Page 3 of Undefined Terms

The truck comes through the gate, the mixer turning, the grey water in the drum. Dave stops shouting down the phone, Dean picks up the screed, Gaz grabs the trowel.

‘Later,’ I say.

And they let it go because that’s what this crew does. They know when to talk and when to shut up and they know that whatever’s up with me won’t get fixed on a building site. But Gaz says it anyway, while Dave’s shouting about the schedule: ‘For what it’s worth, you look less shit now than you did Tuesday. Whatever this is, whoever they are, it’s working.’

I don’t answer. But my hand finds the side of the truck and the metal is cold and the work begins.

I talk, don’t know how long. Celyn’s watching me and the laptop screen’s gone dark and the tea’s cold and the pencil’s behind one ear and nobody looks at me like this. Like what I’m saying about concrete and rebar has a shape.

There’s a glass of water in front of me. I didn’t ask for it, didn’t see it come. Celyn must’ve caught the barman’s eye somewhere in the middle of the footings, while I talked myself hoarse and noticed nothing, because my throat had gone dry and Celyn clocked it before I did. Nobody gets you the water before you know you need it.

‘The hand knows before the eye,’ Celyn says. Low. ‘That’s a line.’

‘It’s not a line. It’s just how it works.’

‘That’s why it’s a line.’

Don’t understand that. How Celyn says it, the Welsh pulling the vowels soft, the mouth, and I’m looking at the mouth and the hand comes across the table and lands on my wrist.

A landing. Mid-sentence, making a point about a character in the novel who reads walls for the pulse in them. Cold fingers.

One second.

Celyn lifts it, picks up the tea, keeps talking.

One second and my wrist’s pulse is all I can hear. Chest doing it too. Lower. I shift, sit straighter, get both hands around the empty glass. Cold. The cold helps.

Celyn sees. I know because the eyes drop, quick, half a second, to where I shifted. And come back up, and Celyn says nothing, drinks the tea. But the eyes hold. Like a door that opened a crack and isn’t closing.

‘Right,’ I say. ‘I should.’

‘Early start?’

‘Seven.’

‘Course.’ The laptop closes. The earphone cable winds up tight. The bag, olive canvas, paint stain on the strap. ‘Same time tomorrow?’

Said light, like it’s the weather, but it matters.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Alright.’

Celyn stands, bag over one shoulder, the shirt hanging loose. Heading home the long way. Oldham Street’s two minutes from here, I’ve already checked the map.

I look up and catch it. Half a second, before the night version of the face slots back: Celyn looking at me the way I’ve spent all night trying not to look at them. Open. Caught at it. The thing that lives under the dry voice. Then it’s gone, folded back behind the half-smile, and I’d not swear I saw it except my chest is sure.

‘Night, Ronan.’

The R is softer than anyone’s ever said it. The Welsh rounds the consonant and my name sounds different in that mouth.

‘Night.’

The door, cold air, gone.

I sit for three more minutes because standing up right now is a problem I’m not dealing with. The barman wipes the counter. Doesn’t rush me.

Back at the Airbnb I lie on the bed. The ceiling’s white, blank, nothing to look at, so you look at whatever’s already in your head.

The room’s got that Airbnb smell: cleaning products, someone else’s laundry, the smell of a place nobody lives in. The sheets are white, the towels white, the mug in the kitchenette white. Everything white and nothing mine. I’ve got the boots by the door, the hi-vis on the chair, the thermos Mum gave me on the counter. Nothing else.