Page 117 of Undefined Terms

‘I’m glad,’ she says. Quiet. Into the mug. ‘That you see him. That you go there.’

The silence is big. The tea, the chipped mug. The living room that hasn’t changed since I was fifteen except the chair where Dad sat has a cushion on it now. A new cushion, bought recently, like she’s trying to make the chair belong to someone else.

‘Mum.’

‘Hmm?’

The word’s right there, right behind my teeth. The shape of it, Ewan said shape. The shape I’d need to pour the sentence into. There’s someone, in Manchester, their name is Celyn. They’re everything.

‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Just, the eggs were good.’

I drink the tea, she drinks the tea. The word goes back behind my teeth and sits there. Heavy. Like a concrete block that needs lifting but the crane’s not on site yet.

The doorbell. Eleven fifteen. Mum goes still. The mug stops halfway to her mouth.

‘That’ll be your dad. Picking up more of his stuff.’

She doesn’t get up, I do.

The hallway, the door. The frosted glass with the shape behind it. I open it.

Dad. Sean Carrick. The brown coat, the one he’s had since I was ten. He’s thinner, the face thinner, the skin looser on the jaw that’s mine. Bricklayer’s hands. He sees me and the eyes do that half-second where the face hasn’t decided what to be.

Then the arms cross. Looser than they used to be. Ewan said that, after the dinner at Laurence’s. Looser. A wall with a window in it.

‘Ronan.’ The full name. The flat South London.

‘Dad.’

‘Your mum said you were up.’

‘Just a few days.’

He nods. Looks past me into the hallway. The hallway he painted twice. The shoe rack he built. His eyes land six inches to the left of mine. The old habit, the one Ewan clocked years ago. Except today they flick back. Land on me. Stay for a second.

‘How’s the site?’

‘Good. Block D’s on schedule.’

‘Good lad.’ He shifts his weight. ‘I have the records to pick up. Your mum’s put a box together as well.’

‘I’ll get them.’

The spare room: three crates of vinyl, labelled in Dad’s square handwriting. Pink Floyd, the Stones. In the kitchen, Mum’s left a cardboard box on the counter, tins: tomatoes, soup, beans.

I carry the vinyl out first, go back for the box. Dad’s on the path, hasn’t come in.

‘I’ll give you a hand.’

We go down to the kerb. A black city car, not the Mondeo. Smaller car, smaller life. I open the boot. The vinyl first. Then the box of tins. Our hands on the crate at the same time — his knuckles, my knuckles, same shape, same width. The bricklayer’s grip and the foreman’s grip.

He straightens. Looks at the house. Not at me.

‘You’re looking well,’ he says. The voice gives for a fraction. The kind you feel in plaster before you see it. Then nothing. ‘Right. Well.’

‘Cheers, Dad.’

He closes the boot. The brown coat. The path back to the gate.