Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Same pub, same table. Same five pints of whatever’s on, Estrella tonight, the Stella’s off.
Gaz is already talking about the Stockport match.
Jay’s on his phone. Thomas’s got a bag of dry roasted he’s not sharing.
Dean is doing the crossword in the Standard that someone left on the bar.
Dave’s not here yet, Dave’s never here before quarter past.
I drink, the Estrella’s shit. Too cold, too fizzy, tastes like someone described lager to a machine and the machine had a go.
The sentence is half out already. I said it at the site the week after Celyn came back, Gaz and Dave, over the crossword. The same shape that lived in my pocket once for ‘Mum, I’m seeing someone,’ before I said it on a Thursday. This time it’s the whole table.
I’m with someone, their name’s Celyn, they use ‘they.’
I’ve said it to Gaz and Dave already, the once. Not to Jay, not to Thomas, not with all of them round one table at the same time. The words are ready. The mouth, with everyone watching, is not.
Gaz is on about a penalty. Jay’s on about VAR.
Thomas’s eating crisps with his mouth open.
Dean fills in a word. The noise of the pub, the fruit machine, the telly, someone laughing too loud by the bar.
Friday noise. The noise that used to be the only noise and now there’s another one, the one in my head.
Tell them. Since I woke up and showered and went to site and poured and levelled and checked and came here.
Five blokes. The five I spend more time with than anyone except Celyn. They know how I take my tea and which sandwich I eat and how I check the formwork with my hands before my eyes. The site Ron.
Dave arrives, pint already in hand, got it at the bar. Sits, drinks, nods at everyone, the Dave nod. The one that means: I’m here, don’t make a fuss.
Six, six blokes now. The sentence in my pocket getting heavier.
I drink, half the pint’s gone. My knee’s bouncing under the table. Gaz clocks it.
‘You alright?’
‘Yeah. Just checking.’
‘Cold out there. Fucking February.’
It’s not the cold, it’s the sentence. The one that came out easier than I thought and harder than I thought and the sentence is out there now.
‘I’m with someone.’
Gaz stops mid-sip. Jay looks up from the phone. Thomas chews. Dean doesn’t look up from the crossword. Dave drinks.
‘Their name’s Celyn. They use “they.”’
The pub. The laugh by the bar. The Estrella, everything still going. The sentence sitting in the middle of the table like a round nobody’s claiming.
Gaz puts his glass down. Looks at me, the look that knew. Saw me at the bar with painted nails and a jawline and didn’t ask and now I’ve made it his business and he’s here.
‘I know,’ Gaz says.
That’s it, the shrug in them.
And then he picks up the glass and drinks and the conversation about the penalty resumes like I said nothing.
Jay puts the phone in his pocket. Slowly, takes a drink, doesn’t look at me, doesn’t look away, looks at the table. The space between his pint and the ashtray nobody uses because you can’t smoke inside.
Silence, from Jay, Jay always has words. The match, the weekend, the bird he’s texting. Jay’s silence is a new shape.
He drinks, puts the glass down. The condensation ring on the table. He draws a line through it with his finger.
Thomas folds the crisp bag. Once, twice, the foil crinkling.
‘Right,’ Thomas says.
The shutter. The absence of it.
Thomas stands up. ‘Getting another. Anyone?’
He goes to the bar. Doesn’t wait for answers.
Dave, Dave who’s been drinking. Dave who’s heard everything and said nothing because Dave never says anything until he’s ready.
‘Nice one,’ Dave says. ‘They drink? Bring them round.’
Not ‘her.’ Not ‘him.’ ‘Them.’ The same way Dave uses metric and imperial and doesn’t care which as long as the measurement’s right.
Dean puts the pen down. Looks up from the crossword. Catches my eye, lifts the glass, an inch, two, I see you, noted.
He goes back to the crossword.
Pub. Estrella. Fruit machine. Gaz talking about Stockport again. Dave checking his phone, Jay present. Thomas at the bar. The back of his head, the neck, the shoulders that haven’t turned around.
Dean fills in another word.
I drink. The knee’s stopped bouncing.
I go to the toilet, stand at the urinal, the tiles, the grout that’s seen better decades. My hands are shaking and I say ‘fuck’ once, quiet, to the wall. The wall doesn’t care, good. I wash them, the soap dispenser’s empty, I dry them on my jeans, go back.
The circle’s different. Smaller, maybe. Or the same size with more space in it.
The space where Thomas was that’s now just, space.
The space where Jay’s figuring out what shape to be.
The solid bits. Gaz, Dave, Dean. Still solid.
The same way a site looks after you strip the scaffolding. Some walls stand, some don’t.
I finish the pint, put the glass down.
‘Same again?’ Gaz says.
‘Yeah. Cheers.’
Gaz goes to the bar, comes back, two pints, puts mine down, sits.
‘So,’ Gaz says. ‘Celyn. That’s Welsh, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
Gaz nods, drinks. ‘Bit of a distance from Manchester to Wales.’
‘They’re from Beddgelert. Live here.’
‘Right. Decent.’ Gaz nods. ‘So about this penalty kick.’
Pub, Friday, pints, talk about nothing, match, weather, site. Dave leaves first. Always does. Dean after. Jay says ‘see you Monday’ and it’s the same ‘see you Monday’ as every week and it is and it isn’t.
Thomas comes back after the second round. Sits. Doesn’t say anything about it. Talks about the match, the gap’s there, between us. On the bench, in the conversation, in the question he doesn’t ask. The gap’s there and it’s going to stay there for a while and that’s okay.
That’s what it is.
Gaz is the last one. At the door, jacket on, the cold coming in.
‘Ron.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You back together then, you and Celyn?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good.’ A beat. ‘Because you were shit to work with for weeks. The Celyn thing. I saw yous at the bar back in the spring. You and them. I asked the once, then left it.’ He zips the jacket. ‘Just. You seemed, I dunno. You seemed like you.’
He goes, the door closes, the cold.
I’m putting my jacket on when Dean appears. From the toilet corridor, he didn’t leave. He waited. The crossword folded in his jacket pocket. The thermos face.
He puts his hand out. He grips my forearm, just above the wrist. The hold that workers do on a site when someone’s on a ledge and you’re the anchor.
Three seconds, he lets go, nods, goes out the door. Doesn’t say a single word.
I stand in the pub. Empty table, crisp bag Thomas folded, crossword Dean left. The ring of condensation Jay drew a line through. And on my forearm, where Dean’s hand was, the warmth.
The thing is, I know Dean. Four years. I know how he holds a spirit level, won’t move until the bubble’s dead centre. I know he does crosswords in pen and writes over his mistakes clean, like they never happened. But I’ve never heard him say a complete sentence about anything that mattered.
The grip just says: I see you. I’m still here, the rest is yours.
The pub’s emptying, the barman’s wiping down.
I order another pint and I sit at the table and I look at the five glasses and I think about Gaz looking at me.
He already knew, Dave didn’t blink, Jay shut down.
Thomas folded the crisp bag twice and said one word like it was a full sentence and maybe it was.
Pint arrives, I drink it, cold, fizz. Shite taste that means it’s been through a machine that doesn’t understand what beer is supposed to be.
My phone buzzes. Celyn.
Home yet?
I look at the time. Half-nine
leaving now
I don’t text back immediately. I finish the pint.
I look at the table. I look at the crossword Dean left, the Standard’s crossword, three-quarters finished, the pen still sitting on top.
I could take it. Could give it back to him Monday.
Could say: nice work, mate. And he’d nod and that would be it.
But that’s not how Dean works. The crossword’s for the pub. The place he comes every Friday. A thing he does that doesn’t need fetching or solving. A thing that just. Sits. Until it doesn’t matter anymore.
I fold the newspaper in half. Leave it on the table with the glasses.
Dean’s grip is still there on my forearm, the warmth gone but the shape of it staying. You can’t unhear a thing once it’s said. You can’t put a sentence back in your pocket and pretend it never left.
But you can walk out of a pub and know that some of the people you work with, not all, but some, some of them stayed. Some of them didn’t move the chair back. Some of them didn’t say the word that would’ve broken something.
And some of them grabbed your arm like you mattered.
That’s not nothing, that’s. It’s the shape of what a Friday night is supposed to feel like when you’ve told the truth and the world didn’t collapse and Dean’s hand is still on your skin even though it’s not.
I put the glass down, leave a quid for the barman, walk out into the cold.
Seven minutes to the flat. Barber’s, kebab place, Tesco, bus stop, streets doing their thing.
Manchester, Friday. The sentence in the world now, what’s public in a pub with five blokes and Estrella on tap and darts on the telly.
The sentence that lived in my pocket for weeks, out now.
I walk home, seven minutes.
My phone buzzes.
Celyn.
How’d it go
I look at the screen. The glow, the cold.
gaz knew
Of course gaz knew
dave said bring you round
Three dots. Then:
Dave’s my favourite
I smile, the phone, the seven minutes.
dean didn’t say a word. grabbed my arm, the site grip, you know the one.
I don’t know the one but I believe you
thomas said right
The dots, longer.
Just right?
just right
Silence. The dots. Then:
That’s one word more than my dad managed
I stand on the pavement. The kebab place, the bass. Celyn’s sentence on the screen, Thomas’s ‘right’ next to a father in Beddgelert who doesn’t use ‘they’ and that makes Thomas’s ‘right’ look like something.
Tell me about dean’s arm thing when you get home