Page 137 of Undefined Terms

gaz knew

Of course gaz knew

dave said bring you round

Three dots. Then:

Dave’s my favourite

I smile, the phone, the seven minutes.

dean didn’t say a word. grabbed my arm, the site grip, you know the one.

I don’t know the one but I believe you

thomas said right

The dots, longer.

Just right?

just right

Silence. The dots. Then:

That’s one word more than my dad managed

I stand on the pavement. The kebab place, the bass. Celyn’s sentence on the screen, Thomas’s ‘right’ next to a father in Beddgelert who doesn’t use ‘they’ and that makes Thomas’s ‘right’ look like something.

Tell me about dean’s arm thing when you get home

Home, Celyn said home. The flat above the barber’s that smells of setting lotion and a bed that’s too small and Celyn called it home.

yeah, home in five.

I walk, the barber’s, the stairs, the door.

The thing in between that’s enough for a Friday night in February when the Estrella’s shit and the world’s different now and different’s better.

Different’s better.

Monday. Site smells like rain and fresh aggregate. The south wall pour went in Friday afternoon and the concrete’s doing what concrete does: setting, curing, becoming load-bearing in its own time. Nobody rushes it. You can rush a schedule, you can rush a bloke with a sandwich, you can’t rush a chemical reaction.

I check the ties on the rebar cage for the second pour, the wire twister in my right hand, the pliers in the left. Twist, snip, move. Twist, snip, move. The rhythm of it. The cold in the fingers, February, the gloves off because you can’t feel the tie wire through gloves and feeling it matters.

Gaz is singing. Something from the radio, the chorus only, wrong key. Dean tells him to shut up. Gaz sings louder. Dave walks past with a clipboard, doesn’t look up, doesn’t need to. The site runs.

Half ten, the tea break thermos, the portacabin, the radiator. My phone buzzes.

Here in 5, where do I go.

Right, the article, the newspaper piece. The Manchester restoration project. Celyn pitched it three weeks ago. Dave said yes because Dave doesn’t care about anything except getting the steel straight and if a newspaper article means the council stops sending inspectors every other Tuesday then fine.

I told Dave my partner’s a writer. Dave said ‘right.’ I told Dave Celyn uses ‘they.’ Dave said ‘right’ again. Same ‘right.’ The man doesn’t have two versions of the word.

I didn’t tell Dave what Celyn looks like, didn’t know what Celyn would look like, don’t know until Celyn walks through the gate.

The gate. The gap in the hoarding where the chipboard’s propped open and the hi-vis sign says AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY and the hard hat sign says the same thing with a picture.