Big Nick Energy

Chapter 1

ONE

‘And the final round is all about books set at Christmas!’ cries our host behind the bar wearing reindeer antlers, a red and green holly-print festive suit and a bow tie.

‘First question! The opening chapters of Little Women are set at Christmas, but what are the names of all the sisters in the March family?’

Where does one buy an outfit like that? When else would you wear it?

Christmas Day itself? I wouldn’t be able to digest my sprouts looking at that.

His tone and stance tell me he’s the most excited person in this place, which figures.

Everyone else in here is at different stages of drunk, and here for the social.

I’m not really sure how driven they are by the grand prize of twenty-five pounds, a box of luxury crackers and a meat hamper.

‘Oh, my wife loves this one. The one with Darcy. Lizzie, Jane… right?’

I sit at my corner table near the misted-up window, eavesdropping on the team on the table beside me, named ‘The Myrrh the Merrier’ – three older men, all with pints and Christmas jumpers, one of them armed with reading glasses and a pen.

‘Mary?’ one says cluelessly.

‘Amy, Jo, Beth and Meg,’ I mutter, my hand covering my mouth.

One of them turns to look at me. ‘Bev?’

‘Beth,’ I say and laugh, hoping the quiz host can’t see me. Is this breaking quiz rules? Will I get thrown out?

He winks back at me, giving a thumbs up. ‘You want to join us? We could do with the help…’ he whispers. ‘We’ll give you a cut? Our chipolatas?’

‘Dave…’ one of the others intervenes. ‘She’s a young girl, mate…’

He realises his gaffe and blushes instantly. ‘Off the meat hamper obviously. Christ, I’m not a perv. I’m sorry…’

I smile broadly. ‘You’re lucky it’s Christmas. It’s fine. I knew what you meant. You can have that answer for free, in the spirit of giving,’ I say, putting a hand to my chest. I’m in a Nirvana t-shirt, trainers and jeans. I’m not exactly dressed for festive fun. ‘I’m actually waiting for someone.’

‘A date?’ Dave asks.

‘A boyfriend.’ They all smile and seem quite happy for me.

‘Question two! In The Christmas Carol, what is the name of Scrooge’s fiancée?’ The whole table look at me. I stare at the gaudy gold bells hanging off a garland next to us. All their thumbs go up again.

I’d kill in this quiz. But it’s not why I’m here.

I look at my watch. He’s half an hour late.

I look at my phone, no messages so I take a prolonged sip of red wine to fill the space.

I’m sure we did say our pub for 7.30pm. It is our pub because this is exactly where we met, over by the bar, festooned with the same foil decorations and plastic Santa signs.

That was a year ago, a night when this popular university haunt was filled to the brim with students all overflowing with the merriment of the season.

A sea of Christmas jumpers with a heavy scent of meaty crisps and mulled wine.

I can remember them playing Band Aid and a group of students standing on stools all took on different personas to sing along.

Bono was especially mullered. It was rammed, and the man next to me was so close that I could smell the Paco Rabanne wafting off him.

‘Seeing as we’re standing so close to each other, I should tell you that I’m thick,’ he said. I smile as I remember it. At the time, I frowned, puzzled; wondering why he was divulging this information to me.

‘Hi.’

‘What’s your name?’ he asked me. I paused, then turned to look at him; he was reasonably handsome with sandy blond hair, cool slate-coloured eyes. I liked the bobbles on his jumper which showed me it was well-worn and loved.

‘Kay,’ I replied.

‘No, I asked you what your name is?’

‘I’m Kay.’

At this point, I decided he was definitely thick. Or drunk.

‘Oh, I thought you were telling me you’re OK. Kay, like the letter?’ he said.

‘But not. I don’t work for MI6,’ I explained.

For some reason, he found that hilarious.

‘Is… short…?’ he said.

I tried to make out his words through the racket of Mariah Carey now warbling over the sound system. Was he being rude? I stood on my toes because I was keeping it casual in jeans and trainers. ‘I’m five foot six.’

He leaned into me and I flinched a little. ‘I asked if your name was short for anything,’ he said.

Oh. ‘Katherine – but everyone calls me Kay.’

‘I’m five foot ten in case you were interested.’

‘Interested in you or your height?’

He grinned. ‘You are very funny.’

I hate to say that was all it took but that was, pretty much, all it took.

I remember someone at the other end of the bar ordering six complex cocktails so it felt less awkward to relent and engage, to let my defences down.

I mean, it helped that he wasn’t horrible to look at; he had the sort of face that creased into a different shape when he smiled, which he did often.

I like a face where I can read the laughter so clearly.

He asked me if I was a fan of Christmas and then he offered to buy me a drink.

It was a sincere gesture, not lecherous, bordering on gentlemanly, and in the student population of Bath I’d rarely seen that.

It was in the spirit of his name, he said.

‘You haven’t told me your name…’ I told him.

‘I believe I have. I’m Nick.’

I thought back to his opening line. ‘Oh, I thought you told me you were thick.’

That now-familiar smile spread across his face. ‘Would you like to find out?’

I cocked my head to one side. ‘Are you talking about your penis?’

He roared in reply. ‘God, no. I meant do you want to know if I’m stupid or not.’

And with that there was a certain look, a real definite possibility that this had legs. ‘So you’re Saint Nick, are you?’

‘Yes, I am.’ I felt an instant warmth as he said that. I liked the festive vibe but also that he felt good, safe.

‘Then I will have a rum and Coke, Saint Nick. Would it be cheeky of me to ask for nuts too?’ I said.

‘You can have nuts too. It’s Christmas after all and I always deliver.’

‘Always?’

‘Always.’ There was a certainty in his look, the way his eyes came to life, fixed on mine.

The memory makes me smile as I unwrap my scarf from my neck and ruffle out my auburn curls. That initial chemistry, the buzz of it is still imprinted into my mind and fired up all over again, just from glancing over to the bar where we met.

‘Can you believe it’s still raining? It feels as though it’s been raining for months,’ a voice says from behind me, and I recognise it instantly.

Nick. He puts an arm on my shoulder and kisses the back of my head before I turn to greet him.

He hasn’t changed since we first met; still the same shaggy blond hair, woolly jumper and jeans, the usual pint of stout in his hand.

‘Sorry. Lectures overran and then the landlord paid us a visit,’ he says, hanging his coat on the back of his chair.

‘It’s fine. I’ve been enjoying the quiz.’ I see Dave and his mates have clocked Nick and they raise their pints at me. I hope they got the question about Dr Seuss right. ‘Did you get your essay in on time?’ I ask, leaning over to put a hand in his.

‘Yeah. By the skin of my teeth,’ he replies, taking a long gulp of his drink.

I can see the stress etched in Nick’s face.

It’s been a long term and he’s had a lot of coursework, while I’ve been in endless tutorials on Virginia Woolf during the day, and working shifts in the uni bar in the evenings.

Christmas will be a welcome break, a time to be a couple again, see family and drink our woes away.

Our time at university has evolved in this last year – we used to come here for wild nights in large groups of people from halls, evenings that would lead us into nightclubs and down empty streets at three in the morning, getting told off for setting off car alarms and urinating in people’s gardens (not me).

But now, this pub feels more like our local, a place of special significance in our relationship.

‘I was thinking back to when we first met here,’ I say affectionately. ‘When I couldn’t hear you tell me your name because of the noise.’

He half smiles. I thought that was a particularly funny moment of note, but maybe not. God, he is stressed. He takes his hand out of mine. ‘God, I don’t think I can do this.’

‘The pub?’ I enquire. Maybe it’s the noise. ‘We could go back to mine, it’s cool.’

He rubs his hands down his thighs and exhales slowly. Behind him, the man in the Christmas suit starts to rove around the pub with his microphone for a music round. Finish the Christmas lyrics. I can see why that might induce stress.

‘Is this about Christmas? I know you’re upset I can’t make it to yours, but I really want to spend it with my nana. A bit of space at Christmas wouldn’t be awful.’

He shakes his head, a little too seriously for my liking. There’s the stressor.

‘A bit of space?’ he asks me.

‘In Christmas week? It’ll go quick,’ I say.

He looks at me for a moment too long. ‘What if that space was…extended?’

‘The whole Christmas break? Three weeks?’ I guess. ‘Did you cave? Are you going skiing with Olly and Si?’ I ask him.

Nick takes another lengthy sip of his drink and looks me in the eye. ‘Or what about longer?’

It’s then that I realise what’s happening. A year means that you can read words in people’s eyes, the way their face isn’t creased with laughter anymore. There’s a whole host of emotions in his face instead, a whole different shade of blue that speaks guilt, fear, sadness.

‘Nick, are you breaking up with me?’

But as I manage to utter that sentence, a microphone is thrust in my face. The words are loud, echoing through that space, the music muted in my honour. The whole pub freezes and turns to look at us, sitting opposite each other at this dark wooden pub table.

‘Not quite,’ the host says, forcing a laugh, realising he has a duty to save this. ‘Would you like another go?’

I look at him. ‘Tis the season to be jolly,’ I say blankly.