Chapter Two Hundred and Fifty-Six: The Opening

The community centre opened on a Saturday in October.

Colin had sent the practical completion certificate on the last Monday of September. He had read it at his desk and sat with it for a moment — the same moment he had sat with the three-generation house certificate, the same moment before writing back. He thought about the honest building completely. He thought about the between-time not yet in his room.

He wrote to Colin: thank you.

He wrote to Ellie: the practical completion has arrived. We will be there on Saturday.

Ellie wrote back: I'll be there at eight.

He arrived at eight-thirty. Ellie was already at the gate.

She had her sketchbook — of course she had her sketchbook. The twelve-year-old with the sketchbook that had held the community centre since she was nine, the sketchbook that had been the building's first home. He thought about the sketchbook arriving at the building — the imagined building returning to the site where the real building now stood, the correspondence between the drawing and the thing drawn completed.

They went in together.

The community centre in the October morning before the opening. The building in its first week of completion — Colin's team had left the previous Friday, the building handed over, the rooms receiving their first Saturday of the daylight without the scaffolding and the site equipment. He walked through the east entrance into the covered approach.

The timber panel.

He put his hand on the timber panel in the covered approach. The October warmth in the boards — the morning sun had been on the east face since seven, the timber holding the warmth, the material ready for the arriving hand.

Ellie put her hand on the panel beside his.

They stood with their hands on the timber panel in the October morning and said nothing.

He thought about the September child at Patrick's school putting her hand on the timber panel for thirty seconds. He thought about Ellie at eleven saying: in November the timber will be warm. He thought about the panel being warm in October and November and all the months the morning reached the east face.

He thought: the panel is warm before the first between-time person arrives.

He thought: this is the correct condition.

They walked into the building.

The weight-bearing room in the October morning. The south window at forty centimetres — the October south light entering the room through the wide low opening, the light at the October angle, not the December angle but the October quality, the light moving across the limestone floor. He stood in the weight-bearing room and looked at the south light on the limestone and thought about the December sun line that the section had drawn and the photograph Colin had sent in December of the build year, the temporary floor with the first December light.

He thought: the limestone knows its first October.

He thought: December is still ahead.

He walked to the kitchen.

The south-east kitchen — the counter along the east wall, the between-time window above the counter, the field in the peripheral view of the person at work. He stood at the counter and looked through the window.

The field in October. The October field, the harvest completed, the ground in its October state — not the growing season and not the bare winter, the between-time of the year's field. He thought about the between-time bench outside on the south face — the bench he had not yet seen from inside the building. He turned and looked through the south window of the kitchen at the bench against the south wall.

The bench in October. The limestone bench at the base of the south face, the October morning light on the surface of the stone. He thought about the bench in summer — the people from the gathering sitting on the bench in the warm evening, the field spread before them. He thought about the bench now in October, not yet the summer bench, the October bench in the between-time of the year.

He thought: the bench is on its own between-time.

Ellie was in the corner.

He heard her before he saw her — the sound of the sketchbook opening. He walked from the kitchen to the children's corner and found her sitting on the bench, the sketchbook open on her knees, drawing.

She was drawing the corner.

He stood in the doorway of the corner and watched her draw. She was drawing the north window — the four-hundred-millimetre window, the window wide enough for two children to look through together. She was drawing the light through the window on the opposite wall. She was drawing from all the way in.

He thought about the library seven-year-old drawing the library corner from all the way in. He thought about the corner drawing itself through the attending person. He thought about Ellie drawing this corner that she had drawn in the sketchbook since she was nine, now drawing it from inside it for the first time.

He thought: the sketchbook drawing and the inside drawing are the same drawing at last.

He thought: the imagined building and the real building have arrived at each other.

He did not speak. He waited in the doorway while Ellie drew. He thought about the correct position — the witness, the person who held the space in which the attending people could find the rooms. He thought about twelve years of holding the space. He thought about the practice as the holding of the space.

After several minutes Ellie looked up from the sketchbook.

She looked at the north window. She looked at the light on the wall where the light fell from the four-hundred-millimetre opening. She looked at the bench and the step and the shelf at forty-five centimetres.

She said: "The corner knows we drew it."

He thought about the corner knowing it was drawn. He thought about the five-year-old's letter to the library corner — the corner receiving the letter from the attending person, the correspondence completed. He thought about Ellie's words as the corner's answer to the sketchbook — the three years of drawing returned to the drawn thing, the imagined building and the real building in their first correspondence.

He thought: the correspondence is complete.

He thought: the correspondence is beginning.

He thought about the between-time not yet gathered, the village's first letter not yet written. He thought about Raymond not yet in the between-time kitchen, the tea not yet made, the cup not yet handed through the hatch. He thought about all the letters still to come — the attendings not yet given, the correspondences not yet begun, the rooms waiting for the people who had not yet arrived.

He thought: the opening is not the completion. The opening is the beginning of the correspondence.

He thought about Margaret's eleven years and Raymond's thirty years and Ellie's three years and the sketchbook and the six sections and the allotment of December and the south window breathing the field. He thought about all of it as preparation — the preparation for this Saturday morning in October, the preparation for the first between-time, the preparation for the correspondence that the village had not yet been able to have.

He thought: the preparation is complete.

He thought: the correspondence begins today.

He thought about Raymond. He thought about Raymond arriving at the opening that afternoon — four o'clock, Margaret had said, the formal opening, the parish council and the village and the ceremony and then the between-time beginning in the between-time room. He thought about Raymond walking through the covered approach and putting his hand on the timber panel and going through the door and standing in the weight-bearing room for the first time.

He thought about Raymond in the weight-bearing room — the thirty years of knowing the between-time and the room made for it, the body reading the room the way the experienced body always read the honest room: before the mind assembled the words.

He thought: Raymond will know it from all the way in on the first day.

He thought: thirty years of between-time is sufficient preparation.

He thought about Ellie in the corner with the sketchbook and Raymond in the weight-bearing room and Margaret at the formal opening and the village gathering for the first between-time. He thought about all of them in the rooms the correspondence had prepared — the attending people finding the rooms that had been drawn from what they already knew.

He thought: the correspondence is beginning.

He thought: the letters are about to be received.

He thought: this is the correct condition.

He was glad.

He was, in the full weight of the October Saturday and Ellie in the corner drawing from all the way in and the panel warm and the December ahead and Raymond not yet in the room and the village's first between-time not yet gathered and the correspondence beginning and the rooms waiting for their letters and the sketchbook meeting the building and all the drawings arriving at their rooms and the preparation complete and the beginning begun, glad.

He was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Fifty-Six