Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The pour goes wrong.
The pump clogs at the coupling and the mix backs up and half an hour of work turns into two hours of clearing, hosing, resetting. Dave goes purple. The crane operator radios down to ask if we need a break and Dave tells him where to put the break and the line goes dead.
I’m on the hose, Dean on the coupling, Gaz holding the light because the clouds came in at noon and the third floor’s got no electricals yet. Thomas’s somewhere. Probably the portacabin, probably his phone, probably skiving.
The thing about concrete is: you can’t stop it.
Once it’s mixed it’s setting. You’ve got four hours, maybe five, and the clock doesn’t care about your pump or your coupling or Dave’s blood pressure.
So you move, you fix. You clear the line and you re-prime and you pour and by the time the mix is in the forms and the vibrator’s running the air pockets out, your shoulders are done and your hands are raw and the light’s going.
I screed the surface with the trowel flat, wrist turning, the same motion every time. The surface goes smooth, good, solid. A surface you’d trust tomorrow.
‘Alright?’ Dean says. Next to me. Both of us on our knees on the boards, the screed between us, the grey surface catching the last of the light.
‘Alright.’
We look at the pour. Two blokes on their knees looking at concrete. The wind picks up. Somewhere below, Dave’s still swearing at the pump.
Dean nods, goes to clean up. I stay one more minute, the surface setting, the building getting taller.
Some days the work’s all there is and the work’s enough.
Saturday morning.
The flat’s different.
Same brick, same crack in the ceiling, same nail where the landlord didn’t bother, but the flat’s different and it takes me a full minute to see it.
The charger: Celyn’s phone charger plugged into the wall next to mine.
The white cable, the one with the crack in the coating near the plug.
It’s been there for. Don’t know. A week, two.
Celyn plugged it in one Tuesday and never took it back and I never said don’t you need this at yours and now it lives in my wall socket like it’s got a lease.
The toothbrush in the bathroom: green, not-mine-green.
Mine’s the purple. The shampoo in the shower that isn’t mine, the mug on the counter, the one Celyn brought over the morning after the first time and it’s been here for.
I count, six weeks. The mug has been here longer than some of the blokes on site.
The key on the brass ring.
I’m lying in bed and Celyn’s next to me and the flat is full of things that aren’t mine and I don’t remember deciding this. Don’t remember a conversation. The things arrived and stayed because Celyn arrived and stayed and both of those facts are in the walls now.
Celyn’s head on my chest.
But present. The skull, the hair, the breath that hits the skin in a rhythm I didn’t ask for but my breathing matches anyway.
My hand’s in the hair. Don’t remember putting it there.
The fingers doing what they do now, separating strands, finding the scalp, the slow drag that makes Celyn’s eyes close.
The flat smells like us. Like the sheets need washing and the window needs opening and neither of us is going to do either of those things.
‘Beddgelert,’ Celyn says. Into my chest. The word muffled.
‘What?’
‘Where I’m from. Beddgelert.’ The accent does something to the word. Wraps around it, makes the consonants soft. ‘Snowdonia. Tiny village. One pub. One church. One shop that sells postcards and fudge and those little slate things with Welsh words on.’
The words don’t sit right.
‘My dad’s a postman. Was. He’s retired now. Mam works at the B&B. Reception. She knows everyone’s business before they walk through the door.’ A breath. ‘I’ve got a brother. Owain. Older. Married. Two kids. Lives in Wrexham.’
‘Right.’
‘Normal family. That’s what I’m saying. Dead normal.’
Celyn’s breath on my ribs.
‘Dad still says “he.”’ The voice you use for a thing you’ve said a hundred times. ‘Every time. “How’s he doing.” “Has he got a job yet.” “Tell him his mam wants a call.” I’ve told him. Owain has told him. Mam’s told him. He nods. Says “right, right.” Next sentence: “he.”’
The fingers in the hair stop. I start them again.
‘Mam’s different. First time I told her she sat quiet for about ten minutes and then she said, and this is word for word, “So are you a boy or a girl, then?” And I laughed.
I wasn’t, it wasn’t funny. But she asked it like she was asking if I wanted tea or coffee and the face she made was, she really wanted the answer. Like there was one.’
‘What’d you say?’
‘I said “neither.” She said “Wel, that’s going to take some getting used to.” Never asked again.’
Flat, lamp, crack. Celyn shifts, the chin moving, the jaw against my sternum. I feel the stubble, two days. The scratch of it on skin that’s already—
‘They love me,’ Celyn says. ‘They don’t get me. Different things.’
Love and getting, two different things.
‘My dad stopped talking to my brother,’ I say.
Celyn doesn’t move. The breathing steady.
‘Ewan. Because he’s gay. Not, he didn’t say “I’m not talking to you.” He doesn’t do that. He just, stopped. Like someone turned the volume down. Ewan comes home for Christmas and Dad’s in the room and they’re both in the room and there’s a wall.
‘There’s nothing. Mum fills it. She fills all of it. Talks enough for three people. And Ewan pretends it’s fine and Dad pretends it’s fine and I sit there and eat the turkey and it’s not fine.’
I stop, the ceiling, the crack.
‘It’s not fine.’
Celyn’s hand finds my ribs. The fingers, the nails, green, chipped now, the emerald gone to islands. The touch is light.
‘And you?’ Celyn says. ‘What happens when he finds out about you?’
The question. The question that’s been in the room since, since Gaz’s nod, since the canal bench, since the key, since the first time Celyn’s mouth was on mine and everything went sideways and I pretended it hadn’t.
I know the answer. Know it before I think it. The answer is: the volume goes down. The answer is: another son in the room and nothing between us. The answer is: Mum fills the silence until the silence gets her too.
I don’t say any of it.
Celyn’s hand still. The stubble.
‘Ron.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You don’t have to answer.’
‘I know.’
The ceiling, the crack. The answer I didn’t give sitting in my throat like something swallowed wrong.
I know exactly what happens.
Celyn falls asleep. The breathing goes deep and even and the hand on my ribs goes slack.
I don’t sleep.
The question’s in the room. It’s got a shape.
The shape of a Christmas dinner. The table, the crackers.
The paper crowns that nobody wears past the first course.
Mum’s roast and the potatoes she does with the goose fat and Dad in his chair at the head and Ewan opposite me and the gap where the words should be.
Celyn breathes. The flat full of things that aren’t mine.
I lie there, two in the morning, three. The streetlight through the blinds. Stripes on the wall, on the ceiling, on the duvet. Celyn’s mug. I can see it from the bed if I lift my head. The outline of it in the dark. The chip on the rim.
The mug’s been here six weeks. The question’s been here longer.
Morning, the alarm, six fifteen.
I get up without waking Celyn, slide the arm out slow, replace it with the pillow. Shower, teeth, the green toothbrush next to mine. The mirror, same face. Probably the light.
The hands know where everything goes, the hard hat, the thermos, the door, while the brain’s at Christmas dinner.
Site at seven. I work, the hands do what hands do: the trowel, the level, the concrete that doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t change shape.
At lunch I sit in the portacabin with a sandwich and tea, the phone on the table.
A message from Celyn.
The ginger cat’s back. He’s sitting on the bin outside the bar like a furry gargoyle. I’ve named him Dave.
I look at the message. No emoji. None. Celyn doesn’t use emojis in texts. Just words, specific words.
I type: My Dave or cat Dave?
Three dots. Then: Cat Dave has better management skills.
Then, before I’ve put the phone down: You left this morning without saying goodbye properly.
I type: I said goodbye.
Three dots. Then: With your mouth, Ronan. We had a system. The system involved you under the duvet and paying attention.
Twenty-seven years old, on a site, and Celyn can put me on the back foot with three sentences.
Phone in the pocket, pick up the sandwich, the bread’s gone soft, the portacabin’s warm. Dean is on his phone. Gaz is on about Stockport again.
The question from last night is still in me. Somewhere below the sandwich, below the tea. It’s there, sat in the gut. Just, there.
I eat the sandwich. Bin the crust. Go back to the pour.
I swing the vibrator into the mix too hard.
The concrete splashes up the formwork, grey on the plywood, and Gaz flinches back.
‘Steady, boss.’ I don’t answer. Just grip the shaft and lower the angle and the body’s too loud today, the body’s angry at something the head hasn’t named yet, and the vibrator hums and the bubbles rise and I push it deeper than I need to because pushing things is what I’ve got.
Five o’clock, the walk home, through the door with my key into the hallway that smells like toast because Celyn was here at lunch.
Celyn’s gone. Shift at the restaurant. The flat’s mine again except it isn’t. The shape of the flat has changed. Something underneath changed while I wasn’t looking. Can’t put it back.
I fill the kettle, one cup.
Celyn’s mug upside down on the board. Waiting.
I know exactly what happens when Dad finds out. I’ve known since before Christmas, since Ewan sat across the table and the volume went down and stayed down and nobody looked at anyone.
I know.
The kettle clicks. I pour. The steam.
I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.