Page 60 of Big Nick Energy
‘Well, if I get my teeth into something, I believe in doing things properly,’ he says. I swallow hard as he says this, to think about his teeth, in something. I really do not like how this man is really perverting my thoughts on Santa. It’s not right at all especially as I’m with another person now; it’s inappropriate.Stop it, Kay. You’re also in a school. ‘And it just feels like a nice gesture to be able to get these letters back to the right people… before Christmas.’
‘Like a gift?’
‘Exactly.’
I run my fingers along the spines of some of the books and pick one out to read the blurb. I remember the time I spent in my school library, tucked away in a corner, deep in stories.
‘So do you only write children’s fiction then?’ he asks, his attention away from his phone as his eyes follow me around the room.
‘Oh yes, nothing that these kids would be interested in, I’m afraid.’
‘And was it something you always wanted to do?’ he asks.
‘Ever since I was little, I was a writer. I used to fill diaries and write articles, stories. The curse of being an only child when you have to create your own entertainment,’ I say. ‘When I was about fifteen, I got glandular fever for three months and I remember being at home, sat at my nana’s kitchen table and I wrote a whole series of short stories… a table I still write off to be honest.’
He smiles as I talk about it. ‘What were the stories about?’
‘A boy I fancied called Paddy Edwards, but that’s not the point.’ He laughs. ‘He was very dreamy. He had frosted tips and a BMX.’
‘I’m sure… You’re strange.’ I pause when he says that. I thought we had mildly warmed to each other. He realises his gaffe. ‘What I mean is that you don’t broadcast it, you don’t announce it to a room. You should tell people you’re an author. That’s amazing.’
So, strange inthatway. I smile back but say nothing. People usually assume my writing is a vanity project or a glorified hobby. I see it as doing something I’ve always dreamed of doing, even if people measure my success very differently.
‘And you? You’ve told me you do a touch of carpentry but have you ever thought about turning it into something more?’
‘Well, I design furniture,’ he says quietly. ‘It’s what I did at university.’
‘So basically, your life is about wood.’ That was a joke, I am not flirting, that is stating the facts. He, however, remains unimpressed by my humour and shakes his head. ‘Well, I’d love to see some of your pieces.’
‘You already have. My office is full of them. The rocking chair in the corner of my room.’
My eyes are wide. ‘You made that?’
‘I did.’
‘How?’
‘With my hands and some tools,’ he explains bluntly.
‘And your wood,’ I say.
‘It’s not my wood. It’s general wood.’ He looks at me, trying to gauge if I’m deliberately being an idiot, but in truth, I wouldn’t know where to start in making a rocking chair.
‘That you find in the forest?’
He narrows his eyes at me. ‘Yeah. I have a family of beavers. They live with me, we go find a tree and they just fell it for me and we bring it back to my workshop.’
I try and hold in my glee that he made a joke. ‘You see, now I think you’re lying to me.’
‘Don’t be mean about my beavers.’
I try to hold in my giggle at the word beaver. ‘What are their names?’
‘Bradley, Belinda, Barney and B…’
‘Betsy. And just like that, you’ve written my new book for me,’ I say. Was that a laugh? Damn him. Where was this banter before? This warmth, this humour that’s started to peek through. Because before he was a little moody, serious. I knew him as that rude man on the phone who still used the word ‘wazzock’. But this, these stolen smiles and looks, are confusing because there’s another Nick and these two don’t know about each other and I don’t want this to become a situation where I have to readjust my moral code. I’m saying nothing. It’s safer that way. Actually, because there are two of them and they’re both called Nick, they effectively cancel each other out. My dodgy reasoning is interrupted by the door opening.
‘Hi! I was just popping my head in to say… hold up, why are you here?’ At the door of the library stands a woman in a Christmas jumper and Converse, colourful lights flickering on her lanyard. ‘You’re the Christmas-tree man. I know you…’
