Page 76 of Undefined Terms

Bedroom door, half-shut. The lamp’s on, the warm one. I push the door open and the boots are still wet from the rain that started half-three and didn’t stop.

Celyn’s on the bed. Not under the covers, on top. Knees pulled up. Hoodie, joggers, hair tied back with the cheap tie from the corner shop.

The face is blank.

Not sleep-blank. Blank like the lamp’s on but nobody’s looked at the wall yet.

‘Hiya.’ My voice that sounds like nothing.

Celyn looks at me. The eyes find me. Take a second. Two.

‘Hiya.’ The Welsh in it, the way it goes up at the end, but quieter, like the breath underneath ran out before the word did.

Right.

I don’t ask. The asking’s the thing Celyn taught me not to do, the first month, when I asked too much and Celyn said if I want you to know, I’ll tell you. If I’m quiet, it’s not your job.

Boots come off in the hallway, hi-vis on the hook. Polo off, t-shirt on, the soft one with the hole in the collar, the one Celyn calls mine because nothing else gets to be mine. Soap, water at the kitchen sink. Kettle on.

The work’s still on me. Dust under the nails. Smell of wet concrete in the polo I changed out of. The day landed somewhere I haven’t checked. Leave it.

Two mugs, Celyn’s and the blue one. Celyn’s gets the strong stuff, the loose leaf from the Welsh import place in Levenshulme, a splash of milk, one sugar. Mine builders, three sugars, milk like emulsion paint.

Carry both back. Knock the door open with the elbow. Celyn hasn’t moved.

I put Celyn’s mug on the nightstand, next to the notebook: leather, small, expensive. The pen’s there. No cap.

‘Tea.’

A nod. Smaller than usual.

I sit on the edge of the bed. Not close. Two feet down, my back against the headboard, the cheap wood creaking as it takes the weight.

I drink. Tea’s too hot. I drink it anyway. The shoulders come down for the first time today. Didn’t know they were up. The neck. Somewhere along the day they locked, the lot of them. Now they unlock one at a time, the way they always do.

Celyn’s mug sits. Goes cold over ten minutes, fifteen.

The flat’s quiet, the sort of quiet a flat goes when nobody’s reaching for anything. The fridge clicks on. The fridge clicks off. Outside, a car passes, the tyres on the wet road, a hiss and gone.

The rain that’s been on since half-three keeps on, comes in waves, heavy then light then heavy. The window’s got a hairline split at the corner the landlord said he’d fix in October. The damp’s coming through, wallpaper’s bubbled.

On the chair by the window, the books. The Welsh-English dictionary Celyn keeps near. The novel with the cover I can’t read the title of—three-quarters through. The paper bookmark sticking out at the angle Celyn likes. The angle hasn’t moved in days. I clock it. I don’t say.

Celyn shifts. The legs unfold. The hand reaches for it. The fingers don’t grip first time. It stays on the wood. The hand moves again, slower, the fingers close, the mug comes up.

The wrist is shaking.

Not a lot. The shake you’d miss if you weren’t looking. Small high-frequency thing the muscle does when it’s been holding too long. I know it from the site, the drill lads at half-five. I know it from Dean once, a winter when his daughter was in hospital. I know it from a lad on the Rotherhithe job in ’17 whose name I can’t get back, who turned up in March and was gone by April.

The shake means hold on. The shake means the body’s been told something the head won’t say.

Celyn drinks. The throat moves. It goes back, misses the coaster, the bottom of the ceramic clicks the wood.

Celyn doesn’t reach to fix it.

Right.

I don’t say anything about the mug. The mug’s not what’s happening.