Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-One: The Village Hall Build

Colin read the village hall drawings in March and telephoned on the last Thursday of the month.

He said: I have read the section. The south wall is the building's main event. Everything else follows from it.

Daniel said: yes.

Colin said: the masonry below the metre sill is straightforward. What is less straightforward is the existing glazing frame. The floor-to-ceiling frames are original — the nineteen-fifties frames, the timber frames from the build year. They are in reasonable condition for their age. The question is whether we remove the full frame and reglaze from the metre sill up, or whether we cut the existing frame at the metre line and retain the upper portion.

He thought about the two options. He thought about removing the full frame and reglazing as the clean correction — the fresh start, the new frame from the metre sill up, the correct material for the corrected window. He thought about cutting the existing frame at the metre line as the honest correction — the correction that acknowledged the existing building, that retained what was worth retaining, that did not replace more than the section required.

He thought: the honest correction retains what is honest in the existing condition.

He thought about the existing frames. He thought about sixty-plus years of the existing frames — the original nineteen-fifties timber, the frames that had held the wrong light for all those years. He thought about the frames as the building's honest attempt in the wrong condition — the correct material, the correct craft, the wrong height. He thought about retaining the upper portion of the original frames as the acknowledgement of the building's original honesty — the correction that said: the frame was correct. The height was wrong.

He said to Colin: cut at the metre line. Retain the upper portion. The original frames were honestly made. The correction is the height, not the frame.

Colin was quiet for a moment. He said: I thought you would say that.

The build began in April. Colin had assembled a smaller team than the coastal school — the village hall was a correction, not a new construction, the work more surgical than the coastal school's structural alterations. Two carpenters and a glazier and a general labourer. Colin himself at the south wall on the first day.

He drove to the village hall on the first Tuesday of April. He had not been back since the June visit — the attending visit, the toddler group and the empty hall and the perimeter walk. He arrived at nine to find Colin at the south wall with the first carpenter, the measuring tape stretched across the lower bay of the first south window.

He stood at the south wall and watched.

The April morning. The April south light falling through the existing floor-to-ceiling windows at the April angle — the spring sun, the angle higher than the winter angle, the light entering the room with more direction than the February sun that had bisected Dorothy's funeral reception. He thought about the April south light and the metre sill and the April sun entering the corrected window above the metre line — the April light received at the correct height, the body of the gathering no longer in the band of the direct light.

He thought: even the April light will be better in the corrected room.

The first carpenter marked the metre line on the existing frame with a pencil. He marked it with care — measuring twice, the pencil line ruled across the timber at exactly one thousand millimetres from the floor. He looked at the pencil line and then looked at Colin. Colin looked at the pencil line and then at Daniel.

Daniel looked at the pencil line on the existing frame.

He thought about the pencil line. He thought about the pencil as the drawing implement — the thinking line, the reversible line, the line before the ink. He thought about the pencil line on the existing frame as the section arriving at the material — the metre still drawn in pencil on the cartridge paper in July and now drawn in pencil on the existing timber frame in April, the drawing and the material in their first correspondence.

He thought: the pencil line on the frame is the section touching the building.

He said: it is correct.

Colin said: cut it.

The carpenter cut at the metre line. The saw moved through the existing timber at the pencil mark — the original nineteen-fifties frame opened at the metre, the lower portion removed, the upper portion retained. He watched the lower portion of the first south window frame come away from the wall and be carried to the side. He looked at the opening — the wall below the metre, the existing frame above it, the April light entering through the full opening where the lower frame had been, the sky and the field visible from the floor to the ceiling temporarily, the building in its between state.

He thought: the between state is always the most honest condition.

He thought about the between state — the building in its between-time, the lower frame removed and the masonry not yet in, the opening full from floor to ceiling for a brief period before the correction was completed. He thought about the between state as the building's most honest moment: the existing condition gone and the corrected condition not yet arrived, the building suspended between the wrong and the right, the opening full of the April light without the metre sill to manage it.

He thought: the between state shows the building what it has always been capable of.

He stood at the opening. The April field through the full opening — the field from the floor to the ceiling, the April green, the morning light on the April field. He thought about the field visible at all heights: at the floor and at the waist and at the chest and at the eye and above the eye, the full field from the full opening. He thought about this as the between-time view — the view available only in the between state, the view that would be corrected to the metre sill and above. He thought about the metre sill as the correct management of this view — not the elimination of the field but the correct framing of it, the field received at the right height for the gathering.

He stayed at the opening for several minutes. Colin did not hurry him. The carpenters waited.

He thought: I am attending to the interstate. The between state is worth attending to.

He stepped back. He said: begin the masonry.

The labourer began mixing. The first brick went in at the bottom of the opening — the correction beginning at the floor, the masonry rising toward the metre line, the field being lifted from the floor upward as the courses rose. He watched the first course and the second course and the third course and then walked to the kitchen wall.

The repositioned hatch position was marked on the kitchen wall — Colin had marked it in pencil, the new opening fifteen centimetres along the wall from the existing hatch. He stood at the kitchen wall and looked through the existing hatch into the hall. The stacked chairs on the north wall. He moved fifteen centimetres along the wall and looked through the air where the repositioned hatch would be. The south wall in the view — the carpenters and the labourer and the first courses of the new masonry rising toward the metre line and the April light above.

He thought: the repositioned hatch gives the kitchen person the corrected room.

He thought about the kitchen person at the repositioned hatch in the corrected hall — the metre sill on the south wall and the April light above the gathering and the carpenters' work visible through the opening. He thought about the monthly lunch for the older residents in the corrected hall — the older residents at their tables with the south light above their heads and the kitchen person visible to the room through the repositioned hatch and the field in the peripheral of the kitchen person at the south kitchen window.

He thought: the corrections are in correspondence with each other.

He wrote in the pocket notebook at the kitchen wall: village hall built on the first day. Colin at the south wall — cut at the metre line, retain the upper frame. The original frames were honestly made. The correction is the height, not the frame. The between state: the opening full from floor to ceiling before the masonry rises, the field visible at all heights. The between state shows the building what it has always been capable of. The masonry is rising. The repositioned hatch position marked. The corrections in correspondence with each other. The build as the section arriving in the material.

He drove home in the April afternoon. He thought about the masonry rising toward the metre sill and the corrected hall arriving course by course in the April build. He thought about Dorothy's eighty-three in the corrected hall — the winter sun line above the gathering rather than across it, the room finding its correct size for the grief.

He was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-One