Twenty-eight
Helen was right: Robby wasn’t a bad man, and he also turned out to be a surprisingly snappy dancer.
He apologized for sending those nasty notes to her and Helen – and admitted he was responsible for the men whistling in the churchyard that night.
He insisted he had only intended to scare them off and would never have done anything to hurt them.
He promised that in January he would launch a full internal investigation into FF’s activities, and involve the Charity Commission.
Ivy had just coaxed the flames back to life when a knock rattled the cottage door.
She frowned, glanced up at the clock on the mantel.
She wasn’t expecting Omar for another hour.
Straightening her skirt, she opened the door.
Omar stood, fidgeting on his feet, as if unsure of his welcome, a parcel wrapped in tissue paper in his hands.
Droplets of rain clung to his dark hair and coat.
‘You’re a bit early.’
‘This is for you,’ he said.
She took the package, feeling its weight, sturdy, but not heavy. ‘Come in,’ she invited. But he stayed where he was, moving his hands within his coat pockets as if jiggling change. She lifted the parcel, her eyes quizzical. ‘You’ve already given me my Christmas present. My Persian lessons.’
‘It’s not from me.’
‘Then who is it from?’
He didn’t answer, but she could only think of two people close enough to Omar to ask him to pass on a gift. ‘Is this from Helen or from Fred?’
‘Fred,’ he replied, still not meeting her gaze.
Why was Fred giving her an early present, and why not do it himself? ‘But Christmas isn’t for another five days.’
Omar hesitated. ‘He ... uh ... wanted you to have it.’
Something in his tone unsettled her. She gestured him inside, shutting out the cold, and carried the parcel to an armchair.
Her fingers traced the careful folds of the wrapping paper.
Fred had always been practical, unceremonious.
She glanced at last year’s hideous vase.
That had arrived in a large cardboard box.
‘Too big to wrap. It would only be a waste of paper,’ Fred had explained.
But this gift was wrapped with care, in gold tissue paper with pictures of red breasted robins stencilled across it and tied with a dark green silky ribbon.
She swallowed and tugged at the ribbon. The paper fell away to reveal a book – a beautiful, leather-bound edition ofpoetry.
She gasped. It was A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse , the volume by Amy Levy that she had so admired in Prosecco the one which had cost over ￡100.
Ivy’s eyes fell on a garish purple leather bookmark anchored halfway through the volume. Goosebumps slid across the back of her neck. She ran her fingers over the embossed cover, the gold lettering glinting in the sunlight, then opened it and read the marked poem.
“A Prayer”
Since that I may not have
Love on this side the grave,
Let me imagine Love . . .
Yet grant me this, to find
The sweetness in my mind
Which I must still forego;
Great God which art above,
Grant me to image Love, -
The bliss without the woe.
She could barely breathe past the sudden rush of emotion.
Fred had given herthis, a book of Victorian love poetry, tender and intimate. The kind of gift that said far more than he dared say aloud. He had listened to her, or maybe Omar had explained – poetry, not pottery.
She gulped, looking up at Omar, who was watching her carefully, those dark eyes seeming almost to look inside her.
‘Why did he send this with you?’ she asked, her voice quieter than she intended.
Omar sighed. ‘He doesn’t know you have it. He told me to give it to you on Christmas morning.’
A chill ran through her, despite the warmth of the cottage. ‘On Christmas Day? But he’s coming for lunch. Why not give it to me himself?’
Omar exhaled sharply, like he’d been bracing himself for this moment. ‘Because he won’t be here.’
Ivy’s throat constricted. ‘Why not? What do you mean?’
‘He’s leaving.’ Omar met her eyes, his voice gentle but firm.
‘Now that he’s solved my problem, he says he must go.
He said that, as you are taking me shopping this morning, he couldn’t leave the Nativity dress rehearsal just to Victor.
’ A tiny smile crossed Omar’s face, replaced by a serious expression. ‘But afterwards ... he’s going.’
She gasped. ‘Leaving Brambleton?’
Omar gave a slow, reluctant nod. ‘He didn’t want to tell you. It’s too painful for him to live next door to you. He thinks you don’t love him. That you never could.’
A thousand thoughts crashed through her mind, and they were all about Fred.
The mistletoe. The kiss. Her fear. Hersilence.
She had pushed him away, walled herself off because she didn’t know how to let love in, not in the way Fred needed.
She’d come close, the night Fred had spirited Omar away, then hidden her love, convinced he didn’t feel the same way.
And now Fred was going because he thought Ivy didn’t care.
But she did care.God help her, she did.
Tears blurred her vision.
Omar’s voice softened. ‘You love him too, don’t you?’
She gripped the book tightly, fingers pressing into the leather.
Yes. She loved Fred. It wasn’t the sort of love she had known for over thirty years – devotion to her faith, to those she cared for – but something new, terrifying, wonderful. A love she had spent so longdenying herselfbecause she’d thought it was too late. ‘What would Rumi say about this?’
‘I thought you’d ask me that,’ he said smiling. ‘He would tell you not to run away from the pain. Face it. The cure for the pain is in the pain.’
Her gaze snapped to the clock. ‘When did the rehearsal start?’
‘Thirty minutes ago.’
Damn, she thought, it would be over by now. Then she smiled. It might not be. With Victor in charge, it might not even have started. Omar’s lips curved into a knowing smile. ‘If you leave now, you might still catch him. I’ll look after Jez.’
Ivy bolted.
She grabbed her coat, yanking it on as she wrenched open the door. Cold air blasted against her face, but she barely felt it. Somewhere down that road, Fred was preparing to leave her life forever.
She wouldn’t let him go. Not now. Not when she finally understood. Not when she finally had the words.
Ivy ran harder than she had in years, her shoes slipping on the icy pavement as she hurtled through Brambleton.
The village stretched out before her, rooftops dusted in white.
Her lungs burned, her breath puffed in frantic clouds of mist, but she didn’t stop.
The church was just ahead, its stone spire piercing the pale winter sky.
She shoved open the heavy wooden door and stumbled inside,panting like Jez after chasing his tail for too long.
The bright lights hit her first, followed by a curiosity at the number of people present – parents, volunteers, and a handful of tourists who had wandered in – and finally the chaos.
She spotted Fred fussing with the beard of a wise man in the corner, then Helen crouched down remonstrating with a toddler who seemed adamant that their headdress was supposed to be used as a comforter.
Victor stood beside the pulpit,wild-eyed, flapping his arms like a startled goose, while a group of shepherds in tea-towel headpieces bashed each other with cardboard crooks.
‘We are rehearsing,’ Victor declared, his voice rumbling round the church, ‘a sacredChristmas pageant, not a bar room brawl!’
One of the wise men yawned. A small girl in the front row raised her hand. ‘My tinsel’s itchy.’
Victor groaned and rubbed his temples. ‘Yes, well, sacrifice is a great part of faith, my child.’
Ivy,still catching her breath, was surprised to hear herself laugh.
Trust Victor to try to recreate the full Nativity play, when Ivy – knowing how jittery the family chefs would be about turkey timings – had always kept it to just the arrival of the Three Wise Men.
Even assuming the children didn’t dawdle, that would add twenty minutes to the Christmas Day service and have every family twitchy before Victor even reached his sermon.
She knew she shouldn’t, butafter everything she’d been through recently, she understood that this was who she was meant to be. Time to fix this. She clapped her hands commandingly. ‘Everyone, take your places!’
The children froze. Victor turned, his face lighting up. ‘Ah, Ivy, wonderful, you can—’
‘I’ll handle it, Vicar.’
His shoulders relaxed. A glimpse of something – gratitude?
Escape? Relief? – crossed his features before settling into a broad smile.
Victor backed away with surprising eagerness for someone who’d appeared so concerned just moments before.
‘Yes, well, I have ... probably shouldn’t have started without you,’ he murmured, already halfway to the vestry door.
‘They’re in capable hands with you, Ivy. ’
Within minutes, she had the shepherds herded into line, and the wise men walking likethey actually had somewhere to be. Even Baby Jesus was back in the manger, albeit face-down, but progress was progress.
It was only when everything was running smoothly – the readings were practised, and Victor was tapping his agenda – that she remembered why she was here. Fred.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
‘Any other business?’ asked Victor, gazing around.
Ivy swallowed hard andturned to face the audience, all seemingly watching her expectantly. And there, at the back,stood Fred. Coat on. Bag at his feet.Ready to leave.
No.
She could feel Fredstaring, could sense his wariness, his confusion.
‘I—’ She faltered, thensquared her shoulders and looked directly at Fred.
She had come this far. She couldn’t lose her nerve now, even though everyone was watching.
Taking a deep breath, Ivy lifted her chin, the weight of all the unspoken words pressing down on her.
The church was still. Every eye was on her, but Fred’s gaze held hers, frozen, wary, confused, and barely holding together.
‘I do have some other business, actually.’ She paused.
‘I’ve been silent for too long,’ she began, her voice trembling just enough to betray her carefully constructed composure.
‘Too afraid of what might happen if I let out the truth. Afraid of what people would say, what they would think. Afraid of what I might lose ... and of who I might lose.’ Her hands clenched tightly at her sides.
‘But standing here, now, I realize that silence is its own kind of loss. A loss I can no longer bear.’
She swallowed hard, the lump in her throat making the next words difficult.
‘Fred, you came into my life when I wasn’t looking, when I thought all the doors were closed.
You showed me kindness when I was at my weakest. You taught me what it means to hope again.
And somewhere between all the fear and the struggle, I found myself falling for you. ’
She stopped, then looked directly at him, tears shining in her eyes. ‘I love you, Fred.’ She paused. ‘But I was too scared to say so.’
There was a moment of silence. Then Mabel and Margaret started clapping, and soon the church was reverberating to the sound, but among it all stood Fred, fiddling with his earphone, unresponsive. ‘Sorry, what did you say, Ivy?’
Ivy blushed, but she was smiling. ‘Um ... I said, Iloveyou.’
Fred frowned. ‘Olive oil?’
A murmur of confusion rippled through the church. Then, from somewhere near the back, someone called,‘Fred, put your hearing aids in!’
Laughterexplodedaround the room. Fred turned bright red and fumbled with his ears. ‘They are in!’
‘Well, turn them on,’ cried Margaret.
Ivy let out a breathless, half-hysterical laugh.This was ridiculous. She tried again, stepping closer, her voicegentler this time. ‘I love you, Fred Thompson. And I loved my book of Victorian poetry.’
And this time, heheard her. Andhe smiled.