Page 13 of Undefined Terms

‘Tib Street.’

‘That’s.’ A beat. ‘That’s round the corner.’

‘Five minutes from the site.’

‘And from here.’

I pick up the menu I don’t need. ‘And from here.’

Celyn watches me pretend to read the menu. ‘How long’s the contract?’

‘Twelve months.’

Stops tapping. Eyes on me, eyeliner sharp. The look lasts, three seconds? Four, not the half-smile.

‘Twelve months,’ Celyn says, measuring it. Like weighing something.

Then the laptop turns. Celyn’s face changes, the writer face.

‘I want to read you something.’

‘Yeah?’

‘A chapter. From the novel. First draft, so. Rough.’ A pause over the trackpad. ‘There’s a woman. Elin. She inherits a house in north Wales. Snowdonia. Under the mountains.’

‘Alright.’

‘The house changes.’

‘Changes how?’

‘Depends who’s inside.’

The voice drops. Not volume, but register, lower. The Welsh comes out, the vowels round and slow, the consonants soften, and it’s a different voice. A reading voice.

‘Elin opens the kitchen door and the kitchen is on the wrong side. Tuesday it was left. Wednesday it was left. Thursday. Right. The window’s moved. The light falls differently. She puts her hand on the counter and the counter is warm, and soft, and gives under her palm like something breathing in its sleep, and when she lifts it the surface closes slowly back over the shape it left. She should pull away. She knows she should. The hand stays. Some part of her wants to feel it wake.’

The bar noise fades. It’s just the voice and the table and the warm counter in a Welsh house, visible behind my eyes.

Celyn looks up, waiting.

‘The hand stays,’ I say.

‘What?’

‘That bit. The hand stays.’ I don’t know what I’m saying. ‘It’s. I know that.’

The face changes. The eyes go wider, the eyeliner making it more visible.

‘What do you mean?’

I mean the hand on the warm thing you shouldn’t be touching. My hand on this table, in this bar, every night this week. The twelve-month contract. The chair. And Celyn’s looking at me, and I.

‘Dunno. Just. Sounded real. That bit.’

Celyn smiles. The full smile, the teeth slightly crooked. The eyes crinkle, the mouth moves, the stubble shifts with the mouth, and my chest drops, like a footing settling. Weight going down, finding ground.

‘Read me more,’ I say. Then: ‘If you want.’