Chapter Two Hundred and Fifty-Two: The Community Centre in December

Colin sent photographs on the first Monday of December.

The community centre in its first December of the build — the walls at first-floor level, the approach beam in the sandstone soffit visible from the lane, the timber panel not yet in place but the corbels formed in the limestone that would carry the panel's fixing. The south face of the building with the south window opening at forty centimetres, the opening in the limestone wall, the December morning visible through the opening from the photographs Colin had taken inside the weight-bearing room looking south.

He looked at the photographs on the screen.

He looked at the south window opening — the aperture in the limestone at forty centimetres from the floor, the December morning light entering the weight-bearing room through the opening. Not yet glazed, not yet the completed window — the opening in the stone, the building receiving the December light through the gap that the section had drawn.

He thought about the December sun line. He thought about the section from the south edge — the line he had drawn across the floor of the weight-bearing room from the south window to the north wall, the path of the December sun at the lowest angle of the year. He thought about that line now, nine months into the build, being traced for the first time in reality — the December light entering through the south opening and moving across the floor of the weight-bearing room toward the north wall.

He thought: the section's December is arriving in the building.

He looked at the photograph more carefully. He looked at the line of light on the concrete floor of the weight-bearing room — the temporary floor, the build floor, not the finished limestone that the section had drawn. But the light was there: the December morning light entering through the opening at forty centimetres and crossing the floor toward the north wall. The sun angle is correct. The section's geometry was verified in the December light.

He thought: the section is being confirmed before the building is complete.

He thought about the first December as the practice's confirmation — the section drawn in the attending and submitted to the planning authority and approved and built by Colin's team and now, in the first December of the build, the December light arriving through the opening and tracing the line the section had drawn. The practice's most important test happened before the build was finished.

He wrote to Colin: the south opening. The December light is on the floor.

Colin wrote back: I noticed it on Friday. I took the photograph because I thought you'd want to see it.

He thought about Colin noticing the December light on the temporary floor. He thought about the builder attending to the light the way the architect attended to the light — the body in the building in December seeing the section confirmed in the morning. He thought about Colin understanding what he was seeing without being told what to look for.

He thought: Colin is in the practice.

He thought: Colin has always been in the practice.

He thought about the chain. He thought about Colin cleaning the rock face before the Saturday at the trench and holding the south-west pour for the family to see the bedrock and re-setting the formwork for the hundred-centimetre correction. He thought about Colin attending every commission's December — the Farrow house and the library and the community centre column and the three-generation house and the school and now the community centre's first December light on the temporary floor.

He thought: Colin has been in the December of every honest building.

He wrote back: thank you for seeing it. And for sending it.

Colin wrote: the glazing team is here next week. The south window will be in before Christmas.

He thought about the south window glazed before Christmas — the opening becoming the window, the aperture becoming the correspondence point. He thought about the glazed south window receiving its first Christmas light — the December sun at its lowest angle entering the weight-bearing room through the glass for the first time, the section's December line complete.

He thought about the community centre on Christmas morning. He thought about the building empty — the building not yet finished, the fit-out not yet begun, the weight-bearing room without its timber north wall and without its kitchen hatch and without the bench and the step in the corner. He thought about the south window glazed and the weight-bearing room empty and the December morning light on the temporary floor on Christmas morning.

He thought: the building will have its first Christmas before it has its first between-time.

He thought: the building will know December before it knows the gathering.

He thought about this as the practice's December — the preparation before the person arrived, the room learning the light before the room received the people. He thought about the building in its first Christmas as the building in its truest December — the light given without witness, the section confirmed to no one, the correspondence running between the building and the December and the empty floor.

He thought: the honest building knows December in the empty room.

He wrote in the commission notebook: the first December of the build. The December light on the temporary floor. Colin noticed it on Friday and sent the photograph. The section is confirmed before the building is complete.

He wrote: the honest building knows December in the empty room. The preparation given before the witness. The correspondence running between the light and the floor before the between-time gathering arrives to read it.

He thought about Ellie. He thought about sending Ellie the photograph — the December light on the temporary floor, the section confirmed in the build. He thought about Ellie receiving the photograph and understanding what it was.

He sent the photograph to Ellie with the message: the December light is on the floor.

She replied after a few minutes. She wrote: the section was right.

He thought the section was right as the practitioner's confirmation — not the attending person's right, not Miriam's it's right or Frances's yes. The practitioner's confirmation: the section was right. The drawing was confirmed by the building, the inside view verified by the light on the floor.

He thought: she is reading the building like a practitioner.

He thought: she is a practitioner.

He thought about writing back and then thought: the photograph has said what needs to be said. He wrote to Ellie: yes.

He looked at the photograph on the screen — the December light on the temporary floor of the weight-bearing room, the south window opening at forty centimetres, the section's geometry in the December light. He thought about the between-time gathering that would happen in this room in the autumn of the following year — the village finding its room for the in-between, Raymond in the kitchen with the field in the corner of the eye, the bench at the south face in the summer, the December light on the finished limestone floor.

He thought about all of it as the correspondence — the section written to the village and the village writing back in the body that found the bench warm and the gathering that stayed beyond its time and Raymond's cup of tea handed through the hatch.

He thought about the correspondence continuing past the completion — the village's letters arriving in every season the building received, the honest room accumulating the exchange across the years.

He thought about the fifth December of the community centre — the December light on the finished floor, the limestone knowing four previous Decembers, the warmth stored and returned. He thought about the weight-bearing room in its fifth December as more honest than its first — the correspondence deepened, the building knowing more of the village's between-times, the village knowing more of the building's Decembers.

He thought: the correspondence deepens with the returning.

He thought about the Farrow seat knowing five Decembers. He thought about the library corner in its fifth year of Thursdays. He thought about the three-generation platform recess in its third winter. He thought about all the honest rooms deepening their correspondence with the attending people across the years.

He thought: this is what an honest building is. Not the building on the day of completion. The building in its correspondence across the years.

He thought: the practice prepares the beginning of the correspondence.

He thought: the correspondence does the rest.

He was glad.

He was, in the weight of the December Monday and the photograph on the screen and the section confirmed in the light and Ellie reading the building like a practitioner and the community centre knowing its first December and the between-time not yet in its room and the village's first letter not yet written and the coastal school's section not yet drawn and the vocabulary still growing and the correspondence continuing and the practice in its beginning and the beginning in its preparation, glad.

He was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Fifty-Two