Chapter 13 First light.
"Do you have the champagne bottle ready?" Jenny asked Edmund, who answered her by holding up a bottle that had been so well chilled the condensation was starting to freeze over.
"Very good. How about the bottles that are supposed to survive?" she looked at Claire and Barbara who were ready. "Glasses?"
"All clear." said Adrian who was holding a tray with empty glasses, as was Stu.
"What about the artificial sun?" Jenny asked looking at Byron who was standing on top of a ladder trying to screw a torpedo formed light-bulb into a socket hanging as far as anyone could tell in the perfect centre of the milling room.
"Almost done." Byron said. "Although I would like to repeat that this is a very bad idea. These are really bright. Like painfully so."
"We heard and ignored you the first time Byron. So, are you ready?"
"Yeah," said Byron. "I'm ready." and climbed down the stairs.
"Take it away Linda."
Linda went to the northern wall to pull the big lever that stopped the waterwheel from turning. They had repaired it today when Linda had been putting the finishing touches on the prototype generator after they had noticed that they had never seen the waterwheel move, even after they had put it up-right again and repaired the central shaft holding it in place. After some frantic searching they had found a hole in the wall close to the floor that they had not noticed up until that moment as it was clogged up with debris. Cleaning it out revealed another round wooden shaft, which was connected to the 'break' of the waterwheel. It were Barbara and Adrian who found out how the mechanism worked, not 100% there was some kind of mechanism inside the wall they did not really understand, but enough to repair it.
"This isn't right." Linda said shaking her head. "It should be you." she signalled Jenny to come over and pull the lever.
"Good point." said Jenny. She walked over to the lever gripped hold of it, "Here goes nothing." and pulled it.
Nothing happened. The smiles in the group grew nervous.
"It should work." grimaced Linda, "There is resistance from the generator, but not this much."
A slight vibration went through the entire room. Jenny, Edmund and Claire all moved towards the walls looking up at the ceiling. Adrian looked at them snorting. "It's safe. Don't worry." A bit of dust came raining down gently from above. It took Adrian a bit of willpower but he stood his ground confident with dogged determination. The roof held its position.
The drive-shaft creaked very slowly starting to move, gently pushing the generator to live. The first revolution of the wheel took ages but after that it started to gather more speed, making the generator sing in a deep bass tone. The light bulb slowly came to life started to glow in a faint red glow which increased in intensity until no one could look at it directly any more. When the wheel had reached its normal speed any attempt to look directly into the light was met with groans and grimaces. The light bulb now shone like a tine sun hovering in the middle of the room, sending a spear of light through the windows above into the hazy night sky.
"It's too bright." Edmund protested.
"Then stop looking at it." said Jenny herself half squinting into the general direction of their tiny star. "Linda, can I assume that everything worked?"
"Some things worked." Linda said, the only person in the room not trying to look up at the new light but instead focusing on her laptop computer which she was holding at a strange angle to better see what was on the monitor. "We obviously are producing power, and the output is decent. But the power output is a bit shit, really. The generator took to long to run and now that it is running it is doing so much slower than anticipated. However we are right now producing more electricity than we are using so for the first time ever, this place is actually earning money."
"That's brilliant." Jenny said. "How much are we making?"
"Right now a couple of quid per hour." Linda said.
"Oh..." Jenny said.
"No need to be disappointed, this was just a test. Things are, basically, working. Now I'm going to collect data which will help me build the second prototype which will be closer to what we actually want."
"Another prototype?" asked Barbara, her eyes slowly coming alive with the glint of her instincts catching the scent of prey. "So this one is just...?"
"This one is just a quick and dirty proof of concept. This gives me an idea if the project itself will work and how it does. Once I have collected a robust set of data I can actually design a new generator that works with the peculiarities of this place. I will find weak points, unexpected strengths. And with that I will build the first real prototype."
"So this is basically just junk?" asked Jenny how was slowly sized by a loving embrace of disappointment.
"No not junk." protested Linda, "this is really important. This is about fact finding. A step most people love to ignore. This would be junk if I just put there and call it a day. It's also the junk you would get if you had gone to most, so called professionals," she grimaced as she said that word, "they would have fit you with the best thing they could have come up with and then left you alone with what ever crap they sold you. Should you complain they would tell you that it's your fault because the circumstances don't allow for anything better. Lazy off the shelve trash. But you get bespoke tech. And it will be at the very cutting edge of technology because I will take that blunt instrument," she pointed at the humming generator, "and will whet it myself until it has become sharp enough to cut light."
"Hear, hear!" Jenny said toasting Linda, shrugging off the disappointment
The next day everyone was back to working on the project. Jenny was helping Byron install a first stove and some appliances in the space that would once become the kitchen era. The old walls had gone leaving marks on walls, floor and ceiling if where they once stood, while the new walls were slowly growing around the room guided by the patient hands of Adrian.
"Maybe," Byron said looking at the room, "we could put up a kind of tent? We could use plastic sheets or something to isolate the cooking area and I could start cooking here?"
It will be weeks until the kitchen is even close to ready." Jenny said. "Are you sure this is such a great idea?"
"Yes. No." Byron looked around in frustration, "I have no idea. Consider this though. Linda is still working on the generator, she is starting with something that works good enough but she is taking in the... building, the circumstances, to make it perfect. Apart from that you told me that this was a living project kind of thing were things grow... as they grow."
"I think that was more Edmund's insane idea." Jenny said.
"Doesn't really matter who thought about it first but, I think it is a good idea. We can start working on it right now. We all need to eat, this needs to become a good kitchen and right now it can become the best possible kind of kitchen for this place. Look around? Nothings done yet, we can still decide if we want the wall to be over there or maybe not wall at all? Maybe we don't even need so much space. Right now, we can still move everything..."
"I won't move this wall." said Adrian without looking away from his work.
"We still can move and change a lot." said Byron.
Jenny did not answer for a while. Instead she looked around, blanking out Byron's pleading form and Adrian hunched at the gestating eastern wall. She went back to feel the place. It had changed. The constant smell of fresh cement as well as the now constant supply of fresh air had removed a lot of the original aura of the watermill. In a way it had washed away a lot of the magic that she had felt when she had first entered this place. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. At first it was just the smell of a fresh building shell. This did not smell like a safe space, but like somewhere where you sneaked into in the cover of darkness with you mates to have a drink, explore a house that was yet to be and imagine what it would once become. But there was more. It took her a while to grasp it. She could feel the basement, the solidity of the rock radiating out from underground, connecting it to the building above. The idea itself was strong, the real presence of the place around which the building formed. She turned slowly until she could sense the bright blinding light of the tiny star in the mill room, hear the deep murmur of the generator. Sensing the light, hearing the generator, feeling the spirit of the place she slowly came to understand the situation.
She opened her eyes again, turned back towards Byron.
"You are right. Right now this place is wide open. Everything that needs to be here to keep the roof up is in place, we have a source of power, but this is far from done. This place is still gestating. And right now we have the chance to find the perfect shape for everything else. You need to build your little experimental kitchen yourself. But on the plus side you get to build the kitchen yourself."
"Thanks." he said looking around imagining several different versions of the kitchen, when he stopped turning back to Jenny, "Wait, does that mean you're not going to help me with this anymore?"
"What?" Jenny said confused for a second. "Oh. I will still help you with getting things done. But the hard part, the thinking, the designing. That's now on your plate... I'm not sure if that qualifies as a pun and if it was intended."
"I'm as confused as you are, but that was horrible. I think." said Byron.
"Could you kids please shut up and let me do my work." Adrian said still looking at his fledgeling wall.
The weekend was strange. Jenny had become used to the mill being loud, bright and full of people. When she arrived on Saturday the mill was dark and empty. The tiny star was still shining, but the air that day was cold and clear so it could not be seen from the outside. 'We need more windows on the south wall." thought Jenny as she went to the door entered the main room to find more silence and absence. It was a strange feeling. Without anyone inside the building there were only its ghosts left. The ones that had been here for a long time as well as the new ones she and the other had created during the last weeks. Jenny thought that there was still some of the new comfort left inside the mill until she realised that it was the humming of the generator and the reverberation of the waterwheel turning.
She left the mill to go and say hello to Byron. But the trailer was dark and no one answered the door. So she continued to Barbara's place. Barbara was at home, she answered the door wearing a strikingly beautiful silk bathrobe. She ushered her inside where she found Byron hunched over the sofa table scribbling away at what look like the tenth or so attempt to design a kitchen for the watermill. Jenny looked at Barbara asking a delicate question with her eyes, which was answered by the softest smile and a pair of wriggling eyebrows on Barbara's side.Jenny sat down with a smile.
"Getting anywhere?" she asked Byron, who just looked at her with an expression of deep exhaustion.
"Not really he said." he gestured over the papers. "I'm trying to plan it out but somehow it doesn't really work on paper. At least for me."
"Tea?" asked Barbara.
"Yes please." said Jenny. Byron just made a half hearted wavy motion with his hand.
The rest of the morning they spend discussing the kitchen, Jenny trying to help Byron to find a point that he really liked to use as a focus while Barbara pretty much sabotaged Jenny at every step by reminding him of other enticing possibilities. Around noon Jenny started to feel irritable, when Byron left the room to answer the call of nature, she turned to Barbara. "Why are you working so hard at prevent Byron to decide on anything and what exactly will you do to stop me from strangling you?"
Barbara leant back in her chair laughing, her splendorous gown flowing around her giving her an aura of imperial majesty that could only be given justice by an oil painting. "I'm not trying to sabotage you my dear.", seeing Jenny's reaction she stopped laughing, "Trust me, this is helping him."
"Yes these million discarded sketches are a testament to your incredible skill." Jenny said waving her finger over the table that by now was covered with discarded design attempts. Many had fallen of the table and lay on the floor like it was autumn in an architect child's room.
"Please, there is no need to be sarcastic." Barbara said. "At least not know." Jenny was about to say something else when Barbara shushed her with a gesture. "Please, at least let me explain."
Jenny exhaled. "O.K., go ahead." she relaxed back into the sofa crossing her arms.
"Byron is a type of person that is different to yours. No, please, it will make sense in a minute. You are a visionary there is no doubt about it. You have your dream and you work towards it. Now when you first had that idea. About the mill. Did you have a picture in your mind?"
"Yes." Jenny said.
"It was clear, wasn't it? You had this place in your minds eye and ever since you have worked of translating your dream into reality right?"
Jenny nodded, wishing Barbara could get to the point.
"Does the mill look like it did in your first vision?"
"No, but it's not done yet and..." Jenny did not get further.
"Did it always have a sky-light in the milling room?" Barbara asked.
"No. That just happened after the bloody roof collapsed..."
"But now that it is there, it's part of your vision, right? The details may have changed. But your vision is still the same."
Jenny thought about that for a moment. "Yeah. Pretty much."
"See, that's the difference. You, at least in this instance are working towards a particular vision, one that is so strong that even if parts of it become impossible, you just adapt to the new circumstances. You have perfect clarity of what you want and you have the remarkable skill to work around disruptions by integrating it into this idea of yours."
"I never really thought about it... but yeah... I think I know what I want."
"Right? Even if you haven't really worked on it yet, you know exactly where and what type of windows you want. And you would know instantly when you saw something that is wrong. Like the porthole idea Edmund had for the Milling room."
Jenny laughed. "Yeah, that was ridiculous."
"Right. Now to my actual point. Byron is not like that at all. As you can see here, he has no clear idea what he wants. He knows what he needs, but there are some many possibilities how to get there, that right now he's overwhelmed by all the ideas."
"How is this," Jenny pointed again at the sketches, "helping him then in any way?"
"You are in an inspired way very rational, you know what you want and work towards it. Byron works on instinct and for his instinct to work properly he needs all of this. He needs as much information as possible. He won't find an answer today. It might even take a few days. But he will sleep over it and then one morning, or while he is taking a shower or making one of his crazy coffees it will become clear."
"That does make some kind of sense..." Jenny said. "Hey. Wait a moment. There is something wrong with your little hypothesis."
Barbara drew up one eyebrow. "I beg your pardon."
"You just said that my vision, is crystal clear. However I have no idea how the kitchen will look like."
Barbara smiled a thin smile that made Jenny consider strangulation again. "If you look at the sketches," Barbara said, "you will notice that they always fluctuate around a very specific area. It is always enclosed by the north wall, by the stairs to the south and the milling room to the east and all designs are open to the main room in the west. That are the limits imposed to it by your vision. You want there to be a bar facing the patrons and behind that another kind of bar to the kitchen. All of that is always in the sketches no matter how many variations there are. As long as something is within the bounds of your vision you don't care about the exact form. While Byron doesn’t care that much about the bounds you imposed as long as he gets to realise the perfect form inside of them."
"So... I just have to wait." Jenny said.
"Pretty much and the more ideas you feed him, the better his intuition will turn out to be."
When Byron returned to the room Jenny was looking out of the window deep in thought while Barbara was sorting through all the different versions of the kitchen he had put together so far.
"Did I miss anything?" he asked.
"Have you decided if you want to go gas or electric yet?" Jenny asked.
"I'm still considering my options. In a perfect world we would have gas, electric and fire."
"This," Jenny said, "is as close we are going to come to a perfect world. So why not try and integrate all three of them."
"er..." Byron said, gaze shifting to Barbara looking for help, but she was still looking at the sketches, smiling and utterly ignoring the new conversation. "Well... I think I could make that work..."
"Do that and if you have any problems come to me we might be able to expand the kitchen a little into the milling room."
"We could do that." Byron said. "But I think I can make it work in the space we have." He sat down again, grabbed his pencil and started drawing again.
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