Page 74 of Undefined Terms

‘Ewan. Because he’s gay. Not, he didn’t say “I’m not talking to you.” He doesn’t do that. He just, stopped. Like someone turned the volume down. Ewan comes home for Christmas and Dad’s in the room and they’re both in the room and there’s a wall.

‘There’s nothing. Mum fills it. She fills all of it. Talks enough for three people. And Ewan pretends it’s fine and Dad pretends it’s fine and I sit there and eat the turkey and it’s not fine.’

I stop, the ceiling, the crack.

‘It’s not fine.’

Celyn’s hand finds my ribs. The fingers, the nails, green, chipped now, the emerald gone to islands. The touch is light.

‘And you?’ Celyn says. ‘What happens when he finds out about you?’

The question. The question that’s been in the room since, since Gaz’s nod, since the canal bench, since the key, since the first time Celyn’s mouth was on mine and everything went sideways and I pretended it hadn’t.

I know the answer. Know it before I think it. The answer is: the volume goes down. The answer is: another son in the room and nothing between us. The answer is: Mum fills the silence until the silence gets her too.

I don’t say any of it.

Celyn’s hand still. The stubble.

‘Ron.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You don’t have to answer.’

‘I know.’

The ceiling, the crack. The answer I didn’t give sitting in my throat like something swallowed wrong.

I know exactly what happens.

Celyn falls asleep. The breathing goes deep and even and the hand on my ribs goes slack.

I don’t sleep.

The question’s in the room. It’s got a shape. The shape of a Christmas dinner. The table, the crackers. The paper crowns that nobody wears past the first course. Mum’s roast and the potatoes she does with the goose fat and Dad in his chair at the head and Ewan opposite me and the gap where the words should be.

Celyn breathes. The flat full of things that aren’t mine.

I lie there, two in the morning, three. The streetlight through the blinds. Stripes on the wall, on the ceiling, on the duvet. Celyn’s mug. I can see it from the bed if I lift my head. The outline of it in the dark. The chip on the rim.

The mug’s been here six weeks. The question’s been here longer.

Morning, the alarm, six fifteen.

I get up without waking Celyn, slide the arm out slow, replace it with the pillow. Shower, teeth, the green toothbrush next to mine. The mirror, same face. Probably the light.

The hands know where everything goes, the hard hat, the thermos, the door, while the brain’s at Christmas dinner.

Site at seven. I work, the hands do what hands do: the trowel, the level, the concrete that doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t change shape.

At lunch I sit in the portacabin with a sandwich and tea, the phone on the table.

A message from Celyn.

The ginger cat’s back. He’s sitting on the bin outside the bar like a furry gargoyle. I’ve named him Dave.

I look at the message. No emoji. None. Celyn doesn’t use emojis in texts. Just words, specific words.