Keeping a Christmas Promise by Jo Thomas

Author:Jo Thomas [Thomas, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473596856
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2022-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

19

After we’ve eaten, Pétur pulls out a notebook and a pencil from his top pocket. I watch him as he makes a couple of sketches while I clean the pan in the snow and wash our mugs.

I pack everything into the rucksack and he puts his notebook back into his top pocket. Then we remount the horses and ride back to the farm in the cold night air. I’ve never known cold like it. But inside I’m glowing, from the warm-water swim, the comforting fish stew and the smiley faces on boiled eggs cooked in the hot spring.

Our head torches light the path in front of us, the snow still falling. We take our time, letting the horses find their footing down from the mountain and their way across the snowy tundra to the farmhouse. Pétur hands me liquorice in a packet – ‘Call it dessert!’

‘Look!’ He points. ‘An Arctic fox.’ It darts out, spooking the horses and me, its eyes flashing yellow in our torchlight, but quickly goes on its way and we settle again into a steady rhythm. It’s freezing cold, but it’s magical too.

My skin is still tingling from the hot spring and the cold trek as we reach the farmhouse. We remove the horses’ tack and bed them into the warm barn for the night.

‘How did you enjoy your day?’ he asks.

‘It was fabulous,’ I say, carrying Carrie’s saddle to the tack room and handing it to him to put up on the rack.

‘Thank you for your company,’ he says, holding the saddle between us.

My heart suddenly races and my cheeks flush. He’s standing close to me. I can smell the leather of the saddles and the sweetness of hay. Right now, I want him to put his lips on mine. The anticipation is actually aching in me. But, with huge effort, I pull myself away, leaving him to put the saddle on the rack.

He pats his top pocket. ‘I’m just going to my workshop to drop this off,’ he says.

‘What is it?’

‘My notebook. I carry it with me in case I want to jot anything down,’ he says. ‘Want to come with me?’

Just a little longer in his company, I think.

Having fed Jón, and locked the shed, we walk through the snowy dark night to the workshop where he finds candles and lights them. He pulls the battered notebook from his pocket and puts it down on his work bench, lit with his head torch.

‘So this is where the ideas begin to take shape?’ I ask, looking around.

He nods and opens the notebook. ‘It’s about the sights I see, the way this place makes me feel,’ he says, picking up a bangle he’s clearly working on. ‘This place has always inspired us as a family. My grandfather used to paint it.’ He turns to a picture on the wall behind him of the waterfall by the schoolhouse.

‘Your grandfather did that?’

‘Yes, and nothing much has changed around here since.’

I look down at his notebook, the pencil sketches there, and run my hand over them, the things he’s seen and noted down, snapshots of life.

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