Thirteen #2
Ivy knelt beside her without a word, gathering glass and rescuing what she could.
‘Every one of those jars,’ Margaret croaked, swiping her tear-stained face, ‘has a label in Harold’s handwriting. The last harvest we had together. The last before ...’
Before the cancer took him, Ivy finished silently. They worked until dawn, piecing the display back together, the hem of Ivy’s robe sticky with jam. Those teenagers hadn’t just destroyed jars – they’d shattered pieces of Harold all over again.
Ivy understood what Victor needed to learn about Margaret; protecting village traditions – including the non-booking of the monthly whist drive – wasn’t stubbornness, it was love made visible.
Ivy smiled to herself; Victor’s face had turned a vivid shade of pink. He clearly wasn’t expecting to be challenged in front of the whole café. Victor spoke firmly: ‘Rules must be followed. People like you must set an example.’
Margaret seemed unbothered, picking up her scone and taking a nibble. ‘You don’t book a village hall like you’re reserving a table at a fancy restaurant. This is a village, for heaven’s sake.’
Ivy chuckled under her breath. She could practically hear the unspoken ‘city boy’ in Margaret’s words.
Victor was trying to enforce rules that didn’t apply in Brambleton.
He ran his hand through his hair, the tangled tinsel draped over one arm.
‘But if it’s not in the book, how do we avoid a clash? ’
Mabel gave him a look as if he’d asked for directions to church. ‘That’s never going to happen, is it.’
‘Margaret,’ Victor repeated, more forcefully this time, ‘the rules are there to avoid a clash.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Victor,’ Mabel snapped, ‘I keep the bookings. I wouldn’t allow anyone to book something which clashed with the whist drive.’
Victor cleared his throat, his face a shade darker now, and pointed a shaky finger at Margaret. ‘Well, it’s still not on the schedule. Margaret, you should check with Mabel first. Thisisa matter of protocol.’
‘Protocol?’ Margaret scoffed, clearly incredulous. ‘You think the village whist drive needs protocol ? We’ve been playing for decades, and now you’re going to change that. For what? A booking form?’
Ivy snorted. She turned back to the garland, but not before catching Margaret’s eye across the room.
There was a smug look on that face. Trish murmured to Ivy, ‘This never happened when you were our vicar. He’d be doing himself and the village a favour if he asked you how things really work before trying to lay down the law. ’
By four o’clock, Ivy’s feet were aching, and the pair of festive reindeer antlers she had been wearing since lunchtime kept slipping sideways as she worked.
Trish had done her best, but Ivy had covered most of the rush, with her boss hobbling about beside her.
From behind the counter, Ivy watched Helen leaning towards Omar, speaking in a low voice.
Since their joint encounter with that man in the Smuggler’s Inn, he seemed relaxed with her, more so than he ever was with Ivy.
It was unsettling. Despite her efforts to help him, he hadn’t opened up to her in the way he appeared to be doing with Helen.
Maybe it was because they were the same age.
Or their shared knowledge of who Robby was?
Helen stood abruptly, said her goodbyes and left.
Omar brought their dirty mugs to the counter.
Ivy noticed the way his shoulders slumped.
He deposited the cups and thrust his hands deep into his pockets as if trying to disappear.
Now was Ivy’s chance. Sometimes, the only way to get people to speak was to ask them a direct question.
‘Are you running from something?’ she asked.
He didn’t reply, but the stiffness in his posture told her enough.
‘Omar,’ she pressed, her voice firm now. ‘I feel responsible. You are living with Fred because of me. If you’ve done something – I need to know.’
Still nothing. Just the jingle of the bell as a customer left.
Her frustration flared. ‘Tell me the truth.’
Omar’s gaze darted to her, then away. His jaw clenched.
His silence spoke volumes. Her instincts told her Omar was an honest man, and by being direct, she had cornered him.
He either had to lie or reveal his secret – and she sensed it would be the latter.
But a voice interrupted them. Victor, placing the finally untangled tinsel on the counter, smiled knowingly and spoke authoritatively.
‘ For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. ’
Ivy exhaled. She didn’t need Victor to cite the source of his quotation: Luke, chapter 8, verse 17 .
Picking up the tinsel, she watched Victor leave.
The small victory she’d felt earlier – finally asking the right questions, pressing Omar for answers – crumbled away.
Maybe she wasn’t up to this anymore. Maybe she’d lost her touch.
Should she suggest Omar move on? Run away from this man Robby?
Go back to her job hunting, although she hadn’t applied for anything for over a week?
The questions gnawed at her, each one chipping away at the fragile confidence she’d been rebuilding.
She untied her apron with sharp, frustrated movements.
One thing she was certain of – Omar wasn’t going to tell her anything significant.
Not now. ‘Come on. It’s getting dark. I’d better get home before Jezreel takes revenge on another cushion. ’
They took the shortcut through the churchyard.
The gravelled pathway scrunched underfoot as Ivy and Omar made their way past weathered headstones, some buckling with age, listing like broken teeth, their carved names barely legible in the dim light.
As they passed the church, a figure emerged from beneath an ancient yew which stood guard over a lichen-streaked stone bench. Helen.
Ivy stopped, her gaze on Omar. And she noticed, with a twist of irritation, how his posture relaxed when he saw the other woman.
There seemed to be a mutual awareness, an understanding.
A cold wire of uneasiness threaded through her.
She held her breath, watching the subtle play of expressions across his face – expressions she had never seen when he looked at her.
Ivy felt suddenly alone, a chasm opening between them which she didn’t have the right claim to bridge.
‘Omar, why don’t you go on ahead?’ she said, a little too quickly. ‘Fred might be wondering where you’ve got to, now it’s dark.’
Omar hesitated, glancing between the two women. Then he shrugged and strode off toward the lychgate.
‘You didn’t have to send him away,’ Helen said.
‘I needed to speak with you.’ Ivy lied smoothly, sending up a silent prayer of apology for the sin. She started walking again, forcing Helen to fall into step beside her.
They moved slowly past the church, its leaded windows reflecting in the pale moonlight. The bell tower loomed against the sky, its outline softened by mist curling through the graveyard. ‘I have spent over half my life in and around this church,’ said Ivy.
Helen folded her arms. ‘It’s beautiful, in a stark kind of way. How old is it?’
Keeping her tone deliberately light, Ivy launched into the history.
‘It’s been here since the twelfth century.
’ She looked fondly at the square Norman tower rising above the nave, its narrow arched windows peering out like watchful eyes.
The steeply pitched roof, clad in weathered slate, seemed to glisten under the cold, damp sea air.
She pointed to the low, simple, round arched doorway.
‘If you look closely, there are traces of Norman carvings on that stonework.’
Helen made a noise of acknowledgement, then was silent for a moment before she spoke again. This time her tone abrasive. ‘Ivy, I know you don’t have anything specific to say to me, but there’s something I must say to you ... I know Omar.’
Ivy stopped. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted, and a strange, sharp anxiety spiked through her. Omar had denied knowing Helen. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked carefully.
Helen didn’t reply immediately, instead, glancing toward the village, where cottage windows cast pools of light across frost-touched gardens and empty lanes.
The pause felt endless. When she finally spoke, Helen’s voice was hesitant, as if the words were being dragged out of her.
‘I only met him once before I came here. But I know who he is. And I know why he’s hiding. ’
So that , thought Ivy, would explain why Omar had shied away from Helen when she first arrived . He had lied to protect his past.
A burst of wind rattled the bare branches overhead. Ivy’s stomach twisted. Deep down, she hadknown that Omar was running from something. She took a slow breath, but it didn’t ease the tightness in her chest. ‘What is he hiding from?’
Helen’s lips pressed together and, suddenly, this confident, composed woman looked uncertain.
‘Helen,’ Ivy pressed, her voice taut. ‘Tell me.’
Helen sighed. ‘He’s been accused of something deeply unpleasant.’
Ivy’s fingers curled around the edge of her coat. A chill that had nothing to do with the frosty air spread through her, as her imagination ran wild. Was Omar connected to the ruthless Taliban? Her voice came out in a croak. ‘How unpleasant?’
Helen hesitated again, then shook her head as if dismissing something. ‘I no longer think he’s guilty.’
The ground seemed to tilt beneath Ivy’s feet. Blood rushed in her ears. ‘Guilty of what ?’
Helen exhaled sharply. ‘Drug smuggling.’
The words hung between them, heavy, irreversible, like a cold stone pressing against Ivy’s ribs.
Ivy’s breath caught, and, for a moment, everything around her seemed distant – the cold, the headstones, the sound of the sea against the cliffs. She felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach.
‘Drug smuggling?’ she said, her voice barely louder than a sigh. ‘In Devon?’
‘No. Kabul.’
Unbidden, her mind conjured images: dark alleyways, desperate hands exchanging packets for crumpled notes, hollow-eyed addicts slumped in corners.
Had Omar stood among them? Facilitated their ruin?
She swallowed. No. That didn’t fit. The man who patiently scooped up Jez when he misbehaved, who whittled toys for the puppy, trimmed the hedges in this churchyard, returned dropped wallets and cooked meals rich with spice and memory.
A man who had started tobelonghere – he wasn’t some callous criminal.
But desperation could twist even the best of people. A man with no way out might take any route he could find. Had he done it? Or had someoneaccused him of it? In the Taliban-run Kabul, she suspected accusations could be as deadly as the crimes themselves.
She breathed in, her mind churning. If it was true, could she still look at him the same way, continue to protect him? ‘Drug smuggling,’ Ivy repeated, the words tasting foul on her tongue.
Helen nodded. ‘You know he used to be a teacher?’
‘I guessed he might have been. He told me he had a degree in education.’ Ivy admitted, hoping she wasn’t about to learn Omar had been peddling drugs to children.
‘He worked for a charity, the Fowler Foundation. I worked for the FF in London; I was hoping to be posted to Afghanistan, but after the regime change, they became nervous about sending a woman into the field.’
‘Yes, I can understand that.’
‘When rumours surfaced that he was involved in drug smuggling, it caused a huge scandal in London. Omar was never officially charged, but he went into hiding; apparently there were people looking for him. Then he just vanished.’
A wave of nausea rolled over Ivy. She feltfoolish,reckless. She had let this man into Fred’s home. Defended him. Cared for him. But then she thought of the way he had laughed, truly laughed, just last night. The way he seemed to be slowly converting the villagers to his side.
Ivy closed her eyes in silent prayer. Doubt had already wrapped itself around her heart, and she couldn’t shake it free.
The church bell tolled, low and resonant, the sound vibrating through her bones like a warning she couldn’t ignore.
She opened her eyes. ‘I need to speak to him.’ Helen exhaled, her breath visible in the cold air. ‘Ivy—’
‘No.’ Ivy cut her off, her voice steadier. ‘I do. I need to know the truth.’
And with that, she turned toward home, towards Omar, and towards the truth she was no longer sure she wanted to hear.