Eighteen #2
The bell’s cheerful sound announced another arrival, but Fred and Helen remained absorbed in their conversation.
Helen’s musical laugh rang out at something Fred said, his face alight with enthusiasm.
As Ivy approached their table, the conversation stopped abruptly, shifting gears with suspicious smoothness.
‘Ivy,’ said Helen brightly, straightening and moving her chair slightly away from Fred, ‘I was hoping to catch you. I managed to speak to the other two guys who worked at FF.’
Ivy smiled at Helen, yet it was Omar, staring out at the winter evening, who held her attention. He looked so alone.
‘All three stories match,’ Helen continued, her voice low. ‘They approached management with concerns about financial irregularities. Within days, they found themselves frozen out of meetings, within weeks they all faced accusations that forced them to leave.’
‘The same manager?’ asked Ivy.
‘Good question. No. Two of them spoke to the local managing director, but Hazim, the one who copied the document we looked at this afternoon, he spoke to the man in charge of accounts.’
Ivy’s coffee scalded her tongue. Helen’s words triggered a memory, sharp as breaking glass. She recalled it as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday, not two years ago.
She had been standing outside the vestry door, her hand frozen mid-knock.
Ivy could hear voices inside, which she identified one by one.
She knew them all well. Both the churchwardens and the treasurer, all people she trusted, people she counted as friends.
They were discussing parish finances. Ivy stood eavesdropping on a meeting she, as vicar, should have chaired, but didn’t even know was scheduled.
She dropped her hand to the doorhandle, pasting on a smile and entering, hoping she was mistaken, that someone would pass her an agenda and ask her why she was late. But that didn’t happen.
In front of her, all three men shuffled in their chairs as if they’d been caught sampling the Communion wine, and her confidence, usually as solid as her faith, faltered. Part of her didn’t want to know who had suggested she not be invited.
Later, there would be apologetic murmurs about ‘informal chats’ and ‘preliminary discussions’, but the message was clear.
The Church was closing ranks, excluding a woman who dared to challenge traditional power structures.
Within months, she would feel so alone and worthless she would resign, understanding finally how power protected itself.
The café’s Christmas music flooded back into her awareness: ‘Silent Night’.
Oh, if only she had kept quiet about those false expense claims, then it would be her preparing for the Christingle service.
But she knew that silence would have eaten away at her, making every carol ring hollow, every prayer feel like a lie.
Helen was still talking, suggesting ways they could investigate further, but Ivy wasn’t listening.
She was watching Omar. His aimless stroll around the books mirrored her own lack of purpose, yet, unlike her, his position was precarious.
‘Whoever is behind this, these are powerful people,’ said Fred firmly.
Helen batted his concern away with a tut. ‘Yes, who need to be unmasked and stopped ... It can’t just be Kabul. There must be someone in London who knows what is going on out there.’
‘Robby?’ suggested Ivy, feeling fear coat her tongue.
‘No,’ said Helen firmly. ‘He’s not a wicked man.’
‘Seriously? He’s not been very nice has he, hounding Omar,’ said Ivy.
She thought Robby was ruthless and suspected that man knew exactly why Omar couldn’t return to Kabul, but explaining her suspicions would mean breaking her promise to Omar, and she wouldn’t do that.
Ivy’s coffee grew cold as she weighed the choice before her.
An institution had broken her once, forced her to retreat.
But she wasn’t that same person anymore, and Omar didn’t have the luxury of walking away like she had done.
He’d tried, but they wouldn’t set him free.
She caught her reflection in the window, distorted by the fake snow: older, yes, but perhaps wiser. Perhaps stronger.
In the morning, Ivy said her prayers and decided to call on Omar before she went to church.
Fred let her in, wearing a tie patterned with Christmas baubles.
He led her through to his kitchen, where the winter morning light filtered weakly through the window, illuminating the steam rising from two forgotten mugs of tea on the counter.
‘Tea?’ he offered, but she hardly heard him.
A duffel bag lay on the table, beside it a pile of folded laundry.
Did this explain why Omar had been so melancholy on yesterday’s walk?
In the café Fred had mentioned Omar talking about leaving Brambleton, but it hadn’t occurred to her he meant this soon.
The radiator pinged, making Ivy jump. She raked through her discussion with Omar on yesterday’s walk, searching for anything she’d said which might have caused him to think he should go.
Footsteps thumped on the stairs, then Omar was standing in front of her, rolling a worn sweatshirt with mechanical precision. His voice was flat. ‘I know what you’re going to say, that you are making progress, but you’re not. I already knew from Farid about the others who left.’
‘Tell me you aren’t going,’ she said, trying but failing to stop her voice sounding desperate. Her fingers were itching to tip up that duffel bag and repack it properly. Omar was putting in a pair of shoes on top of the sweatshirt.
Fred’s voice intruded on her thoughts. ‘Ivy, stop trying to mother him. He’s old enough to make his own decisions.’
The words stung more than they should have. Ivy watched Omar packing methodically, her throat tight. A week ago, she might have resorted to begging him to stay. Now, she held her ground, even as doubt tugged at her.
‘You don’t have to go,’ she said. ‘Not like this. Wecansort it.
‘Sort what?’ Omar said, his hands on a half-folded shirt.
‘A system that’s designed to crush people like me.
Where accusations are enough to destroy lives?
’ His fingers clenched on the fabric. As my father always said, “He who has a strong back is in the right.” The big guy always wins, Ivy. Always.’
The kettle clicked off, steam hissing, but no one moved. Ivy stood taller as she stepped closer to Omar, her voice composed. ‘Not all institutions are corrupt,’ she insisted, hearing the echo of her vicar’s voice. ‘There are good people in the system, people who want justice.’
‘Justice?’ Omar’s laugh was bitter, like the last slick of coffee at the bottom of a cup. ‘Your justice system doesn’t protect innocent people any more than mine. It protects power ... they’re all part of the same corrupt machine.’
Fred cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps we should—’
‘No,’ Ivy cut him off, frowning at his measured tone. He was standing there, so maddeningly reasonable, doing nothing to stop everything fall apart. ‘Omar, please. At least stay through Christmas. After all, where will you go?’
Omar’s shoulders sagged. Ivy held her breath, hearing the distant sound of the bells tolling, calling the faithful to the Sunday service. For the first time in her life, she might be late for church, but God would understand.
‘Christmas,’ Omar repeated softly, his hands unclenching from the shirt. ‘All right then. Until Christmas.’
The tension bled from Ivy’s shoulders. She stayed quiet, unmoving, as Omar slowly began unpacking his bag, each movement deliberate, like he was laying something to rest.
A knock at the door made them all start. Fred moved to answer it, and hearing Helen’s voice in the hallway, bright and early-morning cheerful, Ivy squeezed her eyes shut. What was Helen doing here so early? The sound of easy laughter drifted in from the hall.
‘Do you think I could borrow your accounting brain for a bit?’ Helen asked.
Fred laughed softly, sounding self-conscious. ‘Well ... I don’t want to get too involved, but I don’t mind helping this once. Did you bring what you want me to look at with you?’
‘I did. It’s some of the copy documents Hazim took.’
Ivy felt a strange flutter in her chest; a spark of awareness of how Fred agreed to help Helen but wouldn’t get involved when Ivy asked.
And yet ... did it really matter? As long as he was helping, even if it wasn’t for her, that was enough.
She swallowed down the unpleasant taste at the back of her throat; she must not resent their rapport.
Ivy turned to leave, almost knocking Omar’s duffle bag off the table, and put out a hand to steady it.
‘If I don’t go now, I’ll be late for the service,’ she said, not looking at Fred or waiting for Helen to enter the kitchen.
Trying to comfort herself, she recited a few lines from one of her favourite Amy Levy poems, the words as soothing as a prayer:
Since that I may not have
Love on this side the grave,
Let me image Love.
Her tongue caught on the word “image” in the final line; when she’d first read the poem, she had assumed it was a misprint for “imagine.” But now, Ivy knew better.
In Victorian English “to image” was a recognized verb meaning “to form a mental image of.” It carried a slightly different nuance from “imagine” – closer toenvision vividlyrather than simplysuppose or fancy.
Levy was asking God not just for the power to imagine love in an abstract way, but tohold a mental picture of it – “the bliss without the woe.”
Omar’s eyes met hers as he said, ‘Rumi teaches us that love is not just a feeling, but a way of being, a bridge between two hearts.’
Ivy swallowed. She hadn’t meant to quote Levy aloud. ‘I have divine love.’
‘But that doesn’t mean you can’t have earthly love. Rumi sees it as a pathway to understanding divine love, not as an opposing force.’
‘For some people maybe,’ she said.
Sadly, not for me.