Page 60 of A Perfect Devon Christmas
She glanced at him. ‘You ... cook Christmas dinner?’ The idea of handing over her kitchen to someone else at Christmas unsettled her for a moment, but the memories of his delicious cooking, the fragrances, the taste of the contrasting spices, the way the meat melted at the nudge of a fork won her over. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘If you’d like to.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Back home, we cooked for feasts. I’ll make something good. Not turkey. Too dry. Maybe lamb. Proper spice, slow-cooked.’ His eyes flicked to hers. ‘Would you let me?’
She tilted her head, considering. Two months ago, he had just been a stranger needing shelter. Now, they sat here, in the warmth of a fire, speaking like family.
‘I’d like that,’ she said.
He nodded, pleased, then threw another pile of clippings on the fire. The flames flared up, sparks shot into the night. A gust of wind sent embers swirling and the smell of burning thickenedin the air. He prodded the fire with a long stick, careful, methodical. It was how he did everything.
She studied his face, the way the firelight softened the lines of it. ‘You’ll be here, won’t you? On Christmas Day?’
He met her gaze. ‘Where else would I go?’
She smiled, looking back at the fire. The flames hissed, settling. The cold pressed in at their backs, but here, by the fire, they were warm.
Ivy made herself some scrambled eggs and prepared for an early night. She had locked up and was heading upstairs when she remembered it was recycling day in the morning. She dragged the boxes out from under the stairs and carted them to the front door. Outside, the December evening seemed to wrap around the village like a thick blanket, muffling sounds and softening edges. She listened to the distant surge of the sea, its rhythm as familiar to Ivy as her own heartbeat.
She hefted the recycling box onto the low wall, glass bottles clinking softly. Ivy turned to retrace her steps and paused, arrested by movement next door – Helen’s familiar figure,silhouetted briefly in the glow of Fred’s porch light before disappearing inside his cottage. Again. The door rattled shut, butto Ivy, it was the sound of ice splitting beneath her feet: thin, cracking, inevitable.The peaceful years of belonging as Brambleton’s vicar stretched behind her like a well-worn path she had navigated alone, and in front of her the uncharted territory of retirement. She’d been walking that solo too, until recently. Until Fred’s smile started feeling like sunshine breaking through a cloudy day.
She stood motionless, one hand still on a recycling box.
‘Oh,’ she whispered, the word forming a small cloud in the frosty air.
Her hands trembled as she adjusted her scarf, her skinsuddenly too warm despite the cold. How long had she felt this way about Fred? The realization was dizzying, like stepping onto ground that wasn’t quite solid. Over thirty years of comfortable, carefully maintained independence, and now this – this adolescent flutter in her stomach, this ache in her heart.
She muttered her favourite lines of poetry:
Since that I may not have
Love on this side the grave,
Let me image Love . . .
She tasted metal and realized she was biting her lip. What did one even do with these feelings at her age? The last time she’d felt this way, Margaret Thatcher had still been in Number 10.
It had been a day in late September, and unseasonably warm. Ivy recalled the heat shimmering over the church grounds and the delicate sweet scent of honeysuckle wafting peacefully over her. She had been waiting on the wooden bench, her cotton dress clinging slightly to the small of her back. She smoothed the fabric with restlessfingers. James had sounded strange on the phone, his usually confident voice hesitant. But after three years together, she thought she knew what was coming.
The soft scuff of footsteps on the sun-baked path made her look up. There he was, tall and earnest in his light summer shirt, the one she’d helped him pick out for his seminary interviews. His dark hair gleamed in the sunlight, and her heart squeezed with familiar affection. A bell tolled – three o’clock. Right on time, as always. That was James, dependable as sunset. The man who would make a wonderful vicar, a wonderful husband. And she would be the perfect vicar’s wife, just as she’d been meticulously preparing to be. Her heart skidded.
‘I brought iced coffee,’ she said, holding out his favourite iced mocha, a mix of cold coffee and chocolate syrup. Back then, before baristas started experimenting with fancy flavours, it hadbeen a sophisticated option.
Their fingers brushed as he took it. She noticed his hands were damp with perspiration and hid a smile. He was nervous. It was touching and she loved him for it, but he did not need to be.
His first words should have been a warning sign. They were too formal. ‘Ivy, thanks for seeing me.’ He sat beside her, but not as close as usual. ‘I’ve been praying. A lot.’
She smiled, pressing her cup against her neck for relief from the heat.
‘God has been speaking to me.’ He stared into his untouched coffee. ‘Last week, I was in the cathedral praying for guidance.’
Ivy pictured the stunning medieval stonework and beautiful stained glass of Bristol Cathedral. She would miss it once James completed his theology studies at Clifton College. But they would go where they could help. God would guide them to their destination. ‘I was sitting there, wrestling with everything. Colin was with me,’ he added.
Ivy’s thoughts briefly turned to the wonderful, supportive Colin, James’s tutor, who she had come to see as a friend and mentor to them both, helping her carefully nudge James toward his calling, practise sermons and subtly plan their future parish together.
‘And then the sun came through the stained glass,’ James continued, ‘and the light ...’ His voice caught and he gulped. ‘The light fell right across the altar. Red and gold, like fire. And I knew.’
Ivy’s smile froze. It was as if the milk in her iced coffee had turned sour on her tongue. His tone didn’t match the joyof an impending proposal.
‘I’ve been fighting it for months,’ he continued. ‘But I can’t anymore. Colin helped me to see it clearly. The Catholic Church is where I belong. The true apostolic succession, the real presence in the Eucharist ...’ He looked at her finally, his eyesbright with tears and fervour. ‘I’m converting, Ivy. I’m going to train for the Catholic priesthood.’
