‘I used to “borrow” that boy’s pony very early in the morning,’ she admitted. ‘Your mum did things the proper way. She worked at a riding school near Port-le-Bain to earn riding lessons until she was old enough to earn money to pay for them.’

‘You crept off to the Carlysle Estate when there was no one around?’ chided Daisy. ‘And yet you don’t want me delivering wreaths to village people at their houses?’

Grady gave Daisy a pat on the shoulder. ‘I used to go with her.’

‘Oh.’ Daisy lost interest once there was a reasonable explanation.

But Laurel remembered, and she was certain that Grady did, too, that they’d paused and kissed at every stile and the bridleways hadn’t felt lonely with Grady’s hand in hers.

Although the Craft Stuff session was meant to begin at two o’clock, Laurel discovered that Daisy intended to go straight to The Angel, while Grady peeled off for Mistletoe Cottage.

‘Why are we heading to The Angel already?’ Laurel asked, pausing at the end of the track to slosh about in a puddle to wash the worst of the mud from her wellies.

‘Most people meet for lunch first.’ Daisy shifted her bundle of willow, giving her own boots a cursory rinse.

Laurel halted. ‘If you’re meeting your mates, you don’t want me along, do you?’ It was one thing to spend time with Daisy to get to know her better, another entirely to get in the way of her day. She imagined herself sitting there like a lemon while Zuzanna, Daisy and other teenagers excluded her by using their own language, like ‘peng’ – which she understood to denote someone was good-looking – and ‘basic’, ‘vintage’ or ‘retro’. The latter two would probably be applied her, at the grand old age of thirty-five.

Daisy turned and gazed at her, eyes enormous. ‘Everyone will be there. I thought you were coming. They’ll all be stoked ’cos you’re, like, a proper artist.’

She looked so woebegone that Laurel slung an arm around her shoulders and strode onward towards The Angel. ‘If your nan was here she’d say, “She’s not like an artist, Daisy. She actually is one.” Mum hated Rea and me littering our sentences with “like”.’ It made her feel less ‘vintage’ to have once overused ‘like’, as Daisy did now. She added, ‘No problem about lunch. If you want me there, I’ll come.’

‘Cool!’ Daisy cheered up, clutching her willow as the wind tried to snatch it away.