonishing how careless people can be with personal belongings,’ Henri added, unhelpfully. ‘Like keys. And dogs.’
‘You must have computers with internet on this ferry, right?’ Bella leant further over the counter, staring at Henri, and he took a step back. ‘Where are they?’
Henri, stunned into helpfulness, gave them a map with the internet hub marked. Daisy trailed after Bella as she strode towards the computers.
‘So, how is this going to work, exactly?’ she asked, as Bella settled in front of the screen.
‘Easy. I’m going to set up a page called Find Claude, right?’ She was already typing away, the screen filling with text and images as she worked. ‘I’ll link it to my profiles and share it with my friends, and get them to share it with their friends and so on and so on.’
‘Until everyone we’ve ever met knows we’re negligent pet parents who left their dog at home.’ How exactly was this going to help?
‘Until even people we’ve never met are helping to search for Claude.’ Bella tapped a few more keys, and a picture of Claude from last Christmas, wearing a Santa hat perched between his dark ears, appeared at the top of the page. ‘And done!’
‘That was … amazing.’ Daisy scanned the screen. She liked to think that she was pretty good with computers, but she wouldn’t have thought of this. All she’d been thinking about was finding a way home. But since she couldn’t, Bella had done the next best thing.
Find Claude! the page read, in big letters, under Claude’s picture. Beneath that Bella had written a paragraph about what had happened that morning. Then she’d started adding friends to the page, and sharing it everywhere.
‘So, now what do we do?’ Daisy asked, as Bella logged off the computer.
‘Now we wait for people to contact us and tell us they’ve seen Claude.’
‘Great.’ Waiting. Daisy’s favourite.
‘Don’t worry, Mum.’ Bella squeezed Daisy’s hand with her own. ‘Claude will be fine.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ Because, whatever she did, they weren’t going to get home before Christmas Eve. Which meant that Claude would be all alone tonight – and probably hating every minute of it.
It seemed that Bella’s Find Claude campaign was their best chance of taking care of their favourite dog, even if they couldn’t be there themselves.
By the time the sun had set – at, admittedly, the ridiculously early time of four o’clock – Jack still hadn’t returned with Claude.
Holly had made two batches of mince pies (one with ordinary mincemeat, one with her speciality cranberry and apple one), assembled the pieces of her gingerbread house ready for decorating, prepped a batch of mulled wine (eggnog was, after all, more of an acquired taste, and she didn’t know if Jack had acquired it. But surely everyone liked mulled wine), sewn another string of festive bunting, and dug her second set of icicle lights out of the spare decorations box.
She’d held off putting them up before now, because Maple Drive didn’t seem all that big on Christmas lights, and as the only one indulging in the festive display she didn’t want to overdo it. But it was Christmas Eve tomorrow and Jack had said he liked them, so maybe one more string, just under the dining room window, wouldn’t hurt.
Besides, they looked cheery whenever she came home, like the house itself was welcoming her. She liked that.
Slipping on her bright red coat, Holly picked up the coiled string of lights and headed out the front door, smiling at the sight of her sparkling bauble wreath as she did so.
She attached the battery pack as instructed to the side of the window, then set about draping the icicles as evenly as possible under the windowsill.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing, young lady?’ Holly froze at the sound of the voice behind her, then turned slowly to check there wasn’t some other twenty-something blonde being berated for her behaviour.
Nope. Just her.
At the end of her path stood the fearsome Mrs Templeton from number 13, hands on her hips, scowling furiously.
‘I’m … putting up Christmas lights?’ She was pretty sure that’s what she was doing, anyway. From Mrs Templeton’s tone, though, she might as well have been setting up a brothel in her front room.
‘In case it has escaped your attention, Maple Drive is not the sort of street that encourages Christmas lights.’ She spat out the last two words as if they tasted bad.
And in case it escaped your attention, this is my house and I can do whatever I like to it.
She should just say that. It was true, after all, and it wasn’t like the street belonged to Mrs Templeton or anything. And hadn’t she decided to be more herself, and less the Holly that Sebastian had wanted her to be, now he was gone?
But this was her home. And maybe it wasn’t the way she’d planned, when she’d moved here with Sebastian, but in some ways that just made it even more important to fit in. She was alone here now. If Mrs Templeton rallied the neighbours against her, they could make her life miserable. Run her out of town, even! All over a set of Christmas lights.
Holly shook away images of her neighbours chasing her with flaming torches, and concentrated on placating Mrs Templeton.
‘I’m sorry you don’t like them,’ she said, sympathetically. ‘But really, it is just one very small string of plain white lights.’
‘Two strings.’ Mrs Templeton nodded towards the bedroom window lights. ‘Two strings of wholly unnecessary lights.’ Holly winced.
‘But don’t you think they brighten the place up a bit?’ she tried. After all, wasn’t that basically the job description of lights? Brightening things up? Even Mrs Templeton couldn’t argue with that, surely?
‘I think they make the street look tacky.’
Right. Of course she could.
‘I’m very sorry you feel that way,’ Holly said.
‘So you’ll take them down?’ Mrs Templeton’s scowl didn’t lift for a moment.
Holly sighed. Maybe she should try appealing to the woman’s humanity. If she had any. ‘The thing is … I live alone here, apart from my cat. And that can get rather … lonely. And the lights, well … it’s just nice to have something to welcome me home during these cold winter nights. Even if it is just battery-powered,’ she joked, then smacked a hand over her mouth at the thought, as the innuendo caught up with her. Oh, why couldn’t she just stop talking before she got to the embarrassing parts?
Mrs Templeton took a moment longer to catch on, but then her eyes widened and her mouth opened into a tiny, tight O shape.
‘Well,’ she said after a second. ‘Well, I’m sure it’s none of my business what you get up to in the privacy of your own home, but out here on the street I am still the neighbourhood watch captain for Maple Drive, and I say that those lights have to go!’
‘Right. Of course. Sorry.’ Her cheeks burning, Holly ripped out the drawing pins holding the lights in place, and started coiling the string back up. ‘I’ll take down the upstairs ones now.’
‘Good. Right.’ Mrs Templeton turned on her heel and marched away, pausing at the join between Holly’s front garden and hers to cast back a suspicious look. Holly sighed. So much for trying to fit in. Before she knew it, Mrs Templeton would be telling the whole street that Holly Starr really was opening a brothel in her front room.
Lights in hand, Holly headed inside, slamming the front door behind her. She stomped up the stairs, opened her bedroom window wide, and began gathering in those lights as well.
Then, surrounded by icicles, she sat on her bed and tried very hard not to cry.
This had been a mistake. All of it. Meeting Sebastian in that blasted bar and falling fo
r his charm. Moving to Maple Drive with him and buying the house when they’d only been together less than six months. Deciding to stay here even after Sebastian left. Telling her parents that of course she didn’t mind if they spent the money they’d got back from her wedding insurance on a Caribbean Christmas cruise instead, since she ‘wasn’t going to be needing it.’ God, she’d even reassured them that she’d be okay on her own for Christmas. That she had friends she could spend it with, and hoped they didn’t ask for their names, since she didn’t think Perdita would be an acceptable answer.
But most of all, Sebastian. He was the biggest mistake she’d ever made in her whole stupid life, and he was still making her miserable, four months after he left.
Sebastian would have hated the icicle lights too. And Perdita’s Christmas jumper. And mulled wine.
Really, she’d had a lucky escape. All that time she’d wasted imagining her perfect future with him, not realising that they had nothing in common, that everything she dreamt about he’d have shuddered and turned his nose up at.