Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy-Four: The September Build

The coastal school build began on the first Monday of September.

Colin had assembled the team in August — the bricklayer and the carpenter and the glazier and the general labourer. He had ordered the materials in August: the steel lintel for the east window, the masonry for the corner north wall opening, the timber for the bench and the shelf, and the glass for the three windows. He had organised the September start with the precision the practice had come to expect from Colin — the materials arriving in sequence, the team assembled for the sequence, the build planned as a correspondence between the materials and the work.

He drove to the coastal village on the first Monday. He had not planned to be present on the first day — the practice's usual relation to the build was the periodic site visit, not the daily attendance. But the first day of the coastal school build was different. He had been attending to this building since October — eleven months of the correspondence, the girl's vocabulary and Joseph's two attendings and the corner children and the moving children and the November and the March and the April and the section in ink and the planning wait and Colin crouching at the window. Eleven months was sufficient preparation for the first Monday.

He arrived at eight. Colin was already there — the site manager's van in the lane, Colin at the east wall with the measuring tape. The bricklayer and the labourer had not yet arrived. It was Colin and Daniel at the east wall in the September morning and the coastal school in its existing condition for the last time.

He stood at the east wall and looked at the existing window.

The September sea through the wrong window. The September sea — not the October grey-green and not the summer blue but the September sea, the transition, the summer motion beginning to settle toward October. The September light at the September angle, the sun moving back toward the October position, the everywhere-at-once not yet arrived but the focused summer light beginning to disperse. He thought: the September sea is the beginning of October.

He thought: this is the last morning the sea children will look at this window.

He thought about the sea children returning in September — the new school year, the September term, the children coming back to the classroom. He thought about them at their tables on the first September morning looking at the existing east window — the high sill, the sky above, the sea below and invisible. He thought about this being the last September they would look at it this way. He thought about the children not knowing yet that the window would change — the September term continuing in the existing room while the build progressed, the correction arriving not until January.

He thought: they do not know yet. January will tell them.

Colin measured the east wall. He measured the existing window opening and the wall above and below the sill and the wall on both sides. He wrote the measurements in the site notebook — the builder's notebook, the measurements in sequence, the record of the existing condition before the work began. He said to Daniel: the existing lintel is timber. It will come out with the sill. The steel goes in before the new frame.

He thought about the timber lintel coming out. He thought about the existing window's structure — the timber lintel carrying the wall above the existing opening, the lintel that had held the wall above the wrong window for however many years the school had stood. He thought about the timber lintel as the existing building's honest attempt — the honest lintel carrying the honest load, doing its work correctly above the window that was at the wrong height. He thought about the steel lintel replacing it — the new steel carrying the new load of the wider opening, the hundred and forty centimetres requiring the steel where the existing opening had needed only the timber.

He thought: the correction requires more material than the existing condition. The wider opening carries a heavier load.

The bricklayer arrived at eight thirty. He came with the labourer — two men, the tools, the preparation. Colin showed them the east wall. He showed them the line of the new sill — the tape at forty centimetres from the floor, the level mark on the wall. He showed them the width of the new opening — the marks at the jamb positions, the hundred and forty centimetres between them. The bricklayer looked at the marks and looked at the existing window and said: it is a big window.

It is a coastal window, Colin said. The coastal light requires width.

He thought about Colin saying the coastal light requires width. He thought about the builder carrying the vocabulary of the correspondence into the build — the coastal light, the width, the everywhere-at-once. He thought about the eleven months of the correspondence arriving at this moment: the bricklayer at the east wall with the tape and Colin saying the coastal light requires the width.

He thought: the correspondence has reached the wall.

He left the east wall and walked to the corner. The north wall of the corner — the blank wall, the forty years of the corner children facing it. He put his hand on the wall where the window would go. The same position he had stood in during the March visit — the hand on the blank north wall, the window not yet there. He thought about the hand on the wall in March as the attending act and the hand on the wall in September as the last attending before the opening — the window about to arrive in the masonry, the constant north light about to enter the corner for the first time.

He thought: by October the corner children will have the north light.

He thought about the corner children in October — the September term continuing in the existing room, the build underway, the classroom wall open and sealed and the window frame arriving and the glazing and the seal. He thought about the October day when the corner window was completed — the constant north light entering the corner for the first time, the corner children at their tables in the October morning with the light arriving from the north wall that had been blank since the school was built.

He thought: the corner children will know the window from the first day.

Colin came to the corner. He looked at the blank north wall and said: we will cut this opening last. The east window first, then the bench and the shelf, then the corner window. The sequence matters — we want the east window in and sealed before we open the north wall. The classroom needs to be weathertight between each opening.

He thought about the sequence as the builder's form of the correspondence — the east window first because the sea children had been waiting longest, because the everywhere-at-once had been below the wrong sill for all the years the school had stood. He thought about the sequence not as the builder's preference but as the build's own logic — the correspondence arriving in the order the building required.

He walked outside and stood in the lane. He stood in the lane where he had stood in October and November and March and April — the four attending visits, the notebook full of the coastal vocabulary, the section complete in ink. He stood in the lane and looked at the school and thought about all the attending that had brought him here: the girl's presentation and Joseph's letter and the two-hour drive and the crouching at the wrong window and the November concentrating gleam and the bench drawn in pencil and confirmed in ink.

He thought: eleven months of the correspondence are now at the wall.

He thought about the correspondence at the wall as the practice's deepest satisfaction — the attending translated into the drawing translated into the permission translated into the material, the full journey from the first honest observation to the bricklayer's tape on the east wall at forty centimetres.

He wrote in the pocket notebook at the lane: first day of the coastal school build. Colin at the east wall with the tape. The September sea — the October beginning. The timber lintel coming out, the steel going in — the correction carrying the heavier load. Colin to the bricklayer: the coastal light requires the width. The correspondence has reached the wall. The corner window lasts — the build in sequence, the building weathertight between each opening. Eleven months. The attending at the wall.

He drove home in the September afternoon. He thought about the bricklayer and the labourer working at the east wall. He thought about the first mark, the first cut, the existing wrong window beginning to give way to the corrected one. He thought about the girl who would be ten in January and the January flat grey she had been attending to for seven years now about to arrive at the correct height.

He was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy-Four