Two
The gravel crunched sharply beneath her feet as Ivy strode across the vicarage driveway, Fred by her side.
They took the shortcut through the churchyard back towards their adjacent cottages.
She pulled her coat tighter, though whether against the October chill, or Fred’s latest suggestion about her job hunt, she wasn’t sure.
‘Supply teaching?’ Ivy muttered. She’d done the formal teacher training decades ago, before her future had been altered for her.
She didn’t have any experience, but Fred seemed to think that wasn’t really a deal breaker.
His voice carried that gentle persistence she’d grown accustomed to over the past few months.
‘Stop underestimating yourself. You’ve had the training; you’ve got all the background checks for working with children; and you may not have teaching experience, but you’ve got masses of life experience.
And the schools around here are always looking. ’
As a retired teacher himself, Fred ought to know better. He was massively overestimating her abilities. No one would offer her a position as a teacher.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ As she spoke, she tasted the remnants of Victor’s terrible instant coffee on her tongue, suspecting she might have been the recipient of the three-spoonful mug. ‘It’s been years since I was in a classroom. The kids these days, they’d eat me alive.’
Fred chuckled. ‘The same way you were ‘eaten alive’ when you managed that youth group in Barnstaple? The one with the teenage anarchists you turned into a debating society?’
‘That was different,’ Ivy protested, though she couldn’t help smiling. The memory of those Wednesday evenings still brought her joy. ‘Besides, I’m too old to start something new.’
‘You’re talking to someone doing an online accountancy course at the age of sixty-two.’ She caught the glint in his eye. ‘Though I still can’t get my head around these video tutorials. Give me a book to study any day. Half the time I’m shouting at the screen to slow down.’
‘And when you’ve finished, do you expect one of the accountancy firms in Barnstaple to snap you up?’
He grinned. ‘I haven’t thought that far ahead. My brain’s just enjoying the challenge for now.’
‘I’m not sure mine’s up to being challenged anymore. For now, home with the puppy is where I feel safest. He’s my little refuge.’
He wagged his head at her. ‘Ivy, that’s a waste of your talents. It’s natural to want to protect yourself, but there’s a difference between protection and isolation. Not everyone’s out to get you.’
It was as close as Fred had come to mentioning her early retirement from the clergy.
He knew what had happened, the whole village probably knew, but everyone was kind enough not to mention it.
She gave a short huff and changed the subject.
‘You should have made that little speech in the meeting. Call themselves Christians! Where was their compassion for the people on that boat? All they were worried about was how it would affect them. Were they or their homes in danger, when those poor souls don’t have anywhere to call home. ’
‘Maybe there weren’t any passengers.’
Ivy pulled a quizzical face. ‘We’ve both seen the news footage. I suspect it was crowded, but I can’t imagine where they could be hiding.’
From halfway up the sloping lane, she turned to survey the village below.
Stone cottages with thatched roofs nestled together like sleeping cats, their windows gleaming in the pale autumn light.
Slate roofs and chimney pots peeked between the thatch, and the bare stems of climbing roses and wisteria clung to the cottages.
Behind drystone walls, terracotta pots were tucked into sheltered corners, some wrapped in fleece against the coming frosts.
A few brave winter pansies and spiky rosemary bushes hinted at the sleeping abundance beneath the earth, waiting for spring’s gentle awakening.
Were there people crouched beside those pots or hidden behind the gnarled apple trees?
‘We’d notice strangers straightaway in a village of Brambleton’s size,’ she said thoughtfully.
They walked on, listening to the soft shush of water meeting the sandy beach below them.
Ivy tried to picture the dinghy abandoned on the shore, gulls wheeling and calling above it.
She stopped and swivelled to look, but the wide stretch of golden sand seemed deserted save for a solitary dog walker and, beyond them, a soft blur of mist where the sea met the sky in an indistinct watercolour wash.
‘If they’ve any sense, they’ll have scarpered,’ she said.
‘Where to?’
‘Barnstaple, maybe?’
Fred stopped at their adjoining gates and gestured towards her back garden. His voice held a note of concern that seemed more directed at her than any hypothetical refugees. ‘Your shed light is on. Did you forget to turn it off?’
Ivy’s brows knitted together. She hesitated, her hand hovering in mid-air above her gate.
With the cost of electricity, she hoped that light hadn’t been on long.
She couldn’t remember going into the shed at all today.
This week even. But if she mentioned that, Fred would insist on investigating and she couldn’t bear the thought of him thinking she needed looking after.
He was already generous with his time. Only last week, he’d saved her a call-out charge for a plumber by mending her leaky bathroom tap.
‘Must have,’ she said lightly, opening the gate and fishing in her coat pocket for her keys.
Instinctively she stroked the key to the vestry; she should return it to Victor, but it was her last link to St Peter’s and her former life, and had become a sort of good luck charm.
‘Want me to check for you?’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly capable of turning off a light.’ She forced a laugh. ‘Besides, you’ve got those thrilling accounting videos waiting.’
‘If you’re sure . . .’
‘Goodnight, Fred. And thanks for the career counselling.’
He lingered at the gate, tidying his recycling containers. ‘I’ll be round tomorrow with my tall ladder to clear out your gutters.’
He was a good neighbour, she thought, calling out her thanks.
As she walked up the path to her front door, she could hear the boxes clattering and the bags rustling, but she could also feel his eyes on her back.
He must be worried too. Her mind scrolled, trying to pin down when she was last in that shed.
Was it Saturday, checking the Christmas decorations?
No, they were in the understairs cupboard.
The week before? Earlier? The light glowed steadily, a small square of yellow in the gathering dark, and she hesitated.
If she asked, Fred would accompany her, but she wasn’t ready to be that kind of retiree yet – the sort that needed rescuing.
She stepped into her cottage and flicked on the lights.
‘Oh, good grief!’ It looked like someone had ransacked her home.
The guilty culprit sat in the middle of the devastation, a crocheted woollen blanket, usually draped over the sofa back, covering him like a shroud.
Jezreel, her ten week old puppy. Ivy’s first dog.
This small creature was her attempt to inject purpose back into her life.
The name had come to her when she’d watched him exploring the cottage, bounding from room to room with unrestrained joy.
In the Bible, the Valley of Jezreel was a place of both promise and struggle, fertile land that had nourished generations while also witnessing historic battles.
Similarly, this tiny companion represented both the potential for new beginnings and the inevitable challenges that would accompany them.
The silence of the cottage used to weigh on her, but now Jezreel’s padding paws and high-pitched encouraging yaps filled it.
The blanket wriggled. A tiny snout poked out from beneath the fabric and a pair of gorgeous, intense black eyes stared up at her.
Unable to contain his energy, the puppy jiggled, the shroud rippled, then a compact body emerged, the oversized paws hinting at future growth.
Jez was no pedigree. Instead, he possessed an irresistible, scrappy, mischievous look.
His rough coat blended white with earthy shades of brown and was marked by a dark smudge on one ear, and a pirate’s patch over the eye beside it. His ears were floppy and oversized. She hoped he’d never grow into them.
Ivy pressed her hands to her temples. As she strode forward to scold the dog, she nearly tripped over an enormous Victorian pot which dominated the hall – every inch a riot of competing patterns in unfortunate shades of mustard and maroon.
Last year’s Christmas present from Fred.
‘I said Victorian poetry ,’ she muttered, straightening the monstrosity. ‘Tennyson, not teapots!’
Ivy picked her way past damp, chewed cushions, gathering up pieces of shredded newspaper.
‘Jezreel!’ she scolded, kneeling to scratch behind his ears.
The puppy responded with soft whimpering noises, delicate and high-pitched; half a sigh, half a whine.
Between each whimper, the pup emitted little fragile huffs of breath.
Instant forgiveness. ‘Oh, you are a naughty little boy, aren’t you? ’
He replied by licking her face. His breath smelled suspiciously of apples. A quick glance confirmed her hunch – the food caddy lay upended on the kitchen floor: teabags, apple cores and a limp lettuce strewn across the tiles like discarded toys.