Page 168 of Undefined Terms

Celyn’s gone quiet against me, the crying done, the laughing done. A tired person in my hoodie, head on my chest, breathing the way people breathe when the day’s finally over.

The tablet’s still open on the cushion. The house in Peckham, the bowed wall, the north room. The agent can wait till Monday. The offer, the survey, one phone call between here and there. Celyn called it a proposal. I did it terribly. No ring, no knee. A man who can’t say the word, so he buys a wreck with a room in it and lets the room say it for him.

Two bags. That’s what I came up with.

I’m leaving with more.

Handover day, Victoria North. Snag list signed, keys in a bag with a brown tag, a man from the client in clean boots photographing the lobby on his phone. Eighteen months, and it ends with a signature and my lanyard in a tray.

Pub at five. Dave buys the first round, which the lads will be telling agency kids about for years. Gaz does a speech: ‘Right, well. He’s off.’ Dean puts the hand on my forearm, once, same place as before. Jay shows me his phone, a five-a-side league in Bermondsey, ‘if you’re short of a game down there.’

Thomas waits for the coats. At the door, the hand out, nothing with it. No speech, no offence taken or given. A handshake like a snag closed late: past deadline, but closed.

I take it. You take the hand that’s offered. The delay’s not mine to price.

Lewisham, Saturday. Mum’s house to pick up the box I left under the stairs two years ago. The drill, the spirit level, Celyn’s in the car.

A city car on the street. The dent in the rear panel from the Tesco car park, first month he had it.

Dad’s car.

Front door’s open, Mum’s in the kitchen, and in the hall, the stepladder, the toolbox. Sean, up the ladder, screwdriver in his teeth, fixing the ceiling light that’s been dodgy since March. He doesn’t live here any more but he fixes it because fixing things is the only language he’s got left.

‘Ron.’

‘Dad.’

Screwdriver comes out of his mouth. He climbs down two rungs. The hall. The coats on the hooks. The carpet that’s been the same carpet since forever.

The front door’s open behind me.

‘Ron? Is it good.’

Celyn, on the path. Jeans. Converse. Red lipstick. The earrings.

Sean looks past me.

His hand tightens on the screwdriver, the other on the ladder rail. A grip. A man holding on to the last solid thing in the room.

Three seconds. The hallway, the carpet. The ceiling light still hanging by one wire.

Sean looks at Celyn.

Then at me.

Then back at the ladder.

‘Light’s been dodgy since March,’ he says. Climbs back up, the screwdriver to the fitting, the hands doing the job.

Mum comes out with two mugs, sees the three of us, puts the mugs down, says ‘Ron, the box is under the stairs,’ and goes back to the kitchen.

I get the box. On the way out, Sean’s still on the ladder. I pass underneath. Close enough to smell the aftershave, the cheap one, the blue bottle, the one he’s used since before I was born.

‘Cheers, Dad.’

The screwdriver turns, the fitting clicks.

‘Mind how you go,’ he says. To the ceiling.