Page 136 of Undefined Terms

‘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.