Page 89 of Undefined Terms

I look at the goat. Celyn’s grinning, waiting.

‘That’s not funny.’

‘It’s very funny.’

‘It’s a goat.’

‘On a building site. In hi-vis. Ron. A week.’

I don’t get why this is funny. It’s a goat in a vest. Goats are on sites sometimes. Animals wander on.

‘You’re not laughing,’ Celyn says.

‘I’m not a goat person.’

‘Everyone’s a goat person.’

Celyn takes the phone back, goes back to typing. The grin stays for a while. It fades as the words take over and the focus goes wherever Celyn goes when the writing’s happening and I’m just standing here.

The flat, later, nine, maybe ten. Lost track.

Celyn’s on the sofa with the laptop, the trainers off, kicked into the corner, one upright, one on its side. The feet are bare, the socks peeled off somewhere between the door and the cushion.

The toenails.

I’m in the kitchen making another tea. Four teas in one evening. Don’t know when that started. The feet are on the armrest, the toes curled slightly, and the nails are beautiful.

Purple. Violet. The same violet that was on the fingers before it chipped away. Like the fingers got the wear and the feet kept the secret.

Jeans and grey t-shirt and bare face and the toenails are violet. Nobody would know. Nobody except whoever’s close enough to see.

I bring the tea. Put the mug on the arm of the sofa. Sit.

The telly’s on, football, something in the league. Bottom half, two sides I’ve got no investment in. The commentary’s the kind where the bloke sounds like he’s narrating a documentary about paint drying. I watch it, don’t watch it.

Celyn closes the laptop. Sets it down. Gentle, always gentle with the laptop. Shifts, moves closer. The weight settling against my side. My arm goes around. The arm knows.

Celyn’s hand, under my t-shirt. Just the flat palm on my stomach.

The football, the commentary. The rain starting against the window. The sound of it, light, the sort that turns heavy by midnight.

Celyn’s breathing changes, slower. The weight gets heavier on my side. The stubble, one day’s worth, against my collarbone.

I don’t move, the telly talks, the rain falls. The hand stays on my stomach and the breathing stays slow and Celyn is asleep. On my shoulder, on a Tuesday, at ten o’clock. With violet toenails and a grey t-shirt and nothing on the face and the laptop on the floor and a novel half-written.

I reach for the remote. Turn the volume down. The noise low enough to not wake anyone and loud enough to fill the room.

The rain, the hand, the breathing.

It’s Tuesday, nothing happened.

The best night I’ve had in a long time and nothing happened.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I’ve never been in a restaurant. Pubs, yeah, chippies, the Wetherspoons on the Old Kent Road where everything comes with chips and the menu’s got thirty pages and none of it’s food. But a restaurant, tablecloths, glasses that aren’t pint glasses, someone bringing bread you didn’t ask for, nah.

Celyn’s restaurant, small, twelve tables, maybe fourteen. The lighting warm, the kind that’s warm on purpose. The walls are dark, green, maybe, or navy, hard to tell. Plants on shelves, music I can’t place, something with a guitar and a voice that sounds like it’s singing in a room, not a studio.