Page 89 of A Perfect Devon Christmas
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 lifeforever.
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 everyfamily 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 deepbreath, 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 ofwhoI 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!’
