Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Four: Raymond

Raymond was in the parish hall on a Friday morning.

Not an arranged visit — he had rung the parish hall number and a woman had answered and said Raymond was there every Friday morning doing the weekly maintenance. He had driven the two hours on the Friday and arrived at ten and found Raymond in the hall with a mop and a bucket and the particular unhurried efficiency of the person who had been doing the same task for thirty years and had long since found the most economical method.

Raymond was sixty-three. The bearing of the long-term caretaker — the body that knew every room in its care, the posture of the person who had been bending and reaching and lifting in these rooms for thirty years, the slight accommodation the body made to the work it had done.

He had not rung ahead to say what he wanted. He had said only that he was the architect working on the community centre. Raymond had said: come at ten.

He came at ten and Raymond put the mop against the wall and wiped his hands on a cloth and looked at him with the particular look of the long-term occupant — the look that already knew the room and was assessing the newcomer's relationship to it.

"You want to know about the rooms," Raymond said.

It was not a question.

"Yes," Daniel said.

"Sit down," Raymond said.

They sat in the parish hall — the stage-step hall, the chairs still stacked from the previous evening's event. Raymond got two chairs from the stack and placed them facing each other in the middle of the hall floor, the two chairs in the empty space. Daniel sat and Raymond sat and between them was the empty hall.

"Tell me about the between-time," Daniel said.

Raymond looked at the hall. The long-term occupant's look — the reading of the room from thirty years of presence, the body knowing the hall in all its configurations and times of day and seasons.

"Friday evenings," Raymond said. "The women's group finishes at nine. They stand outside for forty minutes in all weathers because they don't want to go home. Not because they're talking — they stand and don't say much. They just don't want the evening to end." He paused. "Same with the quiz. Same with the film nights. The event finishes and nobody wants to be the first to leave and the hall is being cleared and they end up outside."

He thought about the women standing outside in the weather. He thought about the community standing outside in December — the between-time happening in the cold rather than in the room because the room didn't hold the between-time. He thought about the community centre as the room that kept the between-time inside.

"What does the between-time look like?" he said. "When you've seen it."

Raymond thought about this. "Quieter than the event," he said. "The event is the programme — the quiz questions and the film and the discussion. The between-time is the person talking to the person they didn't get to talk to during the programme. The small conversations. The cup of tea that somebody makes without being asked."

He thought about the cup of tea without being asked. He thought about the honest kitchen — not the display kitchen, the working kitchen, the kitchen that fed people. He thought about the community centre kitchen as the between-time kitchen, the kitchen that produced the cup of tea without being asked.

He said: "The community centre needs a kitchen."

Raymond looked at him. "Obviously," he said. Not dismissively — the word of the person for whom this had always been obvious and who had been waiting for the architect to arrive at it.

He thought about the commission notebook and the twenty-six pages of the attending and the section drawings and not one of them had drawn the kitchen. He thought about the weight-bearing room and the children's corner and the in-between room and the entry and the south window and the December sun line and not the kitchen.

He thought: I drew the community centre without its kitchen.

He thought: Raymond knew this before I arrived.

He said: "Tell me about the kitchen."

Raymond said: "Not a catering kitchen. Not the stainless-steel commercial thing. A kitchen someone can stand in and make a cup of tea. Room for three or four people if they want to help. Counter space. A window above the counter."

He thought about Frances at the north-wall counter. He thought about the working kitchen for the working body — the counter at the correct height, the window above the counter for the working light. He thought about the kitchen that was for making tea and not for looking at.

He thought: Raymond has described Frances's kitchen.

He said: "Where would the kitchen be?"

Raymond stood up without speaking and walked to the north-east corner of the hall and stood there. He looked back at Daniel from the corner.

"Here," he said. "Between the main room and the back entrance. The between-time kitchen. You make the tea and you come back into the room. You don't disappear."

He thought about the kitchen that didn't disappear. He thought about the kitchen visible from the weight-bearing room — not the open-plan kitchen, not the kitchen with no walls, but the kitchen connected to the weight-bearing room through an opening, the person at the counter visible to the people in the room. He thought about the between-time kitchen as the kitchen that held the between-time without removing the person from it.

He thought: the kitchen is part of the weight-bearing room. The person making the tea is still in the gathering.

He thought about the Farrow weight-bearing room — the kitchen table and the stair and the north window and the between-time of the family day. He thought about all the weight-bearing rooms and their kitchens — the kitchen always part of the room, the cooking and the gathering simultaneously.

He thought: I drew the community centre without the kitchen. The section is not complete.

He thought about the fourth section. He thought about Ellie saying: the third will be better than the second. He thought about the fourth being better than the third — the fourth with the kitchen, the kitchen in the north-east corner where Raymond had stood, the kitchen between the weight-bearing room and the back entrance, the person at the counter visible to the room.

He thought: there will be a fourth section.

He thought: the practice is still approaching the truth.

He wrote in the pocket notebook standing in the parish hall with Raymond: Raymond's kitchen. North-east corner. The between-time kitchen — making tea while remaining in the gathering. The kitchen is visible from the weight-bearing room. The person did not disappear.

He wrote: I drew the community centre without its kitchen. Raymond knew this. The section is not yet complete. The fourth section will have the kitchen.

He looked at Raymond in the north-east corner of the parish hall — the sixty-three-year-old caretaker who had been attending to these rooms for thirty years, who had made the step from scrap timber for a girl who couldn't reach the stage, who had named the between-time and known where the kitchen belonged without once being asked.

He thought: Raymond has been drawing the community centre for thirty years.

He thought: the section has been in the hall since Raymond arrived.

He thought about the chain — the dinner table and the library corner and the community centre steps and all the attending people across the years. He thought about Raymond as the person who had been in the chain without knowing the chain existed — the attending body in the honest room, the daily presence that accumulated the knowledge of what the room was for.

He thought: the chain runs through the people who have always been in it. They don't know they are in the chain. The chain knows them.

He looked at Raymond.

He said: "Before you retire — would you be willing to walk the allotment with me?"

Raymond looked at him. The caretaker's assessment — the person deciding whether the architect was worth the time.

"Yes," Raymond said. "When?"

He thought about when. He thought about the November allotment — the bare ground, the south hedge, the December approaching. He thought about the site in November as the site in its clearest attendance, the ground without the growing, the December being prepared.

"Next week," he said. "Before the light goes."

Raymond nodded. The practical agreement of the person who understood the light.

He thought about the allotment in November with Raymond. He thought about the fourth section. He thought about the between-time kitchen in the north-east corner and the section approaching its truth in the fourth version and Ellie reading the fourth section and the commission completing.

He thought: the practice is still in its approaching.

He thought: approaching is the correct condition.

He was glad.

He was, in the weight of the November Friday and Raymond in the north-east corner and the kitchen not yet drawn and the fourth section not yet begun and the allotment next week and the community centre approaching its truth and the thirty years of Raymond's attending and the step for the girl in her forties and the between-time and all the rooms of the practice still in their December, glad.

He was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Four