Jack must have thought so, too, because he sat down at the table, saying, ‘Well, in that case … Thank you.’
I had just wolfed down the rest of my gingerbread, when something occurred to me. Kathleen had said ‘hamper’. Wasn’t that the word Daisy had used to describe the box of interesting smells that morning? That had definitely had a lot more than just mince pies and gingerbread in it.
Which meant that, somewhere in the kitchen, there had to be all sorts of other interesting foods, waiting to be eaten. And maybe, if Jack and I stayed long enough, Kathleen would let me sample them, too …
Getting the whole family back into the car and off the ferry in France wasn’t any easier than it had been getting them on in the first place.
Bella had checked in with the Find Claude campaign just before they docked though, and while there wasn’t much there yet, they had received one message from an older teenager who lived on Maple Drive, who said she’d seen Claude chasing a cat earlier in the day, before she saw the page.
‘She’s out shopping now,’ Bella had reported, as she shut down the computer again. ‘But she’ll keep an eye out when she gets home.’
‘At least we know he was okay this morning,’ Daisy had said, sighing with relief. ‘We’ll just have to hope for another sighting soon.’
‘Of course, this would be a lot easier to monitor if I had my phone …’
But in all the chaos of getting off the ferry, Daisy still hadn’t managed to find the key to the vanity case. And now they were safely in France, it seemed her parents hadn’t even managed to make it out to meet them.
‘Where did you arrange to meet them?’ Oliver asked, surveying Caen’s busy port.
‘Well, we didn’t. Not exactly,’ Daisy admitted. She’d just assumed they’d be there, waiting to greet them. After all, it was their fault they’d come this far in the first place.
Oliver sighed. ‘Do you have their French mobile numbers?’
‘Only on my phone.’ She remembered the receipt she’d found in her purse earlier. ‘But I do have the number of the chateau.’
‘Which we can’t call, because we have no phones,’ Bella pointed out. Again.
‘Besides,’ Oliver added, ‘They’re supposed to be here.’
But they weren’t. Even Daisy could admit that, now the crowd was thinning out.
‘There’s a pay phone,’ she said, spotting one across the way, and praying it took credit cards. Her head was pounding. Why couldn’t anything just be simple for once? ‘I’ll give it a go. You stay here with the kids.’
‘Daisy, darling!’ Her mother’s voice sounded the same as always; part distracted, part lovingly disappointed. ‘Where are you? We expected you hours ago.’
Why? Daisy wondered. She’d given them the ferry times. She supposed they had written them down wrong. Or not written them down at all. Either was equally likely.
Once they’d got Jay’s birthday wrong for three years in a row, thanks to a stubborn insistence that their calendar knew better than Daisy did when her own son was born.
‘We’ve only just got the car off the ferry,’ she said, knowing it wasn’t worth arguing with her. Mum believed her own version of reality with a ferocity that defied all logic. ‘I thought you were coming to meet us?’
‘Well, it’s just as well we didn’t! Imagine how long we’d have had to wait.’
Right. Of course.
Daisy sighed, and rubbed her temples with her free hand. ‘Look, we’re here now. Can you give me some instructions on how to reach you?’
‘Why not just use that fancy phone of Oliver’s to find us?’ Mum asked. ‘He’s always saying how it can do anything.’
Including playing mindless games and avoiding conversation with his family. ‘We’re having a technology-free Christmas,’ Daisy informed her. That sounded much better than ‘I accidentally locked all our phones and tablets in a case and lost the key.’ Surely the key had to be somewhere. It would show up when she unpacked, Daisy was certain.
‘I’ll get your father,’ Mum said, and dropped the phone before Daisy could object.
The last thing she wanted was her father’s idea of helpful directions.
‘Hello, my angel!’ Dad sounded unnaturally jovial, so Daisy assumed gin and tonic hour had started a little earlier than normal this festive season. ‘You made it to our fair country, then! Sorry we couldn’t come and meet you. There was an issue with the range cooker your mother insisted on. Also, my latest nemesis – a collared dove who seems to think our kitchen is its new palace.’
‘I thought she’d just written the time down wrong,’ Daisy admitted, ignoring the part about the bird.
‘Oh, she’d done that too. The calendar says you should have been here six hours ago.’
‘The calendar is, once again, wrong.’ Really, was it a surprise she was so unable to keep her own life in order? Look what she was descended from.
‘It usually is.’ There was a rustling noise at the other end, which Daisy knew from experience was her father organising his map collection. ‘Now, you need directions, correct?’
‘Yes. But Dad, just the simplest, most basic ones you can manage, please.’
‘Of course!’
‘Great.’ Daisy pulled a leaky pen and an old receipt out of her bag and proceeded to take notes.
‘Now, the thing you need to understand about French roads, is that there’s always at least two ways of doing things. The way everyone else goes, and the best way. I’m going to tell you the best way.’
Oh God. Daisy rested her head against the plastic surround of the pay phone, and resigned herself to being lost for the next several hours.
Ten minutes later, with a series of scrawled instructions in hand, she hung up, and headed back towards her family.
‘So?’ Oliver asked, looking up from wiping what looked like apple mush from the twins’ faces. ‘Are they coming?’
Daisy shook her head. ‘The calendar thought we should be here six hours ago, and there was some sort of trouble with the oven and a bird. Which hopefully won’t affect dinner,’ she added, as the thought occurred to her. Oliver and the kids would not be happy if she’d dragged them all this way, away from Claude, and there wasn’t even a decent meal at the end of it.
‘So what do we do now?’ Bella asked. Jay was curled up in her lap, half asleep, apparently worn out by his epic crying fit earlier. His soft toy Claude was clasped tightly in his arms, black ears poking out, a poor substitute for the real thing.
‘Grandad has given me directions,’ Daisy said, and Oliver and Bella groaned in unison. ‘I’m sure we’ll be fine.’
Oliver tossed the apple-covered baby wipes into a nappy bag and stuck them in the side pocket of the change bag for Daisy to deal with later. ‘Well, if we want to get there before Christmas Day, we’d better set off now.’
‘It’s only an hour’s drive, Dad says,’ Daisy protested. ‘And mostly on two or three roads. Depending on which way we go.’
Oliver paused. ‘How many possible routes did he give you?’
‘Well, he said there were two. And then he described six. Or seven. I might have lost count.’
Eyes raised to heaven, Oliver shouldered the change bag. ‘Right.’
‘It’ll be fine.’
‘You keep saying that,’ Bella interjected.
‘I keep hoping it’s true,’ Daisy said. ‘It is the season of miracles, after all.’
But that logic was wearing thin, even for her.
Just one hour, and they’d be at the chateau. And then they could figure out how they were going to get home to Claude again.
‘These mince pies are delicious. So is the gingerbread,’ Jack said, watching as Claude devoured his third piece. Were dogs allowed to eat gingerbread? He suspected not, but he also knew he stood no chance of keeping Claude away from them. He just hoped the McCawleys didn’t blame him for any ensuing stomach upset.
‘I’m glad,’ Kathleen said. ‘I don’t really have a