Page 115 of Undefined Terms

I set the table: two plates, her and me, the empty place that used to be Dad and now it’s just the empty place.

We eat, the roast is good, the potatoes are good. The gravy is the granules and the granules are good. She asks about the site, and I tell her about the pour that went wrong in November and the steel delivery that was a week late and the lad who dropped a spirit level off the second floor and nearly killed a sparky. She laughs at the right bits. She doesn’t ask about anything else.

She doesn’t ask.

I eat the potatoes and I’m grateful and I hate myself for being grateful and I eat more potatoes.

The Nag’s Head, eight o’clock. Robbie and Trav at the usual table, the one by the quiz machine that hasn’t worked in years. Two pints already down, the empties pushed to the edge.

‘Fucking hell,’ Robbie says. ‘He’s alive.’

‘Alright.’

‘Manchester hasn’t killed you then.’

‘Nah.’

The pint arrives. I don’t order it. Trav’s already been up. Stella, the right Stella. The Nag’s Head one, different from every other pint of it because this is where it tastes correct.

I sit: the chair, the table, the quiz machine with the busted screen, the carpet that’s been the same carpet since I was eighteen and first came in with a fake ID that Robbie’s brother made on his mum’s printer.

‘You look different,’ Trav says.

‘I don’t look different.’

‘Something’s different.’ He does the Trav thing, the squint, the assessment. Trav’s a plumber. He finds leaks. It’s what he does. ‘Dunno what. Something.’

‘I’ve been up north eleven months.’

‘That’s not it.’

Robbie, from behind the pint: ‘Leave him. He came.’ He says it like that’s enough.

Robbie’s right. I’m here, that’s it. And the thing about being here is nothing needs explaining. Robbie doesn’t need to know why I moved. Trav doesn’t need to know what I did on most nights. The Nag’s Head doesn’t need to know anything about anyone because the Nag’s Head is where you come to not know things.

The match is on, Spurs. I don’t support Spurs, none of us do. But it’s on and your body finds the chair anyway. Your brain somewhere between the commentary and the silence and nobody needs you to say what you’re thinking.

‘Heard from your dad?’ Robbie asks. During the ad break. Casually. Like he’s asking about the weather.

‘Nah.’

‘Right.’

That’s it, that’s the whole conversation about my dad. Robbie doesn’t follow up, Trav doesn’t lean in. The next thing is: the match comes back. Someone fouled someone, the ref’s a prick. Robbie goes to the bar, the empties stack up, the quiz machine stays broken.

Simple.

At the bar, Robbie says, over the pint, like it’s nothing: ‘Henderson and Roe are hiring. Project manager, that Rotherhithe riverside thing. Your mate Kev mentioned your name.’

I look at the Stella, the foam ring on the glass.

‘I’m in Manchester.’

‘I know you’re in Manchester.’ He drinks. ‘Just saying. It’s Rotherhithe. Twenty minutes from Mum’s. Proper money.’

He doesn’t push, the match comes back, someone fouled someone.

But the word sits there, Rotherhithe. Like a measurement I wrote down and forgot.