Page 37 of Undefined Terms

At the door, Celyn turns. ‘Goodnight, Ronan.’

The R, the soft R. My name not thrown away. Put down carefully.

‘Night.’

The door. The stairs. The building door downstairs.

Bang.

My mouth, the taste. Still there. Under the beer, under the toothpaste I should use and won’t yet. A taste the mouth didn’t know it could have. Can’t un-know it, can’t put it back.

I close my eyes. The image comes: Celyn’s face from below, the eyes shut. The sound, the Welsh word I don’t know. Twice.

I’ll ask what it means.

No I won’t, better not knowing, just the sound.

I pull the sheet up. It smells like both of us. Two smells that don’t go together. Concrete dust and garden-fruit. Degreaser and aftershave.

I sleep. With the taste in my mouth and the shape in my hands and the smell on the sheets.

Saturday morning, the team in early, the formwork for Block D came in and scheduling’s tight. I didn’t sleep properly. Three hours maybe, then woke at four with the taste still there, the sheets sticking, the flat too small to turn around in without hitting something that smells like Celyn.

Gaz takes one look at me and his whole face changes.

‘Mate. Mate, no. You actually did.’

‘Don’t say anything.’

‘You did. You actually went and did it.’

‘Gaz, I’m warning you.’

‘Boss is getting laid!’ He’s shouting this across the site like it’s news, like it’s something the whole of Victoria North needs to know. ‘Dean! Dave! Boss got some action!’

Dave looks up from the level. Doesn’t smile. Just nods like that’s information received and put away. Dean does an actual nod of respect, one that means something in a crew. Jay’s on his phone but his eyes are laughing.

‘Cheers, Gaz. Really appreciate that.’

‘Was it.’ Gaz stops. Looks at me. Actually stops talking. ‘Was it good?’

Nobody’s ever asked me that after. The women before, they’d text or they wouldn’t. No processing, no debrief. Just: it happened, move on, next thing. But Gaz means it, like he cares about the answer.

‘Yeah,’ I say.

‘That’s the face someone makes when they’re gone.’ Gaz eats a crisp, his whole body vibrating with it. ‘You’re proper gone. It’s done.’

‘Can we just work?’

‘Is it the person you wouldn’t talk about.’ He grins. ‘Mate. That’s brilliant. That’s properly brilliant.’

‘It’s not a story, Gaz. It’s real.’

‘A thing that happened.’ He’s laughing, because he likes me.

By lunchtime I can see the question in Dave’s eyes and the something in Dean’s face, but they don’t push. A real crew sees the shape of something and lets it be. They don’t need the explanation, just see how I looked at the wall of the building like it might tell me something true and they know.

And they’re kind about knowing. Gaz less so. But kind in his own way.