Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy-Five: The October Site Visit

He returned to the coastal school in October.

Colin had telephoned in the last week of September to say the east window was in. The steel lintel had been placed in the second week of September and the masonry had been made good on either side of the new opening and the frame had arrived in the third week and had been set and sealed. The glass had been fitted on the last Friday of September. Colin had telephoned on Monday and said: the east window is in. The sill is at forty centimetres. It is correct.

He had said: I will come on Wednesday.

He drove on a Wednesday in the second week of October. The October road — the hedges in their October condition, the fields turning, the light of the shorter day beginning to accumulate differently than the summer light. He drove the hundred and forty kilometres and thought about the east window and the October sea and arrived at the lane before nine.

He stood in the lane and looked at the school.

The east wall was different. From the lane — a hundred metres from the building — he could see the change. The new window was visible as a different proportion in the east wall: wider than the old window, lower in the wall, the glazing sitting closer to the ground than any of the other windows in the building. From a hundred metres he could see the correction had been made.

He thought: the section is visible in the wall from a hundred metres.

He walked to the building. Colin was inside — the site hut established in the covered walkway, the build in its October condition. Colin came out when he heard the car and said: come and see it from inside.

He went inside.

The corrected east window in the October morning. The October sea through the new window at forty centimetres — the everywhere-at-once coastal light entering the room through the hundred and forty centimetre opening at the correct height, the October grey-green at the level of the attending face. He stood in the middle of the classroom and looked at the window and looked at the October sea through it and said nothing.

The October sea was correct.

He thought about October. He thought about the first visit — the October of the first year, the attending visit that had begun the correspondence, the girl's presentation on the Thursday morning and the October grey-green written into the pocket notebook and the first section sketch made that evening at the office. He thought about the October that had begun the correspondence and the October that was now completing it — the first October and the second October, the correspondence returning to its own beginning.

He thought: the second October is the first October arrived.

He walked to the window. He stood at the east window and looked out. The October sea at eye level — the grey-green chop, the everywhere-at-once, the light from behind the sea. He thought about the girl standing at this window — the nine-year-old girl from the presentation, now ten, the coastal child who had given the practice its vocabulary. He thought about her standing at this window and looking at the October sea at the correct height for the first time.

He thought: she does not know yet that the window has changed.

He thought about the girl not knowing. The school was in its half-term — the October holiday, the classrooms empty, the children away from the building. The new window had been completed in the empty school, the correction made without the children present to receive it. He thought about the children returning after the half-term — the Monday morning after the holiday, the sea children coming back to the classroom and finding the east window at the new height.

He thought: they will know it from the first morning.

He crouched at the window. He brought himself to the forty centimetre sill — the correct position, the attending position — and looked through the new glass at the October sea. The October grey-green at forty centimetres. He thought about crouching at the wrong window in March — the sill too high, the body forced to accommodate the mistake. He thought about the correct skill requiring no crouching. The correct sill was at the height of the attending child's face. He had crouched to find the view in March. The children would not need to crouch.

He thought: the correct window gives the sea without the crouching.

He stood and walked to the corner.

The corner window was not yet in — Colin had said the glazier would return in the second week of October for the north wall. The corner was still in its opening state: the masonry cut, the frame set, the glass not yet arrived. He stood in the corner and looked through the unglazed opening in the north wall.

The north light through the unglazed opening. The constant north light — the October north, the light without the sun's direct angle, the diffuse and unwavering light of the north wall. He stood in the corner and felt the north light on his face through the open frame and thought about forty years of corner children facing the blank wall and now the wall open and the north light coming through.

He thought: even unglazed the corner is correct.

He thought about the unglazed opening as already performing the function — the north light already entering the corner, the corner already receiving the constant light that the section had drawn for it. He thought about the glazing as the completion of the opening, the protection of the light condition, the sealing of the frame that would allow the constant north light to enter in all the months and all the weathers.

He thought: the glass makes the light permanent. The opening already makes it true.

Colin appeared in the corner doorway. He said: the glazier comes Thursday. The bench and the shelf are made. We will fit them after the glazing.

He walked with Colin to the south wall. The bench was lying against the south wall in its uninstalled state — the timber bench, thirty-five centimetres high, the threshold bench, the bench for the moving children. He crouched beside the bench and ran his hand along the timber. The bench was made from the same timber as the shelf in the corner — the correspondence of material, the bench and the shelf in the same wood.

He thought about the correspondence of material. He thought about the bench and the shelf as the same timber — the threshold bench and the corner shelf in the same wood, the two attending conditions connected through the material. He thought about a child moving from the east window to the south bench to the corner and touching the same timber at the bench as at the shelf — the material correspondence of the attending journey.

He thought: the timber connects the three conditions.

He wrote in the pocket notebook at the south wall: second October coastal visit. The east window in — the October sea at forty centimetres, the everywhere-at-once at the correct height. The section visible in the wall from a hundred metres. The corner unglazed but already receiving the north light — even unglazed the corner is correct. The bench against the south wall waiting for installation — the same timber as the corner shelf. The timber connects the three attending conditions. The children return after half-term. They will know the window from the first morning.

He drove home in the October afternoon. He thought about the children returning on Monday — the sea children and the corner children and the moving children coming back to the classroom after the half-term holiday and finding the east window at the new height and the corner window in the north wall and the south bench at thirty-five centimetres. He thought about the three attending conditions in the room waiting for the children who had made them necessary.

He thought: the correspondence is waiting for its correspondents.

He thought about all the buildings the practice had drawn waiting for their correspondents — the three-generation house waiting for the three generations and the community centre waiting for Raymond and the library extension waiting for the five-year-old's letter and the coastal school waiting for the sea children and the corner children and the moving children. He thought about all the honest buildings as correspondences waiting to be received — the drawings become rooms, the waiting rooms, the patient rooms, the rooms that had been made from the attending people's knowledge and now waited for the attending people to return.

He was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy-Five