Page 161 of Undefined Terms

Both of you.

The same words, Sean’s words. In the Lewisham living room with the football and the half-finished can. Both of you, like a disease. Like a thing that happened to him.

And Mum’s words. In a corridor with the sticky carpet and the broken hand dryer. Both of you, like a fact she’s known longer than I have.

Same phrase, two parents, worlds apart.

I hold Mum, the coat, the arms. The tapestry bag and the biscuits on a plate and the she-they correction and the half of Guinness and the woman who never let go.

‘Right,’ Mum says. Pulls back. Wipes nothing from the eye. ‘Right. Another half. And tell Celyn I want that pasta recipe off them.’

She turns, then stops. The Eileen stop, the one that looks casual and isn’t.

‘Oh. Your dad rang Ewan.’

The corridor. The sticky carpet. The hand dryer.

‘When.’

‘Week before last. About the—Ewan’s got a paper coming out in some journal. Your dad found it online.’ She adjusts the bag on her shoulder. The gesture that means: this is a small thing I’m telling you, don’t make it big. ‘Forty seconds, Ewan said. Maybe a minute. He asked about the research. Said he’d read the abstract.’ A pause. ‘Ewan said he didn’t know what an abstract was. But he’d read it.’

Sean Carrick. Sat in the flat above the bookmakers. Googling his son’s name. Finding a journal article full of words he doesn’t understand. Reading the abstract, whatever he thinks an abstract is. Picking up the phone.

‘How was Ewan.’

‘You know Ewan.’ Mum’s voice. Steady. The steadiness that costs. ‘Said it was fine. Said he doesn’t need me to report on it.’ The mouth tightens. ‘He cried after. Laurence told me. Don’t tell Ewan I said that.’

I won’t.

She goes back to the table. The sticky carpet doesn’t stick when you’re walking towards something you want. The hand dryer in the corner doesn’t sound broken anymore. I stand in the corridor and I think about Dad in the flat. The laptop. A search bar with his son’s name in it.

That first call, eight months in, was the football: “you seeing this,” United going down, gone before it meant anything. Safe ground. This one’s different. This one he had to go and find. A pattern. Two data points make a line, Ewan would say. The line’s not straight. But it exists.

Fourteen months ago I sat at Mum’s table and she made roast and poured tea and asked me how work was going and I said ‘good’ and she said ‘and Ewan?’ and I said ‘good’ and she watched me lie with my whole body and she didn’t push. Just let me sit there eating roast and drinking tea and being someone she loved who wasn’t ready.

Now she’s in the corridor with the broken hand dryer and she’s asking about pasta.

That’s not a small thing. That’s not the sort of thing you ask about a person if you think they’re a mistake or a phase or a punishment. That’s the question you ask when you’re building the future in the shape of a family that needs seasoning.

The phone’s in my pocket. Could call Dad right now. Tell him Mum sat in the kitchen with Celyn and asked about the chilli and didn’t say ‘poor Ron’ or ‘bless you’ or any of the things that mean the pity. Just: you two. Living. Eating. Celyn’s got an accent and nails and a jumper of mine and Mum looked at the whole arrangement and said ‘lovely.’

The word held, it didn’t crack, it held.

‘What pasta?’

‘The one with the chilli. You mentioned it on the phone. Three times.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Three times, Ron.’

She goes back to the table. I stand in the corridor. The sticky carpet, the broken hand dryer. The thing behind the ribs.

Both of you.

I go back to the table.

Thursday. I’m at the gate doing the handover log when a shape appears on the pavement that doesn’t belong.