Page 119 of Undefined Terms

Gaz’s on the crossword across the table, Dave unscrews the flask.

‘All right?’ Gaz says. Not looking up.

I put the sandwich down.

‘That person I was seeing.’ Site voice. Flat. ‘I fucked it up.’

Gaz doesn’t look up. ‘The one from the bar.’ Not a question.

‘Yeah.’

‘Right.’ He fills in a clue. ‘You’ve been a face on you for a fortnight. That’ll be why.’ Dave screws the lid on the flask. ‘Sort it out. You’re no good to me like this.’

And that’s the site knowing, out loud, with the kettle and the crossword, and nobody fell off the scaffold.

Wednesday, the flat.

The thing about the flat is that it’s small. I knew it was small when I took it. Small is fine for one person with two bags and a thermos and a pair of boots and not much else; small is the right word for a bloke who sleeps and showers and leaves by six.

But small means you can’t not see things.

I put it all back the week after Mum. The mug up on the counter, the toothbrush out of the drawer where I’d folded it away next to the spare fuses. An evening’s work to hide a person. Ten minutes to undo it. I spent years getting good at making a room look like nobody’s been in it. I’m just as good at the opposite, and the opposite’s the one that keeps me up. A room you’ve put someone back into on purpose, so you walk through them to get to the kettle.

The hoodie on the radiator. Mine. The grey one with the stretched collar. It was cold and I said ‘take a jumper’ and Celyn said ‘I’ll just wear yours’ and put it on and the sleeves went past the wrists and the hem sat on the thighs and they looked like someone who lived here. Living. The hoodie stayed when Celyn left that night and I put it on the radiator because the radiator’s where clothes go and now it sits there.

I don’t move it.

The stars, on the bedside table. The packet, glow-in-the-dark, the ones you stick on the ceiling. I bought them. The charity shop under Celyn’s, eighty pence, a month back. Saw them in the window and thought of Celyn. Celyn doesn’t know they exist. They’re still in the packet.

They’re still in the packet.

The toothbrush. In the cup by the sink. The green one. Mine’s purple. The green one appeared in November without a conversation. One morning it was in the cup and Celyn was brushing their teeth in my bathroom and I was making tea and the toothbrush was the most normal thing in the world.

I look at the toothbrush. The green one’s dry now. Dry right through. The bristles still splayed from the last time Celyn used them. I could throw it out. Put it in the bin with the milk carton and the tea bags. Simple.

I don’t throw it out. I brush my teeth. The green one next to the purple one. The cup’s too small for two toothbrushes, they lean against each other. Touching.

I go to bed. The ceiling with no stars. The pillow that smells like detergent and under the detergent, nothing. The nothing where Celyn used to be.

Thursday, the bar.

I don’t go to the bar.

I walk past it. On the way back from the site. It’s on the way, it’s always been on the way, five minutes, the same five minutes I told Dave the first week. ‘Five minutes from the site.’ The bar’s lit up. Warm. The window, I can see the tables. The counter, the taps. The corner where people sit.

Corner table, empty. Or not empty, someone’s there but it’s not Celyn. It’s a bloke with a pint and a paper and he’s in our spot, in the corner, in the chair where Celyn types and drinks the garden tea. He’s sat there reading about football and he doesn’t know the chair he’s in is something. He doesn’t know about Celyn’s mug. The thirty minutes I spent at that counter the first night, watching. The yellow nails.

I stand on the pavement. My boots on the concrete.

I walk past.

I go to the flat. Make tea, blue mug, sit on the bed. The phone on the table. No messages. No photo of the cat.

I pick up the phone. Open the thread. The last message.

I close the thread, put the phone down, pick it up, open the thread. Close it.

The hoodie on the radiator. The stars in the packet.