Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Celyn’s not here. Every night this week, every night, the corner table, the laptop, the mug with the tag hanging over the rim. Tonight the table’s empty and the laptop bag isn’t hooked on the chair and I’m sat looking at a table like it owes me something.
I check my phone, nothing. The last message, Night, Ronan, two days ago. I haven’t sent anything since. Don’t know what I’d say. You about tonight? Sounds needy. Pint? Sounds normal. That’s the problem. It isn’t.
I drink half the pint, order a second. The door opens on a couple, not Celyn. The door opens on a bloke on his own, not Celyn. The door.
The door.
Different tonight, all of it.
A dress, dark green, stops above the knee. The hair’s down, loose, moving when the head turns. The lips are red, proper red, not the dark colour from the other night. And the eyes have got more on them. The whole face is arranged, like it was done on purpose.
Celyn crosses the bar and I watch the legs move and the dress move with them and the boots click on the floor and there’s a chain at the throat, silver, thin, catching the light. And the nails, not orange anymore. Bright red, same as the mouth.
No stubble, smooth. The skin where yesterday there was, where the other night there was.
I know this face. I’ve sat across from this face for a week. But tonight the face is, she looks, they look different.
She, no, they.
The same person, the same table. The same half-smile when they see me looking. A stranger on the street tonight would think: girl. Fit. Look twice and not wonder why.
I’m not a stranger. I know what’s under the red: the stubble two nights ago, the voice, the way they read me across the table before I’d said a word. The dress doesn’t change what my body’s doing. Neither did the hoodie. That’s the bit I haven’t got a word for. It was never the dress.
‘What.’ Celyn puts the bag down. Sits. The dress rides up an inch above the knee and the tights make the skin look darker. There’s a smell coming off them, citrus, warm underneath, close.
‘Nothing.’
‘You looked at my legs.’
I drink the pint too fast and there’s foam on my lip. Wipe it.
‘You can look. I don’t mind.’
Then Celyn looks back. Properly, not the writer-glance. The eyes go down my forearms where the polo sleeves end, the site-tan, the scratch on one knuckle, and back up to my mouth, slow, not pretending they’re not doing it.
‘Fair’s fair.’ The voice drops. ‘You think I never clocked you? All those weekends. The big quiet one at the counter, looking and looking, never once coming over.’ The half-smile. ‘I had your face a long time before I had your name, Ronan. You’re not subtle. Neither am I. I just hide it better.’
Celyn opens the laptop. The red nails on the keys. The same ring, the same hands. But different. The dress and the smell.
‘You’re staring, Ronan.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You’ve been staring since I walked in.’
‘I’m checking the structure.’
‘Mm.’ The chin tilts. Celyn doesn’t pull the dress back down, lets me look. ‘And? Sound, is it.’
‘Load-bearing.’
Something crosses the red mouth, gone before it lands.
I pick up my glass. Don’t drink. ‘You look.’ The word’s not there. ‘Different. Tonight.’
‘Mm.’ Not flattered, not offended. ‘Different how?’
I don’t answer, can’t.
‘You look. Nice.’
Celyn types, doesn’t look up. But the corner of the red mouth lifts. One second, then gone.
Ewan’s at the bar.
He’s there at the counter ordering, the jumper with the hole in the elbow, the same face as mine but younger and sharper. He sees me before I see him. His eyes go to my table, to Celyn, back to me. Something crosses his face, quick, gone, filed.
He doesn’t come over.
He orders his drink and stands at the counter. Pulls his phone out, scrolls, drinks, doesn’t look at me again. Three minutes, then he leaves.
My phone buzzes.
Nice bar.
I read them and I hear everything he’s not saying. The Christmas phone call. The pub in Lewisham where I couldn’t shut up about a table and a pair of hands. The months of texts where I didn’t mention the bar and Ewan didn’t ask because he already knew.
I put the phone away. Celyn’s eyes on the screen, the dress fabric shifting against the thigh when they cross their legs. The perfume’s still there. Stronger now. The bar’s warm and the warmth pulls it out.
‘Friend of yours?’ Celyn says. Not looking up.
‘Brother.’
The typing stops. ‘You have a brother.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Older or younger?’
‘Younger. Ewan.’ I pick at the edge of my beer mat. ‘He’s, he lives here. Chorlton. With his.’ The word. Which word. ‘Partner.’
‘Ah.’ Celyn types. ‘He didn’t come over.’
‘Nah.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’s like that,’ I say. ‘Comes and goes.’
The eyes are lined. The mouth is red. A look I wasn’t expecting.
‘I like that he came,’ Celyn says. Then types again.
I finish my pint.
The walk. The NQ at half ten, the streets emptier, the shops dark. A cab idles at the corner, someone’s laughing down the block. The cold’s January, finding the gap between collar and neck.
My boots are heavy on the pavement, the site boots, the ones I wear everywhere because I haven’t bought others. Walking through Manchester in site boots and a jacket my brother hates and the smell of a pint and the image of a dress and the message on the phone screen.
Nice bar. Not: who’s that. Not: is she your girlfriend. Not: Ron, we need to talk. Just: you’re there, you sit with them, nice bar.
He knew before I did. Ewan always knows before I do. The clever bastard with the dark eyes and the jumper with the hole and the brother who couldn’t say hello to a person at a table for weeks, he knew. Probably knew at Christmas when I couldn’t shut up about a bar.
The flat on Tib Street, the brick wall, the nail.
I get in. Jacket off, boots off, the jeans stay on. I sit on the sofa, stand up, sit on the bed. The same ceiling, five days in.
The red nails, bright as a postbox, the same shade as the mouth. The chain in the hollow of the collarbone, the throat, the place where the pulse is.
The legs. The inch of thigh above the knee where the dress sat when Celyn crossed their legs and the tights darkened the skin and I looked and Celyn said you can look and meant it.
My hand, my jeans. I try to make it the dress. Doesn’t hold. I try to make it the stubble. Doesn’t hold. It’s Celyn. Same want.
I come with something in my mouth that might be a name.
Two times now. That’s not nothing.
Both.
Morning, alarm, six fifteen. The pillow’s got the dent from my face and the cotton smells like me. Just me. And whatever I said into it.
I shower, don’t think about it. No moment where the brain steps in and says hold on. Just the water, just the moving through.
Site at seven. The hands on the trowel, the concrete, the level. The same hands, somewhere else eight hours ago. The concrete doesn’t care: between last night’s pillow and this morning’s pour there’s no gap anyone can see.
But the hands know. They remember the cotton and the mouth shape and the name.
And the phone in my pocket has Celyn’s name at the top of the thread and I haven’t replied and the not-replying is its own kind of reply.
The one that says: not ready. Ewan was ready.
Ewan texted Laurence back the same night and lost Dad over a kitchen table.
At lunch I open the thread. Celyn. Night, Ronan. I close the phone without typing.
The phone knows. The trowel knows and the pillow knows and the dress and the three-day stubble both know. Everyone knows except me and even I’m starting to suspect.
The trowel, the concrete.