Twenty-three
Dawn stirred. The sky was a deep indigo, blushed with pink as a weak winter sun crept across the horizon.
A hush lingered over Brambleton. Overhead, seagulls drifted on the morning air, their cries breaking the coastal silence.
Ivy stepped into December’s bite, Jezreel zigzagging ahead like a drunk bumblebee, tangling the extending lead around her legs.
The Christmas lights still burned along the street, defiant against the muffled dark like fierce little stars marking their territory.
Frost transformed the familiar lamp posts into strange sentinels.
Through the morning air came the faintest trace of incense, drifting from the church where she imagined Victor setting up for tonight’s Christingle service.
She wrinkled her nose at the sweet smell wafting from the open door, thinking of James.
How different life might have been if he hadn’t felt that calling to Rome, trading their shared future for a collar and cassock.
Victor’s ‘high church’ touches hit too close to home.
She dipped a hand in her pocket and wrapped it around her keys – somewhere among the bunch was the vestry key, she no longer knew it by touch, but knowing it was there gave her a reassuring jolt of confidence.
Her boots tapped a cheerful rhythm on the pavement.
She’d walked this path so often these last few months in a melancholy state of mind, but today the demons that used to stalk her seemed almost laughable.
Windows glowed ahead, the village coming to life.
Jezreel made a wild lunge for a discarded chocolate wrapper, nearly tripping her up.
A door opened, spilling out another dog walker.
The woman and her charge waddled down the street like overstuffed sandwiches, layers of fleece and wool peeking out like unruly toppings.
It was Margaret and her chocolate Labrador.
‘Morning, Margaret!’ Ivy called.
Jez chose that moment to lunge at a pigeon, wrapping his lead around Ivy’s ankles. The cold plastic bit through her tights.
‘Control that creature,’ Margaret sniffed.
Sensing chaos, the Labrador circled, its tail wagging furiously. The two leads tangled, forcing the four bodies to stumble together, and Ivy felt Margaret’s wool coat rough against her cheek.
‘For goodness’ sake, Reverend!’ Margaret hissed.
‘Not my title anymore,’ Ivy reminded her, laughing despite herself.
Margaret’s face reddened. ‘Well, clearly neither is dog trainer ,’ she snapped.
Ivy wrestled Jez into the sit position, enabling the Labrador to lick Ivy’s face as if apologizing for its acerbic owner.
‘Sorry about this, Margaret,’ said Ivy, unwinding Jez’s lead from the Labrador’s. ‘I’ll soon have everything under control.’
‘With me, yes,’ said Margaret. ‘With that young vicar ...’ Then she revealed the true source of her irritation ‘Victor is threatening to modernize tonight’s Christingle service, make it sustainable ,’ she spat.
Ivy smiled, imagining what sustainable measures Victor might have introduced for Margaret to find so offensive.
Her mind spiralled into visions of horror: solar-powered LED glowsticks replacing candles.
Children in virtual reality headsets experiencing the ‘carbon-neutral Nativity’, while Joseph and Mary arrived on a shared electric scooter made from recycled ocean plastic.
Perhaps a drone powered by renewable energy delivering Baby Jesus to a manger made entirely of reclaimed wood, or wise men bearing gifts of lab-grown frankincense, fair-trade myrrh and ethically sourced gold from a mine that planted a tree for every ounce extracted.
Jez whined, seemingly sharing her distress.
‘What’s he done now?’ asked Ivy.
‘He mentioned interpretive dance,’ Margaret added grimly. Ivy grimaced – she didn’t want to go there.
‘He’s nowhere near ready for tonight, and frankly, I don’t think he’ll ever be, not unless you step in.’
Ivy laughed and promised to look in on him, then turned to head back up to the village.
Behind her, Margaret called out her thanks, but Ivy was already floating towards the cottage, towards the future that seemed to shimmer before her like sunlight on water, golden and certain and entirely within her grasp.
Ivy hurried along the snow-dusted lane, clutching her scarf tight.
The Christingle service would begin in twenty minutes, and she had to shower and change her clothes before meeting Omar and Fred.
Behind her, the village, with its dazzling lights and shimmering decorations, seemed to fade into a blur as she picked up her pace.
She had popped into the church an hour earlier to help, and as always had been struck by the beauty of the Christingle –the orange wrapped in red ribbon and studded with cloves and a candle –and the anticipation of the service, full of well-known hymns and children’s happy faces in the candlelight.
It had been the usual chaos, with helpers dashing around madly in a hunt for cocktail sticks, Margaret muttering about fire extinguishers, and Victor managing to transpose the numbers on the hymn board, so that ‘Away in a Manger’ was accidentally listed as ‘Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer’.
Thankfully Margaret had spotted it, but then Victor couldn’t remember where he’d put the number cards, resulting in a frantic yet fruitless search through the vestry before Ivy found the box abandoned in the – fortuitously empty – font.
At least the church stood ready now, each window with its Christmas flower arrangement and thick beeswax candle waiting to be lit, and the rows of Christingle oranges arranged neatly by the door.
Her heart was racing, thoughts swirling as she neared home.
She had plans for this evening. After the service, when everyone else headed to the pub, she was going to feign tiredness and ask Fred to walk her home, then invite him in for a nightcap.
Imagining the scene, Ivy felt a tingle of nerves shoot through her body.
What should she say? ‘Fred, I’ve grown fond of you’ sounded like the sort of line someone would use for a faithful spaniel, but was ‘I love you’ too strong?
She didn’t want to embarrass him, or worse, frighten him.
Smiling, she shook her head to free herself of an image of him kissing her, the way he had under the mistletoe, and picked up her pace.
Ivy glanced at her watch. There wouldn’t be time to change from her practical clothes into something more fitting for a celebratory service, and that felt strange, but in a good way.
After months of time stretching before her like an empty pulpit waiting for someone to preach a sermon, this rush of purpose, this race against the clock, was welcome.
Up ahead, she could see her cottage with the crimson velvet bow on her wreath.
Her keys were in her hand when a figure in Fred’s cottage caught her eye.
It was Omar with his duffel bag slung carelessly over his shoulder.
Why was he bringing a duffel bag to church?
The door opened, and Omar stood framed in the doorway, a hollow look on his face.
Her entire body went stiff, as if the air had turned to lead. Omar was leaving. Without saying goodbye. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. She ran back out through her gate and up Fred’s path, ‘Omar’ she called sharply, her voice quivering with equal parts hurt and determination.
He looked up, startled, his eyes dark and distant, and hurriedly stepped backwards into the cottage. She burst in after him.
‘Ivy—’ he began, but she cut him off, hurt bubbling to the surface.
‘How could you just go?’ she demanded, stepping closer.
‘After everything everyone’s done to help you, after everything we’ve shared .
.. where’s your goodbye?’ The distant sound of the church bells announcing the imminent start of the service punctuated each syllable.
Omar’s eyes flashed with pain and defiance.
‘You don’t understand,’ he snapped, his voice rough. ‘You can’t save me. No one can!’
His words hit her like whip cracks. After all they had shared, after all the efforts she, Trish and Helen had made to clear his name, he was abandoning them. ‘But you can’t give up, not when we’re so close.’
Before she could press further, Ivy heard footsteps on the floorboards above.
She felt a wave of relief. Fred would stop him.
Fred’s reassuring figure appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Got everything, Omar?’ he asked, striding into the room, his tone deliberately casual though his quick glance at Ivy suggested he was bracing for her reaction.
The metallic taste of panic rose in Ivy’s throat.
‘Fred?’ she croaked. ‘What’s going on?’
He spoke with a clipped tone, his words sounding like a command. ‘I’m taking Omar away, to somewhere safe.’
The words struck like a kiss from Judas; outwardly innocent but laced with a sting of betrayal she hadn’t seen coming. A jolt of shock and hurt surged through her. ‘Safe? Safe from what, Fred?’ Her voice rose, filled with anguish. ‘How could you?’
Fred’s face hardened, his jaw clenching as he took a step forward, but he spoke gently.
‘You’re not seeing the bigger picture. After what Helen’s discovered, you must see that Omar is in serious danger.
Whatever is going on at that charity, whoever is behind it, they think Omar knows what’s going on and they aren’t going to risk him exposing them.
Robby has been told to get him back to Kabul where they can destroy him, and if Omar won’t go, these people will find another way to shut him up.
Omar can’t fight people like that. I’m doing what’s best for him . ’