Page 154 of Undefined Terms

The back door opens.

Owain, the brother. Bigger than Celyn, wider, taller. My height. The same colouring but rougher. The hands, I see the hands first. Knuckles. Calluses. A plumber’s hands. Hands that know copper pipe and compression fittings by feel.

He goes to Celyn first. A hand round the back of the neck, the rough pull-in, foreheads nearly touching, something Welsh and low that makes Celyn snort and shove him off. Brothers.

‘All right?’ He’s looking at me. Sizing up. Professional. One tradesman reading another.

‘All right. Ronan.’

‘Owain. You work construction?’ He’s already pulling a chair out. Already sat. The wife, I didn’t catch the name, peeling a coat off a wriggling kid behind him. Two of them, four and three, and the moment the coats are off they make for Celyn on the counter like the cat did, the little one hauling herself up by Celyn’s jumper.

‘Yeah. Site manager.’

‘What kind?’

And we’re off, the kitchen table. Owain asks about foundations and I tell him about the Victoria North footings, the Victorian brick, the underpinning, the steel reinforcement. He asks about wet trades and I ask about his pipework and he tells me about a job in Caernarfon where the whole heating system was gravity-fed and we’re both leaning in and the tea’s going cold and Catrin’s refilling it and the kids are under the table and Rhys is reading the paper and,

Celyn.

The cat’s gone. The tea. And the face.

The face shifts. New.

Something open. Mouth soft. Eyes wet. A sheen, the moment before.

Like when you take the formwork off a pour and the concrete’s set clean and the edges are right and the thing you built is the thing you meant to build.

Celyn’s watching me talk to Owain about pipe fittings.

Celyn was scared I wouldn’t come.

Celyn, who flirts with life, who reads their work aloud in pubs, who walks onto building sites in a skirt and doesn’t flinch, was scared. Of this kitchen. Of the name in the air.

I look at Celyn, Celyn looks at me, the grey eyes, the sheen.

‘So the compression fitting cracked,’ Owain’s saying. ‘Minus four outside and the whole joint froze.’

‘Right,’ I say. Still looking at Celyn. ‘Nightmare.’

Celyn smiles, the real one.

I turn back to Owain. Ask about the compression fitting. Drink the tea. Eat another piece of bara brith because Catrin’s watching and the butter’s good and the kitchen smells right and I’m here.

I came.

Later. Celyn’s gone out the back door for air. I give it two minutes, then go after.

The garden’s small. Stone wall. The mountain over it, black now, the sky past purple, going to dark. Cold already.

Celyn’s by the wall. The fingers on the stone, pressing into the gaps between. I stand next to Celyn. Don’t say anything.

‘She’ll say it after I’m gone,’ Celyn says. The voice flat. The bus-timetable flat. ‘Phone calls with Owain. He this, he that. A habit she can’t put down.’

I don’t answer.

‘I know I should care less.’

‘Don’t know about that.’