Page 71 of Undefined Terms

‘Does he know.’

‘No.’

Celyn’s hand stays. Celyn looks at me, the green underneath. Your move, the look says. Or maybe it says nothing and I’m making a thing out of a hand on my hand in a pub on a Thursday.

Gaz finishes the pint, puts the glass down, walks to the door. On the way past our table he nods. At me, at me. The nod that means: I’ve seen something. Filing it, haven’t decided where.

‘Night, Ron.’

‘Night, mate.’

The door closes, the cold air goes, the jukebox changes song. And the thing in my throat, the one that arrived when his eyes found the table, doesn’t go with it. Stays. Like something I swallowed wrong and can’t. Celyn takes the hand back. Retrieving. Puts both hands around the pint.

‘You alright?’ I ask.

‘Yep. You?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Fair.’

I drink, Northern Soul, pub, table. Laptop closed now, Celyn’s foot still against mine. A nod, a jacket disappearing through the door. Whatever just happened.

Morning, and the site’s back. The scaffold’s been signed off, new brackets, new boards, the engineer’s stamp on the clipboard. The lads come back in twos and threes, like they do when something’s happened and nobody wants to be first but nobody wants to be last. Kenny first, Jay second. Dean with the Guinness-coloured thermos. Thomas late.

No Marek.

I do the briefing: new brackets, new regs, the HSE follow-up due Friday. The lads listen, nod, ask nothing. The questions they’d normally ask, how long’s the pour, who’s on the mixer, can we swap the Thursday shift, don’t come. Just nods, just boots shuffling on the gravel and eyes that go to the scaffold and come back and go to the scaffold again.

The drill starts on the east wall. The site sounds like a site. But quieter. The banter’s gone, the radio’s off, and when the new agency lad climbs the scaffold to take Marek’s position, three lads stop what they’re doing and watch him clip the harness. Check the board. Check the bracket. Check the harness again. Nobody says anything. Nobody has to.

By noon, Dean has checked his own harness four times. I counted. Jay won’t go above the first level, says his knee’s playing up, and maybe it is. Thomas puts his hard hat on in the portacabin, which he’s never done, and leaves it on through tea break, and I don’t tell him he looks daft because he doesn’t look daft. He looks like a man who heard a body hit the ground.

Gaz arrives at seven fifteen. Normal. Boots, hi-vis, the thermos with the football sticker. Nods at me, carries on. The one who acts like nothing’s changed, which is its own kind of tell.

Tea break, ten thirty, the portacabin: Gaz and me and the kettle and the mugs and the biscuits. Digestives, always digestives, from the Asda on the way in and nobody checks.

He stirs his tea, I stir mine, the spoon on the mug, the digestive I’m not eating.

‘So,’ Gaz says. Looking at the tea. The spoon going round. ‘Celyn’s not a⁠—’

He stops. Doesn’t finish the sentence. Lets the word hang.

My tea. The spoon on the ceramic. The silence is mine to fill and I don’t fill it, because filling it fast would look like I’d rehearsed. I let Gaz watch me not rush. Let the portacabin breathe with the kettle cooling and the radio outside doing its low thing.

‘No,’ I say.

Gaz nods, the spoon stops; he takes a sip and puts the mug down.

‘Right. Cool.’ He picks up a digestive. Bites it. Chews. ‘None of my business.’

He goes back to the site. The drill, the east wall. The morning that keeps being morning.

I stand in the portacabin with the mug and the biscuit and the sentence. None of my business.

Four words. The best four words and the worst four words. The best because they’re not what the fuck, Ron or you’re having a laugh or the silence that’s worse than words. The worst because none of my business means: I’ve put this in a drawer. Which means Celyn goes in a drawer. Which means what I am goes in a drawer. Which means the hand on mine, the skirt, the stubble. The foot under the table. The canal bench, the eggs. The key, all of it in a drawer Gaz shut. Don’t know if it opens.

But he didn’t walk away. He said right. He said cool. He bought the digestives.