Page 110 of Undefined Terms

I think about Celyn’s flat. The face. How they went still. They do that when something hits right. That’s a load you shouldn’t carry alone, they said. No question, no fix, just. Stated. Like it was a fact anyone could see if they looked.

‘They said it wasn’t my job to fix it.’

Mum nods, one nod. She sets the glass down.

‘Now that’s someone with sense.’ The voice drops. Lower. The one she uses at funerals, at hospitals, when someone’s just said something true and it needs respect. ‘It’s not down to you, love. Your dad, Sean, that’s his to do, not yours. The ringing. The picking a birthday to do it on. His. You carrying his silence about for him doesn’t make it any lighter. Just means the two of you carry it instead of one.’ A pause. ‘That’s not love. That’s a debt.’

The flat, the radiator. The street outside with its music.

‘Your brother made himself small for years,’ Mum says. ‘At home, growing up, before any of it was out. Small so your dad wouldn’t see him, small so the part about him wasn’t so loud. Didn’t work, did it. Just made Ewan small.’ A beat. ‘He packed it in once it was out. Stopped shrinking, stopped caring what your dad would let himself see. Your dad could call it a phase, mind, right up till Laurence. A good man at the table who meant it. That’s when your dad properly went quiet.’ She looks at me. The eyes. ‘I’m not watching that happen twice.’

‘They won’t let me,’ I say.

‘Good.’ The word sits like a brick. Solid. ‘Sounds like they know what they’re about. The looking at things. The not looking away.’

The wine, the chair.

‘You’re happy, love?’

And how she asks, not the surface question. The underneath one, the mother one.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I am.’

She lifts the glass, drinks, sets it down.

‘Then that’s the thing, love. The rest is just furniture.’

‘Ronan.’

The voice underneath it. The one that means this isn’t about the neighbours.

I look at her, the wine glass, the hands around it. The same hands that made the shepherd’s pie and bought the cheese and held the bag and hugged me at the platform.

‘Whoever they are.’ She says it. Like she’s been waiting to hear since the phone call. Weeks. Months. ‘You can tell me, you know.’

They.

She said they.

They. Mum. Eileen Carrick, fifty-four, Lewisham, stock cubes and soap and Mrs Coulson’s daughter, said they. Chose it. Picked it out of the three she could have, and picked that one.

I don’t know if she knows what it means. Don’t know if she’s guessing or if Ewan told her or if she just. Chose the one that covers everything.

I put the wine down. Leave it this time.

‘Not yet, Mum.’ The voice is smaller than I want it to be. Thinner. ‘I’m not ready.’

She nods. One nod. Doesn’t push, doesn’t do the face. Doesn’t do the bit where the eyes fill up and the chin goes. Just the nod.

‘Alright, love.’

She picks up the wine. Drinks, puts it down.

‘When you’re ready,’ she says. ‘I’ll be here.’

The glass on the table. The wine, the flat, Mum in the chair.

I look at the glass. The wine going still. The warmth in the room from the radiator and the shepherd’s pie and the word she picked.