Chapter 14 #2
Celyn’s got a notebook, leather, small, expensive.
It sits on the nightstand next to a pen with no cap.
Sometimes Celyn writes in it at three in the morning.
I’ve woken up to the scratch of the pen, the small light from the phone.
I’ve never asked what gets written; it’s not my business.
The notebook’s in a language the flat doesn’t speak.
But the thing I can’t shake is this: Celyn knows what to do. The mam saying Wel, that’s going to take some getting used to and meaning it. My family hasn’t got that. My family’s got the volume turned down.
The person who knows how to say neither to their mam like it’s a flavour choice and gets an answer. If I bring that home, Dad’s at the table and I say I’m with Celyn and he asks what’s wrong with this one, then in the voice that makes it clear there’s something wrong with all of them.
I don’t know if I’m brave enough for Dad to find out. I don’t know if I’m brave enough for him not to find out and have to sit at Christmas pretending the person I’m with doesn’t exist. That’s a different kind of weight.
The crack in the ceiling.
In the morning I’ll answer Mum. Or I won’t.
The problem is I love them and the problem is my father and the problem is there’s no version of Christmas where both of those facts fit at the same table.
I put my arm over the side of the bed. Reach for the floor, the boots. The hi-vis, the concrete and the steel don’t ask about any of it. They just need the work done.
Key in the lock.
The kettle’s cold. Two mugs on the board, Celyn’s and the one with the chip, both clean, both upside down.
I check the cooker time. Eight oh four. Restaurant night. Celyn’s home by half-eleven, not before, not at eight.
‘Celyn?’
Bedroom door, half-shut. The lamp’s on, the warm one. I push the door open and the boots are still wet from the rain that started half-three and didn’t stop.
Celyn’s on the bed. Not under the covers, on top. Knees pulled up. Hoodie, joggers, hair tied back with the cheap tie from the corner shop.
The face is blank.
Not sleep-blank. Blank like the lamp’s on but nobody’s looked at the wall yet.
‘Hiya.’ My voice that sounds like nothing.
Celyn looks at me. The eyes find me. Take a second. Two.
‘Hiya.’ The Welsh in it, the way it goes up at the end, but quieter, like the breath underneath ran out before the word did.
Right.
I don’t ask. The asking’s the thing Celyn taught me not to do, the first month, when I asked too much and Celyn said if I want you to know, I’ll tell you. If I’m quiet, it’s not your job.
Boots come off in the hallway, hi-vis on the hook. Polo off, t-shirt on, the soft one with the hole in the collar, the one Celyn calls mine because nothing else gets to be mine. Soap, water at the kitchen sink. Kettle on.
The work’s still on me. Dust under the nails. Smell of wet concrete in the polo I changed out of. The day landed somewhere I haven’t checked. Leave it.
Two mugs, Celyn’s and the blue one. Celyn’s gets the strong stuff, the loose leaf from the Welsh import place in Levenshulme, a splash of milk, one sugar. Mine builders, three sugars, milk like emulsion paint.
Carry both back. Knock the door open with the elbow. Celyn hasn’t moved.
I put Celyn’s mug on the nightstand, next to the notebook: leather, small, expensive. The pen’s there. No cap.
‘Tea.’
A nod. Smaller than usual.
I sit on the edge of the bed. Not close. Two feet down, my back against the headboard, the cheap wood creaking as it takes the weight.
I drink. Tea’s too hot. I drink it anyway. The shoulders come down for the first time today. Didn’t know they were up. The neck. Somewhere along the day they locked, the lot of them. Now they unlock one at a time, the way they always do.
Celyn’s mug sits. Goes cold over ten minutes, fifteen.
The flat’s quiet, the sort of quiet a flat goes when nobody’s reaching for anything. The fridge clicks on. The fridge clicks off. Outside, a car passes, the tyres on the wet road, a hiss and gone.
The rain that’s been on since half-three keeps on, comes in waves, heavy then light then heavy. The window’s got a hairline split at the corner the landlord said he’d fix in October. The damp’s coming through, wallpaper’s bubbled.
On the chair by the window, the books. The Welsh-English dictionary Celyn keeps near. The novel with the cover I can’t read the title of—three-quarters through. The paper bookmark sticking out at the angle Celyn likes. The angle hasn’t moved in days. I clock it. I don’t say.
Celyn shifts. The legs unfold. The hand reaches for it. The fingers don’t grip first time. It stays on the wood. The hand moves again, slower, the fingers close, the mug comes up.
The wrist is shaking.
Not a lot. The shake you’d miss if you weren’t looking.
Small high-frequency thing the muscle does when it’s been holding too long.
I know it from the site, the drill lads at half-five.
I know it from Dean once, a winter when his daughter was in hospital.
I know it from a lad on the Rotherhithe job in ’17 whose name I can’t get back, who turned up in March and was gone by April.
The shake means hold on. The shake means the body’s been told something the head won’t say.
Celyn drinks. The throat moves. It goes back, misses the coaster, the bottom of the ceramic clicks the wood.
Celyn doesn’t reach to fix it.
Right.
I don’t say anything about the mug. The mug’s not what’s happening.
The phone on the nightstand buzzes. Celyn doesn’t look.
The buzz stops, starts, stops. The name’s up long enough for me to read it before the screen dies.
Rhi. The one who reads the pages first, the one Celyn texts back inside a minute.
Tonight it rings out. Three times. They’ve had it out about something, the two of them, and the something’s in the room with us now. In the wrist. In the crossed-out word.
After a while, no idea how long, Celyn says ‘Sorry.’ Quiet.
The word’s small. Smaller than it should be coming from a mouth that says everything else loud.
‘Don’t.’
‘I’m not, I’m not—’
The sentence stops. Doesn’t reach for another one.
‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘You don’t need to.’
The face turns away. Towards the wall. The shoulders go up an inch, the way shoulders do when someone’s trying not to be seen.
I don’t reach. The hand wants to. I keep it on the mug.