Page 18 of Undefined Terms

Site at seven. The hands on the trowel, the concrete, the level. The same hands, somewhere else eight hours ago. The concrete doesn’t care: between last night’s pillow and this morning’s pour there’s no gap anyone can see.

But the hands know. They remember the cotton and the mouth shape and the name. And the phone in my pocket has Celyn’s name at the top of the thread and I haven’t replied and the not-replying is its own kind of reply. The one that says: not ready. Ewan was ready. Ewan texted Laurence back the same night and lost Dad over a kitchen table.

At lunch I open the thread. Celyn. Night, Ronan. I close the phone without typing.

The phone knows. The trowel knows and the pillow knows and the dress and the three-day stubble both know. Everyone knows except me and even I’m starting to suspect.

The trowel, the concrete.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ineed someone who knows about buildings. Seven in the morning, toast going cold in one hand because I forgot to buy butter, crumbs on my work polo.

I stare at the screen, phone in the other.

What kind of buildings?

Old ones, Victorian. The warehouse on Jersey Street. Do you know it?

I know it. Drove past it on the way to site last week, red brick, boarded windows, the kind you can’t touch and can’t knock down.

Yeah.

I’m writing a piece for the paper. About the Ancoats warehouses, the ones they haven’t converted yet. I need someone who can tell me what I’m looking at. Structurally.

The phone, the crumbs on the polo. Seven in the morning and Celyn’s asking me to look at a building and I should be on site in half an hour.

When?

Tonight, after my shift, I finish at nine.

I should say no, I’m knackered. The pour went wrong yesterday: set too fast, Gaz had to re-do the finishing, Dave gave me the look. I need sleep, an early night, something normal.

Yeah alright. Where do I meet you?

Jersey Street. Bring a torch.

I finish the toast, brush the crumbs off, phone away. The screen’s still warm.

I’m going to look at a building. That’s all.

Site, the day goes long. A problem with the steel delivery: wrong gauge, the supplier’s blaming the order form, Dave’s on the phone for an hour. I’m checking footings on block three and the measurements are clean and the levels are good and my hands know what they’re doing even when the rest of me doesn’t.

Gaz comes over at lunch and we’re sat on the steel stack eating sandwiches.

I bite the sandwich. Ham, no mustard, should’ve bought mustard. Added it to the same mental list as butter.

‘You’re quiet,’ Gaz says.

‘I’m always quiet.’

‘If you say so.’ Gaz looks at me sideways. He’s twenty-two and his face hasn’t learnt to hide things yet. ‘Got a girl?’

‘No.’

‘You’ve got a face like you’ve got a girl.’

‘What face is that?’