As her heart rate subsided, Ivy felt a familiar heat in her chest that had once preceded every bold decision she’d taken. For a fleeting moment she stood taller, shoulders squared, before doubt crept back in like an old friend. She ran a hand through her hair, tucked a loose strand behind her ear and dropped her gaze to the worn floor tiles.
‘Well,’ Margaret said, studying Ivy with narrowed eyes, ‘that was certainly ... illuminating.’ She exchanged a meaningfulglance with Mabel, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
‘I ... I couldn’t let you talk about Omar that way,’ Ivy murmured, her momentary confidence already fading like the morning mist.
At a corner table, old Mrs Winters gathered her things. She walked to the counter, patted Ivy’s arm and whispered, ‘It’s good to have you back in the village, dear,’ before shuffling away, leaving Ivy bewildered. Back? She’d never left – at least, not in any way that mattered.
Ivy cleared Mrs Winters’ table, carrying the dirty crockery to the counter, where a man, still in his grubby green fishing oilskins, stood, a book in his hands. When he spoke, his accent was so strong, Ivy doubted anyone not brought up in North Devon would understand him. ‘This book, it’s for t’missus,’ he said waving his purchase at her.
Ivy rang the book up, listening to the man speak. ‘I heard what you said, Margaret, but there’s no refugeeees,’ he said, elongating the word, ‘not in Brambleton. That dinghy they found. The painter broke loose from some fancy yacht down at Appledore. Probably belongs to one of those London types who can’t tie a proper knot.’
The café fell so quiet that Ivy could hear the wind slapping against the windows.
‘Well, don’t we all feel foolish?’ someone muttered. Ivy recognized him as one of the vigilantes who had insisted on checking her shed. She felt heat creep up her neck and ran a hand furtively through her hair. No one had been on that boat. She, like the rest of Brambleton, had seen a bedraggled man in worn boots and filled in the blanks. She glanced outside toward the water, the sea flat and bright now in the morning sun. She felt a prickle of guilt. Although relieved Omar was telling the truth, she had a new mystery to solve. Omar had said he was from Afghanistan, so if he wasn’t on that dinghy, howhadhearrived in Brambleton, and why had he chosen the remote village in North Devon?
Eight
On the second Saturday in November, the village hall buzzed with voices and the rustle of greenery being sorted. Mounds of foliage were heaped onto trestle tables: prickly bunches of dark green holly next to smaller piles of a variegated variety, the pale ivory contrasting with slashes of dark green. The snap of pruning shears punctuated cheerful chatter as volunteers trimmed bunches of flowering ivy and branches of fir, the space infused with the smell of fresh pine and spiced apple.
Steam curled from cups of mulled juice – Victor’s compromise. ‘It’s not very culturally sensitive to serve alcohol,’ he had said when Margaret suggested a warming tot of whisky. ‘It excludes alcoholics, abstainers, people of other faiths.’ Ivy thought it was a shame. She saw the volunteers’ disappointment. In her day, there had been mulled wine and homemade mince pies.
At five past twelve, when there was still no sign of Victor, they decided to start without him. Ivy stood beside Omar, watching his hands as he worked, noting how deftly he wove the branches despite his scowling expression. She’d practically dragged him from Fred’s house that morning, ignoring his protests about having ‘real work’ to do in her garden. She wanted the villagers to get to know him a little better. It seemed important that Brambleton’s ‘doers’ saw him being public spirited; no one other than her and Fred knew of his work in the churchyard.
Shortly before half past twelve, a red-faced Victor finally burstthrough the door. Margaret and Mabel exchanged knowing looks.
‘Car trouble again, Victor?’ Margaret called out, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Ivy stifled a smile – the vicarage was a five minute walk from the village hall. ‘Perhaps Father Christmas might bring you an alarm clock.’
‘Or teach him how to set one,’ muttered Margaret.
Victor huffed as he unwound his scarf. ‘Actually, I was delayed because Mrs Kingdon’s cat got stuck in my garden shed. Took ages to coax the thing out.’
‘Funny how animals always seem to need rescuing precisely when meetings start,’ Mabel whispered loudly to Margaret. ‘Remember last month? It was a hedgehog in his recycling bin.’
‘Now then, ladies,’ Victor began, his voice floating down from somewhere near the ceiling, ‘I was thinking we might try something more eco-friendly for the wreaths this year.’ He ducked, forcing his knees to practically bend at right angles as he surveyed the greenery.
‘Perhaps recycled newspaper bows? Or cardboard—’
‘Cardboard!’ A sharpclickechoed through the air as Margaret’s scissors snapped shut. ‘Young man, I’ve been making wreaths since before you were a twinkle in your father’s cassock.’
The Reverend’s gangly frame folded itself into a nearby chair. He reached for a sprig of holly, only to have Margaret snatch it away.
‘Tradition, Vicar,’ she declared, popping a dusty ribbon between her teeth to measure it, ‘is the life blood of Brambleton.’ She mumbled round the satin.
Victor’s elongated shadow fell across their work as he stood.
‘But surely,’ he ventured, his head now brushing the light fixture, ‘sustainability is rather ... Christian?’
Margaret rolled her eyes so dramatically they nearly disappeared into her hairline. Then Mabel delivered her pithyretort. ‘So is a pine wreath.’
Victor positioned himself next to Helen and picked up a wire frame and a pine branch.
‘No, like this,’ Helen’s voice, laden with teacherly authority, rang out across the hall as she demonstrated a wreath-binding technique to a frustrated Victor. ‘You’re letting it all go loose at the bottom and it will fall apart. You need tension.’
Ivy noticed how Omar’s shoulders tightened each time Helen spoke, how he moved further down the trestle table, away from her. She wondered if he found her attractive; she was only a few years older than him, and very pretty. ‘I think it’s sweet,’ she teased gently, keeping her voice low, ‘the way you blush whenever Helen speaks.’
The pine branch in Omar’s hands snapped with a sharp crack, releasing the resiny scent of fresh sap.
‘I do not blush,’ he muttered, reaching for a sprig of holy.
