Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
‘Lola! Have you seen the Santa? It’s not that caretaker man, it’s some fit bloke! Come see!’
I should have thought this pitstop through.
Griffin Road Comprehensive. Maybe I should have gone for a primary school, but, somewhere in my bleeding heart, I thought it might be nice to try and promote reading in teenagers.
In my mind, I put a book in the hands of a fourteen-year-old kid and suddenly their world is transformed, they start to read again, they are transported out of London into an idyllic future where their imagination can expand, their literacy evolves and I become that story they tell in their speech when they’ve won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
It was all down to that lady who dressed up as a Christmas tree and gave me a free book in my school library.
Yeah, that isn’t happening.
What is happening is that New Nick and I are hanging out in this lovely and well-equipped library space.
There are four children in here, one who seems to be desperately finishing History homework, two on computers watching YouTube and one who is asleep on a bean bag.
The librarian is trying so very hard, she’s wearing a Christmas hat and has matching tinselled earrings.
She’s got a tree in the corner and filled the place with homemade paper chains.
But this is hard work. It’s the opposite of a captive audience.
Please, read a book. Try. They’re free! But no one is here, apart from some girls standing outside the window, their faces pressed up against the glass, waving and staring at the novelty that is Nick, someone to change up their lunch hours.
Nick waves back politely. They giggle. ‘Put away your phones!’ I hear a teacher thunder down the corridor.
I get it, girls. This is premium Santa here, not a bargain basement granddad in a beard.
But I’ll only let you interact with him if you take a book.
I look over and watch as Nick texts someone on his phone and then switches to Wordle.
I peer over curiously to see how long it’ll take him to get it.
The word today is ADEPT but I won’t tell him that.
‘I’m sorry. This book-drive stop was a bit of a waste of time,’ I say, feeling a little guilty I brought him here.
‘Or not. We had those Year Seven kids come in, they seemed excited. I reckon if we found them again, we could give them some extras,’ he says, looking up.
‘I like the optimism,’ I add, smiling at him. ‘At least you have amassed a fan club,’ I joke, trying not to stare at the posse of girls outside.
‘Yeah, I thought the old people were inappropriate.’
‘DO YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND?’ one of the girls says, knocking on the glass.
He looks up at them and then returns to his phone.
He’s not falling for their games but I’ll admit I want to know the answer to that question.
We met outside the school today, all dressed up and ready to take on this place.
He was formal and polite as he always is, a school secretary gave him her telephone number and he paused in reception to see yet another fake tree reaching to the ceiling.
I am quietly fascinated by how irritated he gets by fake trees.
He intrigues me on so many levels but I remind myself that I’m seeing Old Nick.
I went to the ballet with him. We had Mexican food after.
And sex which is still fun and satisfying. All the fun.
‘CAN WE HAVE YOUR SNAP?’ they ask through the window.
‘DO YOU WANT A BOOK?’ he shouts back.
‘A WHAT?’ they shriek, as though he’s offered them drugs.
He laughs. ‘What’s a snap? Is that a sex thing?’ he asks me quietly.
‘No, it’s a Snapchat thing. Social media.’
‘Don’t have it,’ he says, and they all moan with disappointment.
I didn’t think he’d be the sort who would.
I still don’t know how to converse honestly with Nick.
I want to tell him how much I adored meeting his family without overstepping, but I also have so many questions, so much interest in his past. But I can’t.
I can’t give him the wrong impression, so I get up and start to stroll around the library.
Schools are strange places in the run up to Christmas, out in the courtyard you can see children wrapped up in coats, random Christmas hats and the odd classroom that sparkles and glitters.
It would seem these kids are far too cool to get into the season and I don’t think we’re going to change that any time soon.
‘Oh, by the way, I got a lead on those letters, I think,’ Nick says, and I turn back to face him.
‘You did?’
‘In the book was a ticket to a school play in a local primary school so I put a post up on a Facebook community page. Maybe I’ll get a bite.’
Since he mentioned this to me, I must admit the way he seems intent on finding the owners of these letters is endearing and well, vaguely hot.
It’s giving literary hero on a grand quest to reconnect two lovers.
This is the sort of drama and commitment that I live for in any main character. Naturally, I don’t tell him that much.
‘You are funny,’ I say.
‘Funny?’ he replies. Well, not like that.
‘I mean, it’s quite a romantic thing you’re doing there.’
‘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 in that way. 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…’
‘Beth,’ he says. ‘Lucy’s sister. How’s your tree?’
‘Very good, thank you. You’re…’
I wave across the room and Beth recognises me, heading over to my corner of the library, occasionally looking back to clock Nick.
‘Yeah, I was told to come over and see why all the Year Nine girls were crowding the courtyard and had rolled up their skirts. Hey, Kay,’ she says, coming over to hug me.
Lucy is one of five sisters I’ve come to know over the years and her sister, Beth, is my main contact at this particular school. ‘Why is he here?’ she mouths.
We both watch Nick as a few girls enter the room to talk to him. He carries a pile of books just in case they may want to take one. ‘Long-ish story. He volunteered to help deliver the books, outreach in the community and all that.’
‘Lucy’s boss?’ she says quietly.
‘Yeah… By the way, you girls never told me about him before.’
Beth peers over as he stands there turning his back to the girls so they can’t take pictures of him. ‘Oh, yeah – we call him The Timbersnake.’
‘Because he’s underhand and sneaky?’
‘No, because Lucy saw him getting changed once and…’
‘BETH!’ I squeal. He looks over curiously at both of us.
‘He’s a nice fella. We all get fantastic Christmas trees because of him. In my opinion, he’s almost too good looking though.’
‘That’s a thing?’ I ask her.
‘Look at him, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. It’d be like dating Ryan Gosling. I’d spend ninety per cent of my time staring at him, blushing, speechless.’
I giggle. ‘Who are you texting?’ I say, noticing the phone in her hand.
‘The staff room. This last week before the Christmas break is the hardest one in the school year. We all need to find our joy somewhere,’ she says. ‘GIRLS, you are being too much, leave him alone. He’s married.’
I see the alarm on Nick’s face as she says this and I can’t lie, something drops out of my stomach.
He’s what now? Married? But he doesn’t wear a ring.
It’s not as if it came up or we discussed our situations in detail – at all, in fact.
He’s allowed to be married. We’re not together.
Why am I emotional? You idiot. I feel it hit my eyes and turn away.
He was here because it was a community endeavour, nothing more.
‘What? He’s married!?’ a girl shouts.
‘Yeah, this is his wife so behave yourselves and roll down your skirt. I can see what you had for breakfast,’ Beth replies.
Nick and I look at each other. I’m not his wife. Oh. She was saying that to calm down the girls so they wouldn’t pursue him so aggressively. The girls look over at me and I’m unsure what to do. How does one act territorial? Or wifely?
‘Yeah, I’m afraid I’m spoken for. I belong to her,’ Nick says, shrugging.
I bite my lip as he says that, trying not to smirk. ‘Yeah, I am his wife.’
‘Lucky cow,’ one girl says, looking me up and down as if I’m undeserving.
‘I heard that,’ I say. ‘Not so lucky really. He snores. Loudly. Like a baby elephant.’
‘This is true,’ he says, looking over at me, grinning.
‘His feet are also horrific. Like Monster Munch.’ He gives me a look. I’ve taken this a little far, haven’t I? I see Beth laughing under her breath as these very hard to please teenagers give me evils because I’d dare criticise their new crush.
‘Girls, Mr and Mrs North have brought a lot of books with them today, maybe you should take them as gifts, broaden your horizons this Christmas? No?’ Beth adds, trying to talk us up.
Nick looks at me as we’re referred to as Mr and Mrs. I must admit, with the North bit, it makes us sound especially seasonal.
‘But it’s like, reading, miss. It’s like, work.’
‘It doesn’t have to be,’ I say. ‘I’ve wrapped up some of the Heartstopper novels.’
‘Like that show on Netflix?’
I nod. ‘Plus Mr North wrapped them. And if you don’t take them, it’ll make him sad.’ The group of girls look to him as his bottom lip pops out. They take a book each.
‘Well done, girls,’ Beth says, walking them to the door.
As they depart, a hand falls onto my shoulder and squeezes it tightly. There’s a word for how it feels. Natural. ‘OK, wifey. My feet are like what now?’ he says, slightly offended.
‘They are awful. The way you leave your boots around and don’t pick up your socks.’
‘And what was that other thing you said?’
‘That you snored.’
‘So, essentially, I’m noisy in bed?’ he smirks.
I can’t exhale. ‘Yes, you are very noisy. It’s not good for my beauty sleep.’
‘As if you need it.’
We smile at each other for a moment too long until he puts his arm around me, his fingers grazing the skin by my neck, and I feel that.
I feel it in places I shouldn’t, confused by the sudden need for physical contact until I see him waving to the girls by the door.
I slide an arm around his waist and wave too. To keep up the illusion, obviously.