Page 151 of Undefined Terms

‘We’ve been good. Me and Laurence.’ He stops. Drinks. ‘That’s all. Just. Good.’

‘That’s allowed.’

‘Apparently.’ The kid grin, brief. ‘Took me long enough to believe it.’

I look at him, the face. The way he holds the glass. Easier than it used to be.

‘Good,’ I say.

Pub. Table. Pints.

‘Another round?’ Ewan says.

‘Yeah.’

He goes to the bar. The walk, the narrow shoulders, leaning on the bar with one elbow like he’s way younger. My little brother.

Ewan comes back, two pints, puts mine down.

‘We’re a pair,’ I say.

‘We’re a pair,’ Ewan says. Picks up the glass. Holds it out. I hold mine out. The clink. Cheap glass on cheap glass in a pub in Manchester on a Tuesday.

The Carrick brothers.

Walk home. Route to Celyn’s, I know by muscle now, the turns and the streets and the door with the buzzer that doesn’t work.

The key, their key in my jacket pocket, mine in theirs. Small, warm from my hand.

Lamp, green shade, books, post-its. More now, overlapping. The novel’s map I can’t read but Celyn can navigate in the dark, the laptop open but sleeping.

Celyn’s in the bed, asleep, the hoodie. The hair on the pillow. The breathing that I can hear from the door.

I kick the boots off. Jacket on the chair.

Celyn shifts, doesn’t wake. The hand reaches across the bed. Finds my side, the empty side, the fingers spread on the sheet where I’ll be.

I get in, hand finds my hip, fingers close, breathing stays even, grip stays.

Both of you, Dad’s words.

Both of you, Mum’s words.

I close my eyes. Celyn’s hand on my hip. The key on the table. The pub in my blood and the brother in the city and the father in Lewisham and the ceiling with no stars because this is Celyn’s flat and the stars are at mine.

Both here.

Both of you, Dad said on the phone. Both of you, Mum said in the living room. Same words. Dad meant: this is wrong. Mum meant: you’re both mine, and that’s enough.

I’m not going to fix Dad, that’s not my weight. Ewan said nobody could sit that exam for me. I thought he meant strangers. He meant this. The only thing I control is whether I stay close or move far. I moved far, from London, from the version of me that was waiting. And then I moved close. To the bar, the table, the person. The thing that reaches out and holds even in sleep.

That’s the choice. The key catches the lamplight from the street. A small gold flicker on the table in the dark.

I sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The A498 doesn’t look like a real road. Too narrow, too green. The hedges come at you from both sides and the ewes and their lambs are on the tarmac like they’ve got right of way and I’m doing twenty in second gear with both hands on the wheel because the rental Corsa doesn’t know what to do with hills and neither do I.