Page 150 of Undefined Terms

‘He’s not a bad person,’ I say. Don’t know why. The sentence just. Comes out. Defensive.

‘No,’ Ewan says. ‘He’s not. He’s a limited person. There’s a difference. Bad people choose. Limited people can’t get past the wall. The wall’s not his fault. What he does about it is.’

Silence, I drink, the Estrella. The taste of it, flat, cold, cheap.

‘My twenty-first,’ Ewan says. Quiet. The voice drops. The thin one. ‘Laurence had planned something. Nothing big, dinner. A cake.’ A quick smile, gone fast.

He picks at the edge of the beer mat. The cardboard peeling.

‘He didn’t call. Mum called, from the house that’s hers now. She sang, you know Mum, the whole verse, off-key, every year. But just her this time. No telly behind her, no him in the next room, because by my twenty-first he’d already moved out. Other years I’d hear the telly and know he was sat right there, and I’d wait for her to pass the phone, and she could never do it. This year there was no one to pass it to. He was in his own place, not dialling. The silent room had turned into an empty one, and I couldn’t tell you which was worse.’

The beer mat, the cardboard. Ewan’s fingers.

‘That’s when I knew. The birthday. Because silence at Christmas you can blame on the day. The stress, the cooking. But a birthday’s specific. A birthday is: I know what today is and I’m choosing not to be in it.’

I look at my brother. The face. The thin voice that’s done now. Back to level. But I heard it. The kid who ate cake with his partner.

‘Ewan.’

‘Don’t.’ Quick. Not sharp. Defensive. ‘It’s filed.’

It’s not filed, nothing like that files. I know because the both of you is sat in my ribcage like a brick and it hasn’t moved in twenty-seven hours.

‘We’re a pair, aren’t we,’ Ewan says. Full stop where the question mark should be. The mouth softens, almost a smile.

‘A pair.’

‘Both Carrick boys. Both the same.’ He waves the hand. ‘Mum must’ve done something in the water.’

I laugh. The sound surprises me. Big. The one that uses the chest.

Ewan grins, the real grin. The one from the wall outside the Lewisham flat, the two of us sharing a bag of chips and Ewan telling me about some equation and me understanding none of it and both of us laughing.

‘Laurence sends his love.’ Ewan stops. ‘Actually, Laurence made a cake. Victoria sponge. He’s been making cakes. It’s a whole thing. Don’t ask.’

‘Laurence makes cakes.’

‘Laurence makes cakes. He watches the videos. He has an apron. There’s flour on the ceiling.’

‘On the shelf.’

‘The ceiling, Ron. Don’t ask.’

I drink, the Estrella, the pub. Tuesday night in Manchester and my brother across the table and the ceiling with the flour and the father in the flat above the bookmakers and the mother with the kettle and the partner at the restaurant and the whole stupid mess of it.

‘How’d Celyn take it,’ Ewan says. Knowing.

‘Quiet. The Celyn quiet, not angry. The one where they’re filing it somewhere.’

‘They’ll write about it.’

‘Probably.’

‘They’ll write about Dad and the door and the both-of-you and it’ll be the best chapter in whatever they write next and you’ll read it and feel it all.’ Ewan waves the hand again. ‘Everything.’

‘Yeah.’

Ewan opens his mouth, closes it, I know this face. The kitchen table face, the I-need-to-tell-you-something face. Except this time it softens into nothing.