Page 8 of Undefined Terms

He talks with his hands, always has, the wrists loose, shaping the air around every word. Mum used to still them at the table. Dad used to look at the wall. I used to clock which of the lads at school were clocking it, and work out who I’d be having a word with after. Ewan was always exactly this. Visible. I never once wanted him different. That want was other people’s, and I stood in front of it.

Laurence puts a plate down in front of me. Chicken, roasted potatoes, some green thing I can’t name. ‘There’s more if you want it.’

‘Cheers.’

Laurence asks Ewan something about a paper, half maths, half English, the words I don’t follow. Ewan answers without looking up, the fork still in motion; they volley it back and forth like a conversation they’ve been having for three years and never finished. Laurence’s voice has gone Lancashire under the academic, the vowels widening with the second glass of wine. Ewan’s gone the other way, the Lewisham slipping back, the dropped consonants Mum used to flag at the table.

I don’t follow the maths. I follow the rhythm: the way Laurence pauses for Ewan’s correction, the way Ewan starts a sentence and Laurence finishes the half of it that’s symbolic. They’ve built a language. Most of it nobody else can use.

He’s taller than I expected, every time. He looks at Ewan when he thinks nobody’s looking with a thing on his face I can’t place. Like that.

No, not like that.

He’s alright.

The problem with Laurence being alright is it changes what was simple. When I thought he was the thing keeping Ewan from. Whatever. I knew where I stood. On the outside. On the side of the brother, the one who had him first.

The wine helps. Doesn’t fix it but it helps.

Laurence pours a third time, just tops it up, not enough to make it obvious, but enough. I’m already past the point where I’m thinking clearly about it. The kitchen’s warm and the food’s in my stomach and Ewan’s laughing at a proof Laurence mentioned that made no sense to me when Ewan was explaining and makes less sense now.

‘Bottoms up is what you’re supposed to say,’ Ewan’s saying, but he’s laughing and it’s the laugh from school. The one where his whole body does it, not just his mouth. Laurence is watching him like he’s solving him, like Ewan’s a problem he’s been working on for months.

That look. That’s the bit I can’t place.

It’s not possession. Laurence looks astonished that Ewan’s real. Like if he stops watching, Ewan will evaporate.

I know that look because I’m doing something similar to my pint glass. Holding it like if I let go it will vanish.

Laurence catches me looking, not, not at him, around him, at the space. At the table and the wine and the two of them fitting in it like they measured the space before they bought the furniture.

He smiles, just. At me. A proper smile, not the guarded one he does when he’s not sure if I’m going to stab him with the fancy knife.

‘There’s more,’ he says. ‘Always more.’

It’s the most generous thing anyone’s ever said to me without saying it directly.

That’s the problem. Spent a year thinking he was the worst person in the world and he’s alright. Pours the wine without being asked. Remembers I don’t eat mushrooms from the one time I mentioned it. Does this thing where he touches Ewan passing the table, just the fingertips, just a second.

Ewan doesn’t flinch. Leans into it, a centimetre, the move smaller than it should be.

I eat the chicken, it’s proper good. The green thing is some kind of. Kale? Spinach. Whatever it is, Laurence has worked it with lemon and it doesn’t taste like a vegetable and that’s the highest compliment I’ve got.

‘Ron.’

Ewan’s voice. The one that means something.

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re not here.’

‘I’m sat right here.’

‘Your body’s sat right here. The rest of you is somewhere on Oldham Street.’

I cut the chicken, chew. The knife’s too good for me, heavy, balanced, the kind a proper cook owns.

‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’