When had it grown so complicated?
Perdita was right. Everything would be a lot easier with gingerbread.
‘Here you go.’ Perdita slunk through the door, a piece of gingerbread in the shape of a snowman in her mouth, and deposited it on the floor. I jumped down and devoured it a couple of quick bites, then looked up at Perdita hopefully. She rolled her eyes. ‘There’s more downstairs, and Jack and Holly are still out. You can fetch your own this time.’
Suddenly, the room lit up with a flash of pink and yellow lights from outside the window.
‘What was that?’ Perdita prowled past me and jumped up onto the windowsill to look. I followed, clambering back up onto the bed then leaping across the inches to the desk, and stared out of the window in amazement.
Two of the houses in Maple Drive were lit up like Holly’s Christmas tree in the hallway – all bright colours and flashing lights, making out patterns and pictures on the walls of the houses. In the street, I could just make out Holly and Jack crossing the road and knocking on another door. Were they doing this? Why?
‘Come on,’ Perdita said. ‘I want to find out what’s going on out there.’
I hesitated. I was interested too. But Perdita had said there was more gingerbread downstairs …
‘We can grab the gingerbread on our way out,’ she added, and I jumped down from the desk to follow her.
By the time that evening fell, Daisy, Oliver, the kids and the grandparents were all happily ensconced in the small, family run hotel that Bella had found for them, close to the station. And that meant it was time for another phase of Daisy’s constantly changing plans.
Once, just once, she’d like something to go right the first time, so they could actually stick with Plan A. Or even B or C.
The way they were going, she was running out of letters of the alphabet.
‘So, do you know where we’re going?’ Oliver asked, as he and Daisy left the hotel.
‘To the information desk at the Eurotunnel terminal,’ Daisy said, absently, checking the cheaply printed, free map in her hands. Was she even holding it the right way up? She should have brought Bella. Bella was much better at directions than either of them. ‘I figure, if we’re there in person, they’ll have to give us a space. Right?’
‘That’s the hope.’ Oliver took the map from her, turned it the other way up, squinted at it, then turned it back the way she’d had it in the first place. ‘Come on. I think it’s this way.’
Daisy rolled her eyes, but followed.
In the end, getting tickets for the following day proved a damn sight easier than trying to get home on Christmas Eve. Daisy had been holding out a small, faint hope that when they showed up in person, space on the Christmas Eve train would miraculously appear, and they’d dash back to fetch the family and cancel their hotel rooms, and be home with Claude before Santa made his rounds.
No such luck with that, though. But …
‘At least we know we can get home tomorrow,’ Oliver said, wrapping a reassuring arm around her shoulder as they left the ticket office. ‘That’s something, right?’
‘I suppose.’ But it meant leaving Claude alone for another night. Not to mention spending their Christmas Day travelling home from Calais via Folkestone. Not exactly the perfect Christmas she’d been hoping for.
Daisy sighed. At least they were all together, Claude notwithstanding. That had to be what mattered most.
‘Come on,’ she said, pulling the map from her pocket again. ‘We need to get back to the kids, and rescue my parents.’ And given the confusion with the map on the way there, they’d better get moving quickly, if they wanted to get back to the hotel before Jay needed putting to bed.
‘Actually …’ Oliver stopped walking, and reached out to take her hand.
‘What?’ Daisy asked, suspiciously. He had that look he got, whenever he’d had what he thought was a brilliant idea but turned out to be wildly inconvenient and annoying. Just what she didn’t need on Christmas Eve.
‘I spoke with your mum before we left. She and your dad are going to watch the kids for a couple of hours.’
‘While we do what, exactly?’ All she really wanted to do was fall face first in a bed and pass out until they were home again. But apparently that wasn’t an option.
Oliver smiled. ‘Come with me.’
Suppressing a frustrated sigh, Daisy let him lead her through the streets of Calais, too tired to take in the festive decorations, or even the holiday atmosphere.
‘Do you remember the last time we came here?’ he asked, and Daisy blinked as she remembered.
‘Um, ten years ago? More? It was when Bella was small.’
‘And before we’d even thought of Jay. Or the twins.’
Daisy allowed herself a small smile. God, they’d thought one kid was hard. Thought they desperately needed a break. And her parents had sympathised, taking Bella for a weekend so she and Oliver could escape to France for a romantic weekend. They’d had a night in Calais, a night out at some hotel a half hour or so away – out in the French countryside – that Oliver’s colleague had been raving about, then caught the ferry home, the car loaded up with wine to repay her parents for the babysitting.
‘I remember it being a lot easier to get in and out of France in those days,’ Daisy said, drily, and Oliver laughed – a proper, head tipped back, belly laugh. Never mind Calais; when was the last time she’d heard that? She could hardly remember.
What had happened to them? When had the man she loved become more of an annoyance than a friend?
And how did she change that?
‘Come on,’ Oliver said, grabbing her hand again. ‘This way.’
He led her down a small side street, and Daisy frowned a little as she looked around. It seemed familiar somehow. But really, it had been a decade, and she hadn’t paid all that much attention to Calais’s not-exactly-renowned attractions even then. She’d been far more interested in her husband.
But then Oliver took a sharp left turn, and the awnings of a familiar restaurant came into view, making Daisy stop still in the middle of the street.
‘It’s still here?’ she whispered. To be honest, she’d seldom thought of the tiny restaurant where Oliver and she had whiled away a whole afternoon waiting for their hotel room to be ready, but now she saw it again, she couldn’t believe it hadn’t closed up or been passed on or at least changed in some way.
But when Oliver held the door open for her, everything looked exactly as she remembered. Same rickety wooden tables. Same faded linens. Same chalkboard above the bar area, detailing their limited menu. She thought she might even recognise some of the waiting staff.
Oliver hauled out his rusty French to ask for a table and, in no time, they were seated, bread basket between them and menus in hand.
‘How did you know this place was still here?’ Daisy asked, over the top of her menu, while a nearby waiter hovered obviously, waiting for their orders.
Oliver shrugged, his menu still folded on the table in front of him. ‘I didn’t. Just took a chance.’
‘Do you remember what we talked about that afternoon we spent here?’ Daisy asked.
‘I think we talked about everything,’ Oliver joked. ‘Politics, religion, literature … Bella mostly, of course.’
‘We talked about the future,’ Daisy said, remembering. ‘We talked about all the things we wanted from our future together.’
‘You said four kids,’ Oliver said. ‘I totally blame you for the twins.’
Daisy laughed, and the waiter lost patience, approaching their table with an expectant look.
Oliver ordered the wine, because he cared more about it than she did, and Daisy ordered the special from the blackboard over the bar, while Oliver settled for a traditional moules frites.
When the waiter had left to pass on their requests, Oliver sat back in his chair and watched her, making Daisy fidget as she tucked her hair behind her ear.
‘What?’ she asked.
Oliver shook his
head. ‘Nothing, really. Just thinking about how beautiful you are. And how lucky I am to have you.’
Daisy smiled back. Maybe one evening alone wouldn’t be enough to put right everything that had grown tired and ignored in their marriage. But it might be a really good start.
‘A little more to the left!’ Holly called up, shading her eyes against the brightness of the Christmas lights next door, as she directed Jack in the placement of Kathleen’s decorations. They’d left hers until last so that, if she noticed and came out to see what was going on, the whole street would already be ablaze with festivity. Well, almost the whole street, anyway.
Holly was amazed at how many people in Maple Drive had been happy for them to hang lights on their houses, just for a couple of nights. She’d expected a lot of slammed doors in their faces. Instead, people had been surprisingly helpful.
‘Any sign of Claude yet?’ had been the number one thing people said upon answering the door to them.
Holly wouldn’t have known how to go about answering, or asking for what they needed, but Jack had no qualms. With that easy smile that made her middle feel a little gooey, he’d said, ‘Not yet. So if you see him, give me a yell – I’d hate to think of Claude all alone on Christmas Eve. But actually, there was something else we wanted to ask you this evening. It’s about celebrating Christmas, here in Maple Drive. Tell me, do you know Holly, from number 12?’
Not everyone had been a fan of outdoor lights, but when they’d seen the selection Holly had to offer, almost everyone had managed to find something they liked. A few people had been concerned about Mrs Templeton – usually people who’d tried to put lights up in the past, only to have official complaints made to the council. But Jack had even managed to set their minds at ease.