Page 32 of Undefined Terms

I make tea. The mug’s got a chip on the rim. I drink it standing up, looking at the window. Manchester’s not up yet, just the streetlights, a taxi idling somewhere.

My phone on the counter. Celyn’s last message: the house says goodnight. So do I. Sent at midnight. I’d replied: night.

I drink the tea. The dream’s fading, the edges going soft. The middle sticks. It always sticks.

The washing machine clicks on. The sheets turning in the drum. Five in the morning. A goodnight from a person who writes about houses that won’t hold a shape.

The site, seven, Block C, the formwork for the east section. Checking the levels, the plumb lines, how the boards sit against the temporary supports. The hands know this, a level, a pencil. The body stops remembering what other hands feel like on a belt buckle.

For about twenty minutes.

The east section needs the pump dialled back. Pressure too high, the concrete’s getting air in the joints where it shouldn’t be. I adjust the settings, and Gaz watches me do it like he’s trying to understand the maths instead of just trusting the hands.

‘You sure about that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Dave didn’t say nothing about the pump.’

‘Dave doesn’t tell you to breathe either, but you manage it.’

Gaz shuts up. Dean is already on the far side of the formwork, level in one hand, the other arm holding the guide straight. He’s got a smudge of concrete across his jacket, doesn’t care. Dean cares about the work. Everything else is noise.

The phone buzzes. I feel it before I hear it. The back pocket. Text. I don’t look. If I look, Gaz will know. Gaz knows everything, the girl in Stockport, his cat photo, the shape of his own lack of sense. If he clocks I’m not thinking about the pour, he’ll talk for an hour.

Instead I check the level. Good, the line’s plumb, everything’s holding.

Dave walks past. ‘Pump looking good?’

‘Sorted.’

‘East section’s next. I need this one smooth.’

I nod. Dave walks on. That’s a conversation, Dave-style: no extra words, no questions.

If he asked what’s wrong, I’d have to say: nothing. Dream about a person, person’s real. Been working with hands for years and suddenly they don’t know what to do with the person. Works fine with concrete, breaks with words.

The pump hums, the concrete flows.

‘You alright, boss?’ Gaz again. ‘Not grinning today.’

‘I’m thinking.’

‘Gaz, work,’ Dave says, passing, and Gaz goes.

I check the levels. The plumb line hangs straight. The formwork’s clean, everything measured, everything holding.

The dream sits in me like something in my pocket. Can’t be bothered taking it out. Can’t stop feeling it.

Lunch, the portacabin, sandwich, tea. Gaz is on about the Stockport girl, who’s texted him a photo of her cat. Apparently a big deal. Jay shakes his head, Dean eats his sandwich.

I close my eyes, the portacabin’s warm, the chair’s the same plastic chair.

Behind my eyes: the dream. The bit before. The bit where Celyn’s voice said something in Welsh and I didn’t understand and the not-understanding was. Fine.

I open my eyes, finish the tea.

The bar at six fifteen. I’ve timed it: five minutes walk, shower and change done in twenty.