Claude's Christmas Adventure

by Sophie Pembroke

  ‘Boats are always an adventure.’

  ‘They are also not an option right now. So, Calais.’

  ‘So I should call the tunnel people?’ Oliver asked, his brow creased up.

  ‘Yes. That would be a good idea.’ Daisy slammed the boot shut on the world’s most well-travelled M&S hamper. Hopefully that was everything, bar the children. Because she sure as hell wasn’t coming back for anything they’d forgotten this time. ‘But first, get everyone in the car. Because we are going to Calais!’

  They travelled in convoy; Daisy driving, Oliver navigating while also making phone calls to try to arrange their return travel, and Bella following in the car behind with her grandparents. Every time Daisy checked her rear-view mirror, she’d see her dad giving her a thumbs up, and sigh. It was going to be a long journey.

  ‘Okay, so there’s no space on today’s trains at the moment,’ Oliver said. ‘But they are running tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You know, before today, I’d have wondered who on earth wants to travel across the Channel on Christmas Day,’ Daisy mused, signalling to turn left and checking her mirror to make sure her father had done the same. ‘But now I know.’

  ‘People who can’t bear to spend their Christmases in France?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘People desperate to spend Christmas with their loved ones, no matter what,’ Daisy corrected him.

  It might take them a little longer than anticipated, but they would be back in Maple Drive in time to give Claude his bone patterned Christmas stocking full of treats, one way or another.

  ‘Do you want me to book spaces for tomorrow, then?’ Oliver asked.

  Daisy shook her head. ‘Keep trying. I want to get back today if we can. If we can’t … well, we’ll look at travelling on Christmas Day as a last resort.’

  It took them just over five hours to reach Calais, including bathroom breaks for Jay and nappy changes for the twins, and the half hour pause when Daisy’s mother spotted an antiques emporium that might have ‘just the perfect thing for the front bedroom!’

  ‘We’re going to spend the whole of the next year trying to persuade them to move home in time for Christmas, aren’t we?’ Oliver muttered, as they waited outside with the buggy.

  ‘That or a hell of a lot of DIY,’ Daisy agreed.

  But that was a problem for next year. First, they had to get home for Christmas.

  By the time they arrived in Calais, Oliver had called the ticket line eight times, and got the same answer to each call: there were no spaces left on today’s trains, but they might be able to fit them on tomorrow, still. ‘Shall I book it now?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Daisy replied.

  Oliver sighed. ‘So, what do we do now, then?’

  Daisy flashed him a smile. ‘It’s time to find out if there’s any room at the inn.’

  ‘Wait,’ Bella said, when they parked up to discuss the plan with her grandparents. ‘You cannot seriously be planning on walking around Calais on Christmas Eve, knocking on doors, until we find a hotel with enough space to take all of us.’

  ‘It was good enough for Mary and Joseph,’ Grandad said, sounding rather like he was relishing the challenge. Or perhaps just grateful to have escaped his bird-infested chateau.

  ‘Mary and Joseph didn’t have the internet,’ Bella pointed out. ‘We do.’ She grabbed Jay’s tablet from him with a sigh and, overriding the parental controls Daisy had put in place, brought up a hotel comparison website. ‘Right. What are we looking for?’

  ‘Um, three rooms?’ Daisy said. ‘One double with space for the twins’ travel cots, a twin room for you and Jay next door, preferably, and another double for Granny and Grandad.’

  Bella typed some things into the tablet. ‘On it. I’ll check in on the Find Claude campaign, too. Last I heard, someone had spotted Claude jumping up and down in one of the gardens on Maple Drive, but by the time they got there, he was gone.’

  ‘At least we know he’s still on Maple Drive,’ Daisy said. ‘And we’ll be home soon.’ She hoped.

  Bella glanced up. ‘You guys might as well find us some lunch. I’ll have us somewhere to stay by the time you get back.’

  Daisy and Oliver exchanged a look. When had their daughter grown so capable? So in control?

  ‘Okay, then,’ Oliver said.

  ‘Wait!’ Bella called, as they turned to go. Daisy looked back to see her daughter’s best innocent smile. ‘Leave me your credit card?’

  ‘So, what do we do now?’ Holly asked, as Mrs Templeton tottered down the pathway back towards her own house, with promises of pigs in blankets and eggnog for the next day. ‘And, do you mind? About Mrs Templeton, I mean?’

  Jack shook his head, watched Mrs Templeton open her front door then shut it behind her, and turned back to face Holly with a smile. ‘It’s fine,’ he said, shutting her front door, too. ‘You were right. We couldn’t just leave her to spend Christmas on her own, if her family aren’t planning on sticking around. Not when we’re organising something especially so that neither of us nor Kathleen are alone.’

  Holly tilted her head as she looked at him. ‘You realise I never actually said any of that, right?’

  Jack blinked. ‘But you were thinking it. Weren’t you?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘I guess I must have read your mind, then.’

  Holly’s smile spread wide across her face, her lips pink and soft in the light from the Christmas tree fairy lights. ‘That’s quite the talent you have there.’

  ‘I’m a talented man.’

  ‘I’m sure you are.’

  Were they flirting again? Jack was pretty damn sure that was what was going on, but he’d already learned that he couldn’t make too many assumptions when it came to Holly, mind reading notwithstanding. And he couldn’t forget that he might be leaving soon.

  He shook his head, and followed Holly back into the kitchen. Those were questions for another day. Another year, even, maybe. First they had to get through Christmas with Kathleen and Mrs Templeton.

  And they had to find Claude.

  Suddenly, Jack remembered the Find Claude poster outside.

  ‘Hey, do you have your laptop or tablet handy?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure. Why?’ Holly reached over to the counter, where a pile of Christmas crafts had been stacked, and grabbed her tablet from its precarious position on the top of the pile.

  ‘There’s a poster on the lamppost outside,’ Jack explained, as she unlocked the screen and handed it over to him. ‘Part of the campaign to find Claude that the McCawleys’ daughter set up, I think. I never thought to check it out last night, but if they’ve got as far as posters …’

  ‘It’s worth a look,’ Holly finished for him, taking the seat beside him and looking over his shoulder. ‘Wow!’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jack scrolled through the screen, past hundreds of messages of support – and a link to the BBC website and their report on Claude. ‘I just figured it was a thing with her school friends, but it looks like it grew!’

  ‘Any news from the McCawleys?’ Holly asked.

  Jack scanned the page. ‘They’re still trying to get back. Apparently they’re in Calais right now, trying to get a place on the car train.’

  ‘Then they could be home really soon. That’s good. I’m sure Claude will come out of hiding once they’re here.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jack handed the tablet back. Soon, Claude would be the McCawleys’ problem again, not his. He just wished he’d been able to find him for them. Keep him safe and well fed on gingerbread.

  ‘So, you never answered my question,’ Holly said, topping up their wine glasses. They’d moved past mulled wine now, and onto the real stuff, which Jack was grateful for. All those spices had given him a headache – not that he’d ever admit that to Holly. ‘And since I can’t read your mind I’m going to have to ask it again. What do we do now?’

  Suddenly, in a flash, Jack knew what he wanted to do, the image so firmly printed on his brain it felt like a memory, r
ather than a fantasy. He wanted to curl up on the sofa with Holly in his arms, Claude at his feet, and watch bad Christmas telly before scooping Holly up and carrying her to bed. And then he wanted to—

  Well. It didn’t matter. Because a fantasy was all it was. And that wasn’t what Holly even meant by her question, he suspected.

  ‘You mean, about Kathleen’s Christmas surprise?’ he guessed, trying to shake off the image of him and Holly, headed to bed together on Christmas Eve.

  ‘Yeah. I mean, we got so caught up with Mrs Templeton’s time capsule, we’ve barely started. And it’s not like we had a detailed plan to start with.’

  Holly, Jack suspected, liked a plan. Which suited him just fine. In his experience, plans quite often fell apart at the first hurdle, but trying to get anything started without one was a recipe for disaster in itself.

  ‘Well, let’s think. We want to give her a proper Christmas, right?’

  ‘And ourselves, too,’ Holly added, with a small smile. ‘I mean, it’s for all four of us, right? So that none of us has to spend Christmas alone.’

  ‘Good point,’ Jack conceded. It was about all of them. And right now, in the moment, he wanted it to be perfect for Holly. Never mind the others. If he could give this lovely, lonely woman a perfect Christmas, he’d feel he’d done his duty at Maple Drive. Maybe then he could move on, with no regrets.

  Or maybe, just maybe, he might even find a reason to stay.

  ‘So, where would you start, if you were putting together your perfect Christmas?’ he asked.

  Holly tilted her head again, considering, and Jack took a moment to appreciate the long, white line of her neck, and the sparkly pins that held her wavy blonde hair away from her face. She was so beautiful, it was hard to imagine any man walking away from her willingly.

  Clearly her ex was an idiot.

  And right then, watching her dream up her perfect Christmas, Jack decided that he wouldn’t be an idiot too. If Holly gave him an indication that she wanted him to hang around Maple Drive a little longer, well, he’d do it. If there was a chance that Holly could be more than just Christmas for him, if there was even the smallest possibility that she could be the future and the family he was looking for, he had to take it.

  If it didn’t work out, then he could move on later. There were always other places, other jobs, other streets. He had nothing else tying him to Maple Drive.

  But his boss had been right. He couldn’t give up before he gave Maple Drive – and Holly – a proper chance.

  ‘Decorations,’ Holly said, at last, answering the question Jack had almost forgotten he’s asked. ‘I’d start with decorations.’

  Kathleen, Christmas, planning … that was what they were talking about. Not the possibility of romance.

  Jack hauled his errant brain back to the conversation at hand. ‘Well, your house is looking pretty thoroughly decorated. And I’m not sure how we’d get into Kathleen’s house to decorate without her noticing. So maybe we should move down the list.’

  But Holly shook her head. ‘We might not be able to decorate inside her house …’ she said, leaving it dangling for him to catch on.

  ‘Icicles,’ he said, remembering the lights she’d taken down from the outside of the house. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got much more than just icicles here.’ Holly placed a hand on a large stack of delivery boxes beside her. What was in them? And, more to the point, why hadn’t he delivered them? ‘Special delivery one-day courier service from my favourite online Christmas decoration store,’ Holly explained. ‘I’ve got enough here to light up the entire street.’

  ‘Mrs Templeton will have a heart attack,’ Jack pointed out.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Holly replied, thoughtfully. ‘I mean, she seemed almost human, looking through the time capsule this afternoon. And besides, her big problem with my lights was that no one else in the street had any up, so they stood out.’

  ‘But if everyone has lights up …’ Well, then the whole street would look a hell of a lot more festive. And the huge smile on Holly’s face told him that it would be worth it.

  Apparently, he was spending his Christmas Eve decorating Maple Drive. Strangely, he didn’t mind one bit.

  And if Claude was still out there on Maple Drive, putting up lights might help them find him.

  ‘It’s all clear,’ Perdita whispered through the cat flap. ‘They’re doing something with boxes.’

  I gave her a second to stand back, then launched myself at the cat flap. Apparently, the lack of food I’d consumed in the last day or so – since my last, lovely piece of gingerbread – had streamlined my impressive physique. I slipped through the cat flap a lot easier than I had the day before, anyway.

  Holly’s kitchen was lit up from within, with strings of lights of every colour spread out across the kitchen table, and into the hallway. I could hear Jack and Holly talking in the other room, and glanced between the sound source and Perdita’s food bowl. Priorities, priorities. Food, or avoiding the pound?

  Put like that, it was simple.

  I dived for the food bowl, wolfing down as much cat food as I could stand in the shortest amount of time, then spun back round to Perdita. ‘So, where do I hide?’

  Perdita narrowed her eyes. ‘Nowhere. Not until you’ve got rid of all the food around your mouth. I’m not having you make a mess of my lovely home.’

  Impatiently, I ran my tongue around my face, savouring the last few morsels. ‘Happy?’

  ‘Barely.’ Perdita stalked towards the kitchen door. ‘Come on.’

  I followed, cautiously, but Jack and Holly seemed far more engrossed in their strings of lights than anything else going on this evening. That was good. I hoped Perdita was right, and that the pound would be closed tomorrow. It was early evening now; maybe it was closed already.

  But maybe I’d stay out of sight for a little bit longer, just in case.

  ‘This way,’ Perdita hissed, the ‘s’ on ‘this’ stretched out. She was already half way up the stairs.

  Hopping over a string of lights shaped like snowflakes, I made it to the stairs and scurried up them behind her.

  Perdita led me to a small room at the front of the house, with a single bed and a small desk under the window. ‘She never uses this room,’ she said, treading lightly on the bed spread. ‘You’ll be safe here.’

  Downstairs, I heard doors opening and closing again, and Jack and Holly laughing as they left the house. Where were they going? Jumping up onto the desk, I peered out into the growing darkness, watching them leave. Jack had two large boxes in his arms, and Holly had another. They crossed the road, and knocked on the door at number 9.

  ‘So, what are you going to do now?’ Perdita asked, and I hopped down back onto the bed. It felt strange to be here, taking refuge with my enemy. But I was grateful to have a roof over my head tonight.

  ‘I thought I might nap,’ I said, considering my options. ‘Unless you know the whereabouts of that gingerbread house …?’ I added, hopefully.

  ‘I meant about your family,’ Perdita said, sitting back on her hind paws again, her tail wrapped around her fluffy body. ‘If they come back. What will you do?’

  ‘When they come back,’ I corrected. ‘They’re definitely coming back.’

  ‘They haven’t so far.’

  ‘They had somewhere to be. They were visiting Granny and Grandad.’ At least, that’s what I hoped. France, ferry and chateau still sounded a little too strange and exotic for me. ‘As soon as they’re done they’ll come back, and everything will be back to normal.’ That’s what I had to keep clinging on to.

  ‘Will it?’ Perdita asked. ‘They abandoned you, Claude. They left you here alone with no food, and nowhere to sleep. If it wasn’t for me you’d still be out there in the cold.’

  ‘They didn’t mean to. They put me in my crate, I just jumped out … to chase you, actually. This is really all your fault, you know.’

  Perdita pressed her front paws against the bed cov
er, and I heard her claws pulling at the threads every time she lifted them. ‘At least I noticed you were still here. At least I’m helping you now. I’m here. They’re not.’

  ‘They’ll be back,’ I said again. ‘And then we can get back to normal.’ But even as I said the words, I realised what Perdita was getting at. How could things be normal again, after this? Whether they meant to or not, my people had left me alone – and they hadn’t come back. I could understand not realising I wasn’t in the car.

  But I couldn’t get past the idea that they hadn’t come back for me.

  What did that mean?

  ‘Now you’re getting it,’ Perdita said, watching me carefully. ‘You know, I can almost see the thoughts going through your head. You’re realising that they didn’t care about you enough to come back, aren’t you? So, I’ll ask you again, what are you going to do next?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, slowly, staring past her at an empty space on the wall. What would I do? They were still my people, even if they’d let me down. But if I couldn’t trust them to take care of me … maybe I would be better at the pound, with a chance of finding a family who could love me the way I’d love them.

  Or maybe I should have left Maple Drive as I’d planned. Maybe the family I’d always taken for granted wasn’t mine, after all.

  Perhaps it was time to find a new one.

  ‘I’ll see if I can find you some gingerbread,’ Perdita said, with more sympathy than I expected from her. ‘You look like you need it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I watched her go, her padding paws silent on the carpet, then hunkered down on the bed, my head on my paws, my mind full of whirring thoughts and feelings I wasn’t used to.

  It used to be so simple. Love your people, get loved in return. That was the way it was meant to be.