Page 27 of Big Nick Energy
‘It’s a jumpsuit.’
‘Same thing.’ Not really but I try and hold back my laughter. He rips at a small patch of material to get to my knee and winces to see the blood. ‘Does it hurt?’ he asks. I hope it might appear to him that I’m brave and can withstand pain, but the truth is the alcohol in my system is helping to numb everything.
‘It stings a bit,’ I say.
‘Well, it’s going to sting a bit more, sorry…’ he says, and he dabs at the blood and dirt with an antiseptic wipe. I wince a little and he looks into my eyes. I stop wincing.Yeah, don’t do that.Why can’t I breathe? He blows on it gently. Oh dear. I don’t think that’s how you do first aid. I don’t remember doing that on the course I took in the leisure centre. He dabs at the graze with cotton gauze. ‘It’s not too deep.’ He really needs to stop saying that sort of thing.
‘Yes, I think amputation won’t be necessary,’ I say, coughing to get the words out. Am I blushing? I feel I’m blushing and that’s not a good colour with my hair.
‘It’s a shame. We have good saws here.’
‘I bet you do. Are they tenon or hack?’
He sits back as if he doesn’t know whether to laugh or be confused at my terrible version of flirting, talking about his tools.
‘Those are tools for indoor carpentry. We tend to use a bow saw, a chainsaw for the bigger trees. You know your saws then?’ he asks.
‘I know what I remember from technology at school. I made a money box once. It had a hole… at the top.’
‘For the money?’
‘Yeah.’ I have a feeling this is why I have not managed to pin down a man yet. Look how amazingly charming I am with my wood talk. The charisma is off the scale. I should now tell him how I made a doorbell in Year Nine and burnt my finger with a soldering iron.
‘I once helped my nana saw a Christmas tree.’ He nods again. I mean, that’s the whole story in its entirety. I remember a few splinters and the mouse that jumped out at me. He reaches into the box and starts to unwrap a few plasters. I notice they’re covered in an elf pattern. ‘Your medical supplies are Christmas themed?’
‘That’s my sister’s doing,’ he says. ‘You’d be surprised the number of kids who fall over in this place. She also makes us wear the outfits so the whole farm is more of an experience. Gets the punters in.’
‘Which is why you are Santa,’ I say. ‘Do you normally wear a hat?’
‘I do. I draw the line at a beard though. Gets in the way.’
‘Of?’
He gives me a confused look. ‘The sawing of the trees.’
‘Of course.’ I wasn’t thinking of anything else, I really wasn’t. I want to tell him this is likely why the punters come in, because he looks like the sort of Santa who has trousers with Velcro sidesready to let people sit on his knee and tell him what they want. I won’t say it, but he is distractingly good-looking.
‘How’s your ho-ing?’ I ask. Yes, because that is a better thought to air aloud.
‘My gardening hoeing is exceptional. The other ho-ho-ho-ing needs work. It lacks gravitas.’
‘It really needs to come from the diaphragm, doesn’t it? Ho-ho-ho.’ I went very deep there. Again, he doesn’t even smile but gives me a look as if I’ve hit my head harder than he thought, and he may need to run through some concussion protocol.
He takes all the rubbish and supplies and puts them in a bin next to the desk. ‘Did you want me to check if you have any other cuts or bumps?’ he asks plainly. What is he hinting at? To do that would surely mean me stripping here so he could examine me more closely.
I hold my arms up to look at my own elbows. ‘All clear. Only my ego damaged.’
‘I don’t have anything in my box to fix that.’ He talked about his box.Don’t laugh. His eyes seem to gaze at the outline of my curls at this point. ‘You seem to have a whole tree stuck in your curls though. That’s a lot of pine needles. I can get a brush out of the stables? Give you a?—’
‘Groom?’ I smile, looking down. I think he just compared my hair to a horse. I take back everything I said about the saws. This is primo flirting if ever I saw it.
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I’ll shake myself out later,’ I say, wondering about the nest I’ve acquired up there and how I’ll shake it out. Like a dog? Or Taylor Swift?
He stands there for a moment, holding back a grin, both of us not really knowing what to say.Santa, from that t-shirt, I can see you have pecs. My eyes go up the line of his jaw, over to hiseyes. It feels a little indecent to be perving over Santa. ‘Could I get you to sign this form?’ he asks, breaking the moment.
‘Oh, the incident form. Sure.’ I look down at it, signing my name away. ‘Did you want my telephone number?’ He looks up at me and hesitates for a moment. ‘For the form, there’s a gap here.’
