Page 93 of Undefined Terms

Celyn laughs, in Welsh. The laugh’s the same but the setup was Welsh and the punchline was Welsh and whatever’s funny is funny in a language I’ll never speak. The full laugh, rare, head thrown back. Catrin. Mam. The voice on the other end, can’t hear the words. Can feel it.

I drink my tea, the darts, the seventeen millimetres. The living room in Manchester with the Welsh in the kitchen and the English on the telly and me between them understanding half of each.

Celyn’s voice drops, the laugh goes, the tone changes. Not sad, not angry. Serious. The serious Welsh, tighter, faster. I catch a word, tad, father, and brawd, brother. Then something longer that I don’t know and Celyn’s hand goes to the forehead and pushes the hair back and the gesture is the tired one, the one I know.

Then quieter. The hand. Back of the neck. There.

A long silence, Celyn listening, the tea, the feet.

Then: a sentence in English. Halfway through, like it broke surface. ‘Yeah, Mam, he’s here now.’

The he is me.

More Welsh. The tone that’s. Warm. Kitchen-warm.

‘Diolch, Mam. Caru ti.’

Phone comes down. Celyn stands at the counter. Back to me. Shoulder blades under the t-shirt. Silence.

I wait, the darts, the crowd. The telly doing its job. Filling the room so Celyn doesn’t have to fill it yet.

Celyn comes to the sofa. Sits, a cushion between us. Celyn close means come here. Cushion means wait.

I wait.

‘She asked if I’m seeing someone.’ The voice flat. The post-phone-call voice. ‘I said yes. She asked if it’s a boy.’ A beat. ‘I said it’s a man called Ronan. She said “Oh. That’s nice.” Which is Mum-code for seventeen follow-up questions she’s saving for Christmas.’

My hands are nowhere. The pint glass is in the kitchen. The remote’s on the floor. Hands on my knees. Solid. Fine.

‘She knows about me.’

‘She knows I like men, she got there years ago, no drama.’ Celyn’s head tilts. The half-smile that isn’t really a smile. The one that’s been used too many times for this conversation. ‘It’s how to talk to me she can’t manage. The pronoun. She’s read the Wikipedia page. Twice. She still says he.’

‘Does that matter.’

‘It used to.’ Celyn picks at the hem of the t-shirt. The fingers working the thread. ‘Now it’s just weather.’

Weather, you get the jacket.

‘Dad’s different,’ Celyn says. Looking at the thread. ‘Dad says he and hears himself do it, every time, and it lands on him after. Mam says he and forgets. Dad’s the one trying so hard you can watch it cost him. Different things.’

‘Owain, my brother, he got it first try. Rang me up and said “right, so I tell the kids what exactly?” Told him. He said “sorted.” That was it. Never slipped once.’

‘Good.’

‘He’s like that. Owain. Efficient about love.’ The thread pulls. Celyn lets it go. ‘The kids just say Celyn. No aunt, no uncle, nobody sat them down. To them it was never a question with two wrong answers, it was only ever my name.’ A beat. ‘Easiest people in that family, the under-fives.’

I think I’m more like the kids than the grown-ups on this. You learn the name because it’s theirs, and after a while you just know it, and it stops being a thing you’re getting right.

‘Your mum knows about me,’ I say. My name in a kitchen in Snowdonia. A house I’ve never seen. A village I can’t pronounce.

‘She knows your name. She knows you work in construction. She knows you’re from London.’ A pause. ‘She asked if you were tall.’

‘What’d you say?’

‘I said you could probably reach the top shelf without the stool and she said “oh, that’s useful.”’

I almost, the laugh catches, doesn’t come out, sits in the chest.