Christmas at the Farmhouse - Rebecca Boxall Page 0,26

Sundays.

***

Over the weeks that followed I discovered that, with his guard dropped, Robin was a true joy to be with: clever, but not snooty, or arrogant. He was dreamy and poetic and he loved to hold my hand. Our get-togethers progressed from the library and the coffee house to the pictures, where we kissed passionately on the back row. It was funny, because neither of us had any experience – and I’d certainly been put off by Mr Jenners’ creepy pawing – but it soon became clear to us both that our relationship was anything but platonic. We were passionate about one another – and with that came a physical longing to connect.

One Saturday afternoon at the end of February, when my parents thought I was at Penny’s farm, we went down to the river. It was one of those days – a rare glimpse of spring in the middle of winter – and the sun glinted off the water so that I had to shield my eyes from the brilliance.

‘When I was a kid we used to visit Silverhurst sometimes at weekends. We’d come for picnics along here and I’d test myself at this part of the river,’ Robin said to me as the path dipped down, heading deep into the countryside. He’d picked up a stick and was absent-mindedly whacking at the long grass as we walked. ‘To see if I could jump from one side to the other.’

I squinted at the river, trying to work out how hard it would be. ‘It’s not that wide,’ I told him and he laughed, abandoning his stick to take hold of my hand.

‘You try then,’ he dared me.

‘Alright,’ I agreed, without hesitating. I was always quite good at long jump on Sports Day. I didn’t hang about. I let go of his hand and went to the edge of the bank, paced a few steps back, and then took a running jump.

Of course, it turned out to be wider than it looked. I landed about halfway across, with a noisy splash and an exhilarated squeal.

‘Can you swim?’ Robin shouted, shrugging off his jacket, clearly intending to rescue me.

‘Don’t you jump in too!’ I shouted, laughing. ‘No point both of us dying of hypothermia!’

‘Here!’ he said, crouching on the side of the bank and reaching out a hand. He was smiling now, no longer concerned. I swam to him and he helped me out. I was freezing, my teeth chattering.

‘You can’t stay in those wet clothes,’ Robin said to me. ‘Here, take those things off and then put my shirt on. It ought to be quite long on you…’ He stripped off his jumper, then the shirt, handing it to me together with his jacket. He was wearing a vest but I could see blond hairs poking out the top and they made my stomach flip like the time I’d spotted the hairs on the back of his wrist. I liked the look of his arms, too. Nicely shaped: strong-looking.

‘You’d better turn around then,’ I said, smiling through my teeth chattering, and he did. I got myself out of my soaked dress and cardigan. ‘I’m going to have to creep in the back and race up to my room before my parents see me,’ I said, panicking at the thought of turning up wearing nothing but men’s clothes. But I really didn’t have much alternative. I was about to put the shirt on over my damp brassiere and petticoat when I stole a glance at Robin and saw him turn his head to look at me.

‘Sorry!’ he said. His cheeks turned crimson and he didn’t look again. But once I was dressed I went right over to him and turned him back to face me, kissing him intently, my panic about my parents completely forgotten in the moment.

Looking back, we should probably have stopped at the kissing, but we didn’t, because, as fate would have it, Mr Jenners went away for a week in the middle of March to visit his sick mother and, one Saturday afternoon, Robin invited me to his house. There, with nobody to think about but each other, and with a mutual abandonment of all propriety, we discovered that it was only natural, after all, for the kissing to lead to other things.

Chapter Fourteen

Friday 13th December 2019

Jo – Baking

Friday heralded one of the most special days in the Danish calendar: the feast of St Lucia. The day always marks the start of my festive Danish baking, everything