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.
Tuesday, 27 November 2018
Friday, 23 November 2018
Project Coffee Break Redux 011
Chapter 12
The next day started late. The last night had been long. Sleep had to be had and the hangover demanded its tribute. Barbara was the only one not really affected as she knew how to party hard but very carefully, always alternating alcoholic drinks with soft drinks, knowing when it was wiser to nip than to down a glass. So when she went to the mill mid morning she found the place empty. She took the time to have a private tour trying to get a feel for the place to understand what it was that Jenny saw in this place. Yesterday during dinner she had felt it, but it did not convince her. You took a bunch of people who were at least on speaking terms, added food, booze and a common goal and you had yourself a party. No matter where you were. She had seen hundreds of events like these. She could engineer then if the fancy struck her. That was one of her personal little dirty secrets. There were times when she did not earn anything from her job as fairy-godmother to the under-appreciated, but she had to keep up appearances, so she had developed a rather healthy side business in designing and orchestrating parties for the terminally boring who as their only saving grace had money in excess. A victimless crime in her eyes as she did a lot to cultivate these people gently deepening the shallow puddles which reflecting the stars high above they mistook for the infinite sky. This also led to her second dirty secret, the only reason she was now wealthy enough to to have to worry about details like rent or food or bills was that it was among this crowd she found those who knew how to turn a bit of money into a bit more. Yes she had helped many artists to fame, she had taken a little cut from those who were truly successful but mostly she had been paid in art and that was the problem really. If the art was great, and a personal gift at that, how could she ever sell it. And if the art was horrible, it had to be put in a safe place to save everyone from embarrassment. She had a vault in her basement that was protecting the dignity of countless people.
She came to stop in front of the great hole in the third floor looking down to the milling room. Nope. She could not feel it. There was something quaint about the watermill and she had some very nice, private memories connected to this place. She smiled as she relieved a few passionate moments of her distant past, wondering what might have become of the others she had shared them with. But no, this was her just being sentimental. In the end this was a ruin. Repairing it would just turn it into an old watermill. Quaint, yes. But nothing remarkable.
This was intensely frustrating to her. She had watched artists all her life turning nothing into something special. A canvas into a window to new world. A block of stone into a simulacrum so close to real life that she'd expect it to move at any moment, holding her breath as she waited for it to come alive. Or taking random junk sticking it together into strange new forms so that the shadow it would cast would cast the shadow of something whole and beautiful. And never in all those years had she been able to see how the result would feel like until it was almost done. A twist of bitterness flavoured her soul. She grimaced at its taste.
'Don't.' she thought to herself. 'That path leads nowhere.' Unless of course you were her therapists then it lead to a fine big saloon. How ever there was a karmic balance to the universe. Because she knew the people who could turn things like this pile of rubble into something special. She knew when people had the spark or the drive or the vision to be great. Barbara could always get a quick feel what these people needed to grow. What would motivate them to put the work in that was necessary to go from nothing to art. While she did not know what it would become, she always knew how far one still needed to go. And she was there encouraging all these people, now for generations through this whole gruelling ordeal.
The mill was still missing to much for Barbara to get it. She saw the light in Jenny though and she saw how her fire slowly spread to the others. Some easily kindled, like Edmund who was probably pre-emptively on fire and Byron who had eyes who could see things much like Jenny did. But even people like Dan who life had failed to break but at least got him stuck in a perpetual state of cynicism was starting to really enjoy the work he was doing. Barbara had caught him regarding a bit of wall he had saved from potential ruin with gentle pride. People like Jenny who had a spark and were able to share it with others were very rare.
'I'm really sentimental today.' she thought kicking a pebble down the hole, it fell down making a satisfying click sound as it struck the ground, it rebounded once and then rolled away, hiding from the crazy old woman upstairs. Lost in thought she went outside again. 'Maybe I do get it?' Barbara thought, 'Or my age is finally catching up with me. I can't be in my mid-twenties all the time.'
"Excuse me, are you Jenny?" a female said, pulling Barbara out of her thoughts.
"I beg your pardon?" said Barbara.
"I asked if you are Jenny." said the woman. She was the age Barbara had decided to stay in for ever, she was wearing combat boots what probably where sensible trousers, almost completely covered up by a long mint green down coat. "I'm Linda." she added with a voice that made clear that, that should explain everything.
"Ah! You're the engineer girl." Barbara said.
"I'm the engineer woman." Linda corrected.
Barbara was about to tell Linda that from her perspective she was still closer to girl than to woman, but then decided against it, she had been far too old for far too long already today. If she wasn't careful the age would stick. "Sorry. You must be the engineer person." she just couldn't stop herself.
Linda considered this for a moment and then nodded, finding it satisfactory. "So, are you?"
"No. I'm afraid, I'm Barbara."
"But you do know Linda." not quite a statement, not yet suspicion.
"Yes, I know her. I guess you want to talk to her?"
"You assume right." said Linda relaxing.
"I'll just call her and I'll give you the tour while we are waiting for her."
"Fair enough." said Linda shrugging.
Half an hour later Jenny arrived, finding Linda and Barbara in the milling room, sitting on the floor drinking tea. After a short introduction Linda went straight to the point. "So, you need a generator." she said to Jenny.
Jenny pointed into the middle of the room. "About there to be precise. We have the water wheel, it would be a shame to let it go to waste. In a perfect world the generator could produce enough energy to make this place self sufficient."
"You were planning on a café, right?" Lind asked.
"Yes."
"Why don't you give me a tour and tell me what you would put where, and how far the grounds go."
"The grounds?" said Linda a bit surprised. "Sure, but how is that relevant to the generator."
"My situation is a bit complicated but if the right circumstances came together..." she look around again then looked Jenny directly into her eyes. "We could both benefit from the situation."
Jenny was not sure if that was meant to be reassuring. It did feel more like talking to a mob boss. "Let's give you the tour."
While she walked through the watermill pointing out how she imagined how everything here would look once it was done Jenny noticed that by now the whole project was almost done in her mind. She knew where everything would be. There was a certain solidity to the image she had in her mind. Instead of a mason removing things from a stone until the statue appeared, this was a case of adding to the free space until her idea was made manifest.
Another thing she noticed was how everyone reacted differently to the tour. She had now shown the place to several people, everyone reacting differently. Edmund with vocal enthusiasm; Barbara with mostly with a silent intensity only once in while pointing out something that she new about the place or where she saw parallels to past projects where she had helped; while Byron for example was almost instantly adding his own ideas, asking questions wanting to understand the whole project on a deep level. Linda was just silent. She listened, without interrupting, there was hardly any emotional reaction, but her eyes were always focused. She was absorbing everything she heard and while she did not say anything it was obvious that she was thinking about everything she heard.
In the end they stood outside next to Byron's construction trailer where smoke was drifting out of a little chimney on its roof filling the air with the smell of burning wood and breakfast.
"There were the little path leads to that bridge is where western part officially ends." Jenny said.
"OK", said Linda. She faded into deep thought for a while. Jenny decided to wait until she was done with it. While she waited she wondered if she could ask Byron for a coffee. It would help clear her head that was still faintly throbbing and then she would have something war to hold. While it was not exactly cold outside that day it was a damp, The bad weather was crawling beneath her clothes. Something that did not seem to bother Linda to much. Jenny was about to turn around and knock on Byron's door when Linda finally said something.
"I think I might be able to help you." Linda said.
"I'm glad to hear that." Jenny said waiting for the 'but'.
"I might even be able to help you with more than you actually asked for."
OK. This was not what Jenny had expected but now she was really curious where this was going.
"The situation in the mill is interesting, I can use it for my thesis, I had originally thought about something a bit smaller in scale, a proof of concept type thing, but in a way this is even better. There is a direct correlation to real world impact and there is enough room inside the building that we can build it from mostly off the shelve parts. My original plan was something going more in a bespoke direction. But actually, this is better. I'm starting to digress, the take home message here is: I can help you and this will work. OK. I can pay for my work and my materials myself. That is covered by my research grant. However there is more. I was asked by group from another university if I would be interested in a cooperation with them. At the time there wasn't much I could offer them but as it was connected to a pretty sweet grant from the EU I asked them to give me a few days to see if I can find a way to make our projects work as one big project. It did not look good until now." she said with the faintest smile.
"So this other project," said Jenny, "what is it about?"
"It is also about self-sufficient buildings, my project, until now was to small and lacked a suitable location for it. But now... Look at this place." Linda said her hand waving from the bridge to the mill. "This is where you want your watermill café to be right?"
"Yeah..." said Jenny.
"Now imagine how this would look," Linda said now seeing something there that should be real, "if you build something like a green house over it. Covering everything from the place where we are standing including the entire mill. You would have a space with its own micro-climate. The other team would build the green-house and drill some holes deep into the earth to keep it warm. With the river we can generate electricity, cool the place down in summer and regulate the humidity. It would be magnificent."
"A greenhouse?" Jenny asked.
"Pretty much. Inside it, it would be always summer."
"Deal."
"Just one more thing." said Linda.
"Yes?"
"I'd like to try your coffee."
"My coffee?" Jenny asked feeling that she was being led into a trap.
"Well you say you want to open a café and I'm about to stake my PhD thesis on your venture, so before I do that' I'd like to try your coffee. I want to know if I'm backing the right horse here."
"er..." Jenny was completely taken by surprise "I'm more of a tea person myself." she said her smile crumbling from her face. Now that she had a few panic fuelled seconds to consider it, that was a pretty reasonable request, about something she had never really considered but taken as a given. "However," she said, "Byron, our cook can take care of that." her smile still scared by Linda slowly returned.
Linda looked pleasantly intrigued. Jenny turned around and walked towards the door Byron's trailer, hoping that he was not only awake but also in a presentable shape. She knocked at the door.
"One moment please!" called Byron from inside. They heard some shuffling from inside and moments later Byron opened the door. He looked rakishly dishevelled in a way that made Jenny wonder if she had been doing hangovers wrong her entire life or if Byron had gone to a special workshop for that. "Good morning." he said.
"It's 1pm..." said Linda.
"And I just got up." said Byron as if this explained everything.
"Hello Byron," said Jenny choosing to be diplomatic, "may I introduce you to Linda. She is the one that is going to be building our generator."
"Pleased to meet you, Linda. I'm Byron."
"Linda, hi."
"Do you want a coffee? I was just making some."
"With pleasure." said Linda and she meant it.
"Please come in."
Jenny, Linda and Barbara went inside the trailer to find that it actually had just enough space for the four of them. In the middle of the little room was a table with enough space to one side to squeeze past. Behind that was a large book shelve bulging with books, on the other side a shelve full of cooking utensils. At the far end stood a large iron stove in which a fire was happily purring. On top of it stood three small pots, one of containing boiling water, Jenny could not see what was in the other two.
"This is very nice." said Barbara, "Did you do all of this yourself?"
"Most of it. Please take a seat. But I had a lot of help with the design and some of the implementation. The stove here for example is also the radiator. All the hot air goes into metal pipes which run along the floor there and there. I needed some help with the welding and making sure that they are actually air tight, else there would be a significant risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. These things look easy, but they usually turn out to be interesting instead."
"I'm this close to liking you." Linda said holding her thumb and index finger an inch apart. "But you really need to show me your coffee."
"Right, I was experimenting right now with how to get the best result. Does anyone here prefer their coffee with milk?" Jenny and Linda raised their hands while Barbara said, "I prefer mine black."
"Perfect." said Byron turning to the shelve filled with pots, pans, cutlery, glasses and mugs. He took out five mugs and started to pour coffee. "For you Jenny and... Linda, this is a coffee I made using only milk, no water, it should taste better or at list different to coffee made with water and with milk added. I thought that it could be like with chocolate, make it with water and it is watery, but with milk if becomes a creamy miracle. And for you Barbara, I have two different coffees. They are basically the same but one I made with boiling water the other one with water that is a bit cooler. I'm still trying to work out which form of extraction is the best." He poured the coffees, placed them on the table, added two glass containers with sugar, white and brown and enough tea spoons for everyone.
"As you can see," Jenny said trying not to sound smug, "we take our coffee very seriously." she shovelled a prodigious amount of sugar into her coffee, stirred it for a while and then toasted Byron with her cup.
Linda added one spoonful of white sugar to hers, sniffed it with her eyes closed, and only then took a careful sip. She savoured the coffee for a while. "This is very good coffee. And I like how you think.", she turned to Jenny, "With this, we are officially in business."
After they were done with their coffee they returned to the mill. Adrian and his boys had arrived while they had been in the trailer and had started working already. Edmund had texted Jenny informing her that she was helping Claire getting the materials they needed for the ring.
Later that day the skip finally arrived to the great delight of everyone, which quickly turned into well oiled cursing when they discovered how much work it was to get all the rubble that was already outside into the fucking skip. Claire and Edmund arrived after they had just begun work so that Edmund could enjoy it with them. Claire was the only one of the team that could escape shovel duty as she had a lot to discuss with Linda.
The next few days were mostly filled with a lot of work and while someone looking from outside would not have seen much of a difference inside things were moving at a decent pace. All the walls that needed reinforcement were done filling the building with the smell of fresh concrete. New load bearing pillars had been set up so that the week after they could finally start to take out the walls that needed to be removed. And last but not least the two rings holding up the roof and the ceiling of the milling room were done. The new skeleton of the building was done and hardening and by now the main electrical lines and pipes had been lain. The next week would be the one where the big obvious changes would come. The new windows and doors, but more importantly the new drive-shaft for the water wheel and with it, the first generator.
The next day started late. The last night had been long. Sleep had to be had and the hangover demanded its tribute. Barbara was the only one not really affected as she knew how to party hard but very carefully, always alternating alcoholic drinks with soft drinks, knowing when it was wiser to nip than to down a glass. So when she went to the mill mid morning she found the place empty. She took the time to have a private tour trying to get a feel for the place to understand what it was that Jenny saw in this place. Yesterday during dinner she had felt it, but it did not convince her. You took a bunch of people who were at least on speaking terms, added food, booze and a common goal and you had yourself a party. No matter where you were. She had seen hundreds of events like these. She could engineer then if the fancy struck her. That was one of her personal little dirty secrets. There were times when she did not earn anything from her job as fairy-godmother to the under-appreciated, but she had to keep up appearances, so she had developed a rather healthy side business in designing and orchestrating parties for the terminally boring who as their only saving grace had money in excess. A victimless crime in her eyes as she did a lot to cultivate these people gently deepening the shallow puddles which reflecting the stars high above they mistook for the infinite sky. This also led to her second dirty secret, the only reason she was now wealthy enough to to have to worry about details like rent or food or bills was that it was among this crowd she found those who knew how to turn a bit of money into a bit more. Yes she had helped many artists to fame, she had taken a little cut from those who were truly successful but mostly she had been paid in art and that was the problem really. If the art was great, and a personal gift at that, how could she ever sell it. And if the art was horrible, it had to be put in a safe place to save everyone from embarrassment. She had a vault in her basement that was protecting the dignity of countless people.
She came to stop in front of the great hole in the third floor looking down to the milling room. Nope. She could not feel it. There was something quaint about the watermill and she had some very nice, private memories connected to this place. She smiled as she relieved a few passionate moments of her distant past, wondering what might have become of the others she had shared them with. But no, this was her just being sentimental. In the end this was a ruin. Repairing it would just turn it into an old watermill. Quaint, yes. But nothing remarkable.
This was intensely frustrating to her. She had watched artists all her life turning nothing into something special. A canvas into a window to new world. A block of stone into a simulacrum so close to real life that she'd expect it to move at any moment, holding her breath as she waited for it to come alive. Or taking random junk sticking it together into strange new forms so that the shadow it would cast would cast the shadow of something whole and beautiful. And never in all those years had she been able to see how the result would feel like until it was almost done. A twist of bitterness flavoured her soul. She grimaced at its taste.
'Don't.' she thought to herself. 'That path leads nowhere.' Unless of course you were her therapists then it lead to a fine big saloon. How ever there was a karmic balance to the universe. Because she knew the people who could turn things like this pile of rubble into something special. She knew when people had the spark or the drive or the vision to be great. Barbara could always get a quick feel what these people needed to grow. What would motivate them to put the work in that was necessary to go from nothing to art. While she did not know what it would become, she always knew how far one still needed to go. And she was there encouraging all these people, now for generations through this whole gruelling ordeal.
The mill was still missing to much for Barbara to get it. She saw the light in Jenny though and she saw how her fire slowly spread to the others. Some easily kindled, like Edmund who was probably pre-emptively on fire and Byron who had eyes who could see things much like Jenny did. But even people like Dan who life had failed to break but at least got him stuck in a perpetual state of cynicism was starting to really enjoy the work he was doing. Barbara had caught him regarding a bit of wall he had saved from potential ruin with gentle pride. People like Jenny who had a spark and were able to share it with others were very rare.
'I'm really sentimental today.' she thought kicking a pebble down the hole, it fell down making a satisfying click sound as it struck the ground, it rebounded once and then rolled away, hiding from the crazy old woman upstairs. Lost in thought she went outside again. 'Maybe I do get it?' Barbara thought, 'Or my age is finally catching up with me. I can't be in my mid-twenties all the time.'
"Excuse me, are you Jenny?" a female said, pulling Barbara out of her thoughts.
"I beg your pardon?" said Barbara.
"I asked if you are Jenny." said the woman. She was the age Barbara had decided to stay in for ever, she was wearing combat boots what probably where sensible trousers, almost completely covered up by a long mint green down coat. "I'm Linda." she added with a voice that made clear that, that should explain everything.
"Ah! You're the engineer girl." Barbara said.
"I'm the engineer woman." Linda corrected.
Barbara was about to tell Linda that from her perspective she was still closer to girl than to woman, but then decided against it, she had been far too old for far too long already today. If she wasn't careful the age would stick. "Sorry. You must be the engineer person." she just couldn't stop herself.
Linda considered this for a moment and then nodded, finding it satisfactory. "So, are you?"
"No. I'm afraid, I'm Barbara."
"But you do know Linda." not quite a statement, not yet suspicion.
"Yes, I know her. I guess you want to talk to her?"
"You assume right." said Linda relaxing.
"I'll just call her and I'll give you the tour while we are waiting for her."
"Fair enough." said Linda shrugging.
Half an hour later Jenny arrived, finding Linda and Barbara in the milling room, sitting on the floor drinking tea. After a short introduction Linda went straight to the point. "So, you need a generator." she said to Jenny.
Jenny pointed into the middle of the room. "About there to be precise. We have the water wheel, it would be a shame to let it go to waste. In a perfect world the generator could produce enough energy to make this place self sufficient."
"You were planning on a café, right?" Lind asked.
"Yes."
"Why don't you give me a tour and tell me what you would put where, and how far the grounds go."
"The grounds?" said Linda a bit surprised. "Sure, but how is that relevant to the generator."
"My situation is a bit complicated but if the right circumstances came together..." she look around again then looked Jenny directly into her eyes. "We could both benefit from the situation."
Jenny was not sure if that was meant to be reassuring. It did feel more like talking to a mob boss. "Let's give you the tour."
While she walked through the watermill pointing out how she imagined how everything here would look once it was done Jenny noticed that by now the whole project was almost done in her mind. She knew where everything would be. There was a certain solidity to the image she had in her mind. Instead of a mason removing things from a stone until the statue appeared, this was a case of adding to the free space until her idea was made manifest.
Another thing she noticed was how everyone reacted differently to the tour. She had now shown the place to several people, everyone reacting differently. Edmund with vocal enthusiasm; Barbara with mostly with a silent intensity only once in while pointing out something that she new about the place or where she saw parallels to past projects where she had helped; while Byron for example was almost instantly adding his own ideas, asking questions wanting to understand the whole project on a deep level. Linda was just silent. She listened, without interrupting, there was hardly any emotional reaction, but her eyes were always focused. She was absorbing everything she heard and while she did not say anything it was obvious that she was thinking about everything she heard.
In the end they stood outside next to Byron's construction trailer where smoke was drifting out of a little chimney on its roof filling the air with the smell of burning wood and breakfast.
"There were the little path leads to that bridge is where western part officially ends." Jenny said.
"OK", said Linda. She faded into deep thought for a while. Jenny decided to wait until she was done with it. While she waited she wondered if she could ask Byron for a coffee. It would help clear her head that was still faintly throbbing and then she would have something war to hold. While it was not exactly cold outside that day it was a damp, The bad weather was crawling beneath her clothes. Something that did not seem to bother Linda to much. Jenny was about to turn around and knock on Byron's door when Linda finally said something.
"I think I might be able to help you." Linda said.
"I'm glad to hear that." Jenny said waiting for the 'but'.
"I might even be able to help you with more than you actually asked for."
OK. This was not what Jenny had expected but now she was really curious where this was going.
"The situation in the mill is interesting, I can use it for my thesis, I had originally thought about something a bit smaller in scale, a proof of concept type thing, but in a way this is even better. There is a direct correlation to real world impact and there is enough room inside the building that we can build it from mostly off the shelve parts. My original plan was something going more in a bespoke direction. But actually, this is better. I'm starting to digress, the take home message here is: I can help you and this will work. OK. I can pay for my work and my materials myself. That is covered by my research grant. However there is more. I was asked by group from another university if I would be interested in a cooperation with them. At the time there wasn't much I could offer them but as it was connected to a pretty sweet grant from the EU I asked them to give me a few days to see if I can find a way to make our projects work as one big project. It did not look good until now." she said with the faintest smile.
"So this other project," said Jenny, "what is it about?"
"It is also about self-sufficient buildings, my project, until now was to small and lacked a suitable location for it. But now... Look at this place." Linda said her hand waving from the bridge to the mill. "This is where you want your watermill café to be right?"
"Yeah..." said Jenny.
"Now imagine how this would look," Linda said now seeing something there that should be real, "if you build something like a green house over it. Covering everything from the place where we are standing including the entire mill. You would have a space with its own micro-climate. The other team would build the green-house and drill some holes deep into the earth to keep it warm. With the river we can generate electricity, cool the place down in summer and regulate the humidity. It would be magnificent."
"A greenhouse?" Jenny asked.
"Pretty much. Inside it, it would be always summer."
"Deal."
"Just one more thing." said Linda.
"Yes?"
"I'd like to try your coffee."
"My coffee?" Jenny asked feeling that she was being led into a trap.
"Well you say you want to open a café and I'm about to stake my PhD thesis on your venture, so before I do that' I'd like to try your coffee. I want to know if I'm backing the right horse here."
"er..." Jenny was completely taken by surprise "I'm more of a tea person myself." she said her smile crumbling from her face. Now that she had a few panic fuelled seconds to consider it, that was a pretty reasonable request, about something she had never really considered but taken as a given. "However," she said, "Byron, our cook can take care of that." her smile still scared by Linda slowly returned.
Linda looked pleasantly intrigued. Jenny turned around and walked towards the door Byron's trailer, hoping that he was not only awake but also in a presentable shape. She knocked at the door.
"One moment please!" called Byron from inside. They heard some shuffling from inside and moments later Byron opened the door. He looked rakishly dishevelled in a way that made Jenny wonder if she had been doing hangovers wrong her entire life or if Byron had gone to a special workshop for that. "Good morning." he said.
"It's 1pm..." said Linda.
"And I just got up." said Byron as if this explained everything.
"Hello Byron," said Jenny choosing to be diplomatic, "may I introduce you to Linda. She is the one that is going to be building our generator."
"Pleased to meet you, Linda. I'm Byron."
"Linda, hi."
"Do you want a coffee? I was just making some."
"With pleasure." said Linda and she meant it.
"Please come in."
Jenny, Linda and Barbara went inside the trailer to find that it actually had just enough space for the four of them. In the middle of the little room was a table with enough space to one side to squeeze past. Behind that was a large book shelve bulging with books, on the other side a shelve full of cooking utensils. At the far end stood a large iron stove in which a fire was happily purring. On top of it stood three small pots, one of containing boiling water, Jenny could not see what was in the other two.
"This is very nice." said Barbara, "Did you do all of this yourself?"
"Most of it. Please take a seat. But I had a lot of help with the design and some of the implementation. The stove here for example is also the radiator. All the hot air goes into metal pipes which run along the floor there and there. I needed some help with the welding and making sure that they are actually air tight, else there would be a significant risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. These things look easy, but they usually turn out to be interesting instead."
"I'm this close to liking you." Linda said holding her thumb and index finger an inch apart. "But you really need to show me your coffee."
"Right, I was experimenting right now with how to get the best result. Does anyone here prefer their coffee with milk?" Jenny and Linda raised their hands while Barbara said, "I prefer mine black."
"Perfect." said Byron turning to the shelve filled with pots, pans, cutlery, glasses and mugs. He took out five mugs and started to pour coffee. "For you Jenny and... Linda, this is a coffee I made using only milk, no water, it should taste better or at list different to coffee made with water and with milk added. I thought that it could be like with chocolate, make it with water and it is watery, but with milk if becomes a creamy miracle. And for you Barbara, I have two different coffees. They are basically the same but one I made with boiling water the other one with water that is a bit cooler. I'm still trying to work out which form of extraction is the best." He poured the coffees, placed them on the table, added two glass containers with sugar, white and brown and enough tea spoons for everyone.
"As you can see," Jenny said trying not to sound smug, "we take our coffee very seriously." she shovelled a prodigious amount of sugar into her coffee, stirred it for a while and then toasted Byron with her cup.
Linda added one spoonful of white sugar to hers, sniffed it with her eyes closed, and only then took a careful sip. She savoured the coffee for a while. "This is very good coffee. And I like how you think.", she turned to Jenny, "With this, we are officially in business."
After they were done with their coffee they returned to the mill. Adrian and his boys had arrived while they had been in the trailer and had started working already. Edmund had texted Jenny informing her that she was helping Claire getting the materials they needed for the ring.
Later that day the skip finally arrived to the great delight of everyone, which quickly turned into well oiled cursing when they discovered how much work it was to get all the rubble that was already outside into the fucking skip. Claire and Edmund arrived after they had just begun work so that Edmund could enjoy it with them. Claire was the only one of the team that could escape shovel duty as she had a lot to discuss with Linda.
The next few days were mostly filled with a lot of work and while someone looking from outside would not have seen much of a difference inside things were moving at a decent pace. All the walls that needed reinforcement were done filling the building with the smell of fresh concrete. New load bearing pillars had been set up so that the week after they could finally start to take out the walls that needed to be removed. And last but not least the two rings holding up the roof and the ceiling of the milling room were done. The new skeleton of the building was done and hardening and by now the main electrical lines and pipes had been lain. The next week would be the one where the big obvious changes would come. The new windows and doors, but more importantly the new drive-shaft for the water wheel and with it, the first generator.
Wednesday, 21 November 2018
Project Coffee Break Redux 010
Chapter 11 Nomad
The fog was still shrouding the city hiding it away from the open sky. Jenny left Barbara's place returning to the mill. Edmund was coming out of the mill moving another load of rubbish onto the new mountain. He did not stop when he saw Jenny but his gaze was caught be the new trousers and boots. "Stylish." he said. "Maybe you should go back into the basement again."
"I'm not sure if I'm offended right now or not." Jenny said. "Are you having a dig at my style?"
"Not really," Edmund said, tipping the debris out of the wheel barrow reuniting it with its family. "It's still your style. It suits you. I has just evolved. Like a Pokémon."
"Still not sure if I need to be angry or not...", Jenny said. When she got no response she first thought that Edmund was considering the error of his ways. She should have known better. He was now staring right past her at the street. She turned around to look at what was so captivating. As she turned around she hoped for the continued health of Edmund that there actually was something behind her. And indeed there was. Lights. Lights in the fog. Two bright lights close to the ground and two dim orange ones high above it. Moving towards them.
"What the..." Jenny said.
"My thoughts exactly." said Edmund. "Maybe the skip?"
It wasn't the skip. Instead what appeared was a tiny car some brand neither of them recognized except for it looking like what was made in the factory after the people there had swept up all the things left over after building the budget line and throwing it together. Behind it a large construction trailer came into view. An old massive thing that appeared to be the force pushing the carlet.
"Now that I see it, it somehow makes even less sense." Jenny said somewhat impressed.
"I agree... no wait..." Edmund laughed. "It's him! He's come."
Jenny turned to Edmund. "What?"
"It's the hipster!" Edmund said his eyes shining.
"What hipster?"
"You know, the one I told you about from the party?" Edmund said his gestures blossoming out in enthusiasm. "The cook!" he added when he was confronted by Jenny's stubborn lack of comprehension.
"Oh. All right." Jenny said. "You made it sound like the people of Rohan had come to save the day at Helms Deep."
Edmund's eyes grew wide. "It is a big deal. It means we now have a cook, that's a central part of the plan. And it was Minas Tirith, you idiot."
"It's been a long time since I last watched the films." Jenny said.
"Please stop making suicide words come out of your mouth."
"Never mind that, how is a cook going to help us now." Jenny asked.
The large trailer had come to a halt in front of the mill it's pet car idling in front of it. A young man immaculately sculpted to look messy climbed out of the car and waved. "Hi Edmund. Is there a place I can park my house?"
"House?" Edmund said staring blankly at the man.
Jenny who was as surprised as Edmund had decided not to let that affect her and pointed to the feral lawn next to the watermill. "You can park over there."
"'K. Thank you." the hipster nodded to Jenny. He climbed back into his tiny car-a-like gently coaxing the engine back into life cheering it on, very gently, to move itself and the majestic trailer it was fettered to forward again. To everyone's surprise including car and trailer it worked. The unequal pair started moving again, with only the man behind the wheel not wondering how all of this was possible. He made the carlet climb up onto the side-walk over it, into the damp turf and pulling its master behind it. The engine began to make pitiful mewling noises when the tires of the construction trailer reached the kerb. Feeling obviously embarrassed about the whole affair it lifted itself onto the side-walk following its pet into the green. Once there it was positioned in a way that it stood near the mill in parallel to the street. Only then could the little car finally get some rest.
The man climbed out of the car again and went to Jenny and Edmund who had watched the entire spectacle n silent amazement.
"Hi Edmund." the young man said. "And you must be Jenny" he said extending his hand to her.
"Hi." Jenny said shaking the man's hand. While it was pleasingly soft, the skin almost like silk, the shake was good and firm. "Edmund told me about you. You're..." she didn't want to say the hipster.
"Byron. Pleased to meet you." he said. "I heard you need a cook."
"Hi Byron. You heard right, although you might have arrived a bit early." Jenny said nodding towards the mill.
"Oh." said Byron who only now seemed to actually notice the old watermill, heap of rubble and broken roof standing in the middle of the sea of fog. "Ooooh."
Jenny tried a few expressions that might fit the situation, apologetic, pragmatic, encouraging, sheepish; all at the same time. Edmund decided to go for strictly deadpan reinforced by no eye contact at all.
"Wow..." Byron added who was still drinking in the details, the reality of what he was seeing still unfolding in his mind. "When Edmund had told me about the place... this was not what I had imagined."
Edmund followed his strictly no eye contact policy, he even moved his face further away from the two other just to be extra sure.
"Well..." Jenny said. "It's a special place." she exhaled.
"This place is fantastic." Byron said his eyes still wide. Filled, as Jenny now realised to her great surprise, with wonder.
""Can I go inside?"
"Sure." said Jenny who felt a warm wave of relief and happiness wash through her. She looked at Edmund who was trying some core of the eye contact to see if it there was a world where he still had friends out there. "I'll give you the tour. At least everywhere it's safe to go right now."
She started showing Byron the basement, worked her way up cautiously to the top floor where they looked upon the great opening, from a safe distance away. Jenny introduced Byron to the others as they met them. Adrian, Stu and Dan where still working on stabilizing the building. They found Claire on the second floor measuring out things with a small laser device, taking notes, while interrogating the walls. When they returned to the big room at the entrance Jenny pointed towards the right wall and said, "Once it is safe we will take away at leas the top half of that wall and behind there will be the kitchen and counter area. If you have the time to return when we are planning the kitchen, you can help us design it."
"When I return?" Byron asked.
"Yes?" jenny said. "As you can see there is still a lot to do just to get this building into a state that is even remotely inhabitable. Let alone ready to have a functioning kitchen."
"Oh. OK." Byron sounded disappointed. "It's just, that Edmund told me that you were right now just starting out working on opening this new place."
"Yes." said Jenny not sure about what it was that she was obviously missing.
"While I'm no professional I am passable with tools. I thought I could help you out with rebuilding the place."
Jenny blinked. "You could do that."
"Also," said Byron now more animated again, "you people need to eat."
"Right."
"Well, I'm a cook and at the very least I can make you food. We could even work on the menu while you're still rebuilding."
"He's got a point." Edmund said. "And he could help with rebuilding."
"Well we can use every helping hand right now." Jenny said. "And I assume that you brought your own kitchen."
Byron nodded a rougeish smile flashing across his lips. "I never leave without it."
Jenny and Edmund helped Byron set up his construction trailer home, which turned out to be surprisingly comfortable.
"You build this yourself?" Jenny asked looking around inside. Outside it was old metal with a failing paint job, inside it was all simple polished wood.
"With help of friends. I learned a lot building it. It was also the best way to own a tiny house of my own. And if I don't like a place I can take it an just leave. I don't lie to be stuck in a place. The world is large and there are some many interesting places that I want to visit. And this way I can do so without ever leaving home. Last winter I decided that the weather her was pushing me towards dark, sad thoughts, so I decided to go to the south of France. Took me a while to get there and then it took me three more weeks until I found a place where I could work in a restaurant kitchen but it was really worth it. I learned so much in those months..."
"I'm impressed." Jenny said. Edmund nodded.
"No need. Moving around, learning, growing. It's the most natural thing to do." Byron said.
"But now you want to do this?" Jenny asked, "If you decide us to join us you'll be stuck her for a while."
"I know." said Byron. "This is a big project. Which is why I'd love to be part of it. You are still starting out. Being able to be here from its inception, it's not often that one gets a chance like this. If you'll have me, I'd be honoured."
"You've got your self a deal." Jenny said. Byron smiled and nodded to himself. "Almost." Jenny added.
Byron's smile faded.
"First of all we need to actually sample your cooking. And if we like that we'll have to talk about money." she said.
The smile recovered. "Challenge accepted." said Byron.
Jenny joined the others working on the watermill. Once all floors where finally stabilised they put a tarp on the gaping hole on the roof. Thanks to the rains constant distaste for the dirty earth below, the inside of the mill was damp but not terribly so. All things considered they had been lucky in their misfortune as the rubble and dust that the collapsed roof had left behind had soaked up most of the water making it easier to sweep up. When Edmund mentioned this tiny ray of light Claire ruined it by pointing out that they had to find a way to heat up the mill sharpish or it would be eaten away by mould. Jenny pointed out that the mill had been free of mould all on its own for since pretty much forever, which led to a strange discussion where Claire maintained that it might be true for the moment there was no way of knowing that that had always been that way or that the roof situation had not ruined the micro climate inside the building in a way that opened up the proverbial doors to their fungal overlords. It took all of Edmund's diplomatic skills to keep Jenny calm thus preventing an unfortunate event of passionate murder. He persuaded Claire to work out what exactly they needed to build the roof ring and asked Jenny if she maybe could find out if there was a company that could provide them with the skylight.
A few hours later Jenny was still in a foul mood as she had not managed to get anyone on the phone who could help her that very instant and now had a list filled with dates from a few days to weeks from now until someone would come to even have a look at the blasted roof. She left the watermill to get some fresh air. Outside night had fallen over the city painting everything in darkness, while the fog had stayed where it was as it had taken a fancy to this part of the country. There was something peaceful about this scene. A little light spilling out into the the street from the mill behind Jenny, everything else just the fog muted sounds of work inside and the soft sleepy murmur of the river which was gently rolling towards the distant sea.
Jenny was slowly drifting into this feeling of calm when she was pushed out of it by a dissonant clanging noise. The sound of a broken cow bell being beaten again and again for the sins it had committed during its life.
It was Byron. Dinner was ready.
He had made enormous amounts of stew in a giant pot that had serious cauldron ambitions. It was too big, too heavy and too hot to carry alone so they used a broom handle to carry the pot by its handle. Jenny feeling the weight of the food on her shoulder as they marched towards the mill wondered if this was how the early hunter gatherers had felt when they had successfully hunted a cave bear or something. She found that thought funny, as she considered them pre-cooking the meat where they had killed it and letting it simmer down while they brought it home so they could start eating with their tribe the moment they arrived home. Maybe stopping on the way if they came across some nice herbs or tasty mushrooms.
Inside everyone had gathered in the main room. Stun and Dan had put a folding table against the wall facing the main entrance where they had put a crate of beer. Barbara had added strange decanters full of water and wine as well as paper plates and plastic glasses, all of them obviously from her extensive collection of art and design objects.
The people themselves had gathered around the centre of the room where they had placed several portable lamps on the floor creating a contemporary campfire that would have delighted Barbara's friends from the world of art.
There were loud cheers when they saw Jenny and Byron carrying the food inside. soon every one was sitting on the ground sharing, food drink and stories. The stew was delicious, the perfect food after a day full of hard labour and damp cold weather. Byron had not taken any chances and made more then enough. The result was that in the end everyone, apart from Byron himself who knew his food and Adrian who knew a trap when he saw one, was too full to move for quite a while. In this state they started to talk about the watermill again. What it would become one day. What it could be. What it needed to be.
"How much of the land around us belongs to the mill anyway?" asked Byron.
"It extends to the bushes upstream, and all of it down to the path to the little bridge." said Edmund waving his hands in general directions. "Then the river and the pavement." he nodded to emphasise his point.
"Do you have a plan?" Jenny asked.
Byron nodded standing up walking to a window overlooking the western side of the mill, where the little bridge stood. It was dark outside so he mostly just saw his own reflection. "It would be nice to have an herb garden." he said. "There enough sapace for that, you could also add some vegetables to it."
"I like that idea." Jenny said unfolding her legs and arms trying to get up. "So people can see where their food comes from." once she stood she moved towards the table to get some more wine. She held the decanter in one hand ready to pour herself another helping when she said, "The people coming here can actually choose their ingredients!"
"Like Subway's?" asked Edmund.
"No, not like that." Jenny said waving her glass dismissively at Edmund, "They can walk through the garden and actually point at the things they want to have in their food. It doesn't get much fresher than that." she said turning towards the group holding her glass and decanter up in triumph."
"I like that idea." said Byron
"As long as there is still anything to harvest." said Claire.
Jenny turned to Claire, she was feeling protective of her idea and would fight everyone for it, but she saw in Claire only the cold clear eyes of someone used to work with real numbers. "Of course only as long as there is a harvest." said Jenny, thinking that she really need to get used to the way of Claire's thinking, or strangling her what ever came first. "As long as there are crops left over, you can go and chose what you want. A summer bonus. It's not like you can adopt a plant in advance..." her eyes grew wide, "or can you? Imagine, you can have tomato plant, watch it grow, maybe even take care of it!"
"Oh good idea!" said Edmund. "We could offer bundles where you can adopt an entire salad."
"Now you are just getting carried away." said Claire
"Isn't that great?" Jenny said and in the end everyone got carried away even Claire.
The fog was still shrouding the city hiding it away from the open sky. Jenny left Barbara's place returning to the mill. Edmund was coming out of the mill moving another load of rubbish onto the new mountain. He did not stop when he saw Jenny but his gaze was caught be the new trousers and boots. "Stylish." he said. "Maybe you should go back into the basement again."
"I'm not sure if I'm offended right now or not." Jenny said. "Are you having a dig at my style?"
"Not really," Edmund said, tipping the debris out of the wheel barrow reuniting it with its family. "It's still your style. It suits you. I has just evolved. Like a Pokémon."
"Still not sure if I need to be angry or not...", Jenny said. When she got no response she first thought that Edmund was considering the error of his ways. She should have known better. He was now staring right past her at the street. She turned around to look at what was so captivating. As she turned around she hoped for the continued health of Edmund that there actually was something behind her. And indeed there was. Lights. Lights in the fog. Two bright lights close to the ground and two dim orange ones high above it. Moving towards them.
"What the..." Jenny said.
"My thoughts exactly." said Edmund. "Maybe the skip?"
It wasn't the skip. Instead what appeared was a tiny car some brand neither of them recognized except for it looking like what was made in the factory after the people there had swept up all the things left over after building the budget line and throwing it together. Behind it a large construction trailer came into view. An old massive thing that appeared to be the force pushing the carlet.
"Now that I see it, it somehow makes even less sense." Jenny said somewhat impressed.
"I agree... no wait..." Edmund laughed. "It's him! He's come."
Jenny turned to Edmund. "What?"
"It's the hipster!" Edmund said his eyes shining.
"What hipster?"
"You know, the one I told you about from the party?" Edmund said his gestures blossoming out in enthusiasm. "The cook!" he added when he was confronted by Jenny's stubborn lack of comprehension.
"Oh. All right." Jenny said. "You made it sound like the people of Rohan had come to save the day at Helms Deep."
Edmund's eyes grew wide. "It is a big deal. It means we now have a cook, that's a central part of the plan. And it was Minas Tirith, you idiot."
"It's been a long time since I last watched the films." Jenny said.
"Please stop making suicide words come out of your mouth."
"Never mind that, how is a cook going to help us now." Jenny asked.
The large trailer had come to a halt in front of the mill it's pet car idling in front of it. A young man immaculately sculpted to look messy climbed out of the car and waved. "Hi Edmund. Is there a place I can park my house?"
"House?" Edmund said staring blankly at the man.
Jenny who was as surprised as Edmund had decided not to let that affect her and pointed to the feral lawn next to the watermill. "You can park over there."
"'K. Thank you." the hipster nodded to Jenny. He climbed back into his tiny car-a-like gently coaxing the engine back into life cheering it on, very gently, to move itself and the majestic trailer it was fettered to forward again. To everyone's surprise including car and trailer it worked. The unequal pair started moving again, with only the man behind the wheel not wondering how all of this was possible. He made the carlet climb up onto the side-walk over it, into the damp turf and pulling its master behind it. The engine began to make pitiful mewling noises when the tires of the construction trailer reached the kerb. Feeling obviously embarrassed about the whole affair it lifted itself onto the side-walk following its pet into the green. Once there it was positioned in a way that it stood near the mill in parallel to the street. Only then could the little car finally get some rest.
The man climbed out of the car again and went to Jenny and Edmund who had watched the entire spectacle n silent amazement.
"Hi Edmund." the young man said. "And you must be Jenny" he said extending his hand to her.
"Hi." Jenny said shaking the man's hand. While it was pleasingly soft, the skin almost like silk, the shake was good and firm. "Edmund told me about you. You're..." she didn't want to say the hipster.
"Byron. Pleased to meet you." he said. "I heard you need a cook."
"Hi Byron. You heard right, although you might have arrived a bit early." Jenny said nodding towards the mill.
"Oh." said Byron who only now seemed to actually notice the old watermill, heap of rubble and broken roof standing in the middle of the sea of fog. "Ooooh."
Jenny tried a few expressions that might fit the situation, apologetic, pragmatic, encouraging, sheepish; all at the same time. Edmund decided to go for strictly deadpan reinforced by no eye contact at all.
"Wow..." Byron added who was still drinking in the details, the reality of what he was seeing still unfolding in his mind. "When Edmund had told me about the place... this was not what I had imagined."
Edmund followed his strictly no eye contact policy, he even moved his face further away from the two other just to be extra sure.
"Well..." Jenny said. "It's a special place." she exhaled.
"This place is fantastic." Byron said his eyes still wide. Filled, as Jenny now realised to her great surprise, with wonder.
""Can I go inside?"
"Sure." said Jenny who felt a warm wave of relief and happiness wash through her. She looked at Edmund who was trying some core of the eye contact to see if it there was a world where he still had friends out there. "I'll give you the tour. At least everywhere it's safe to go right now."
She started showing Byron the basement, worked her way up cautiously to the top floor where they looked upon the great opening, from a safe distance away. Jenny introduced Byron to the others as they met them. Adrian, Stu and Dan where still working on stabilizing the building. They found Claire on the second floor measuring out things with a small laser device, taking notes, while interrogating the walls. When they returned to the big room at the entrance Jenny pointed towards the right wall and said, "Once it is safe we will take away at leas the top half of that wall and behind there will be the kitchen and counter area. If you have the time to return when we are planning the kitchen, you can help us design it."
"When I return?" Byron asked.
"Yes?" jenny said. "As you can see there is still a lot to do just to get this building into a state that is even remotely inhabitable. Let alone ready to have a functioning kitchen."
"Oh. OK." Byron sounded disappointed. "It's just, that Edmund told me that you were right now just starting out working on opening this new place."
"Yes." said Jenny not sure about what it was that she was obviously missing.
"While I'm no professional I am passable with tools. I thought I could help you out with rebuilding the place."
Jenny blinked. "You could do that."
"Also," said Byron now more animated again, "you people need to eat."
"Right."
"Well, I'm a cook and at the very least I can make you food. We could even work on the menu while you're still rebuilding."
"He's got a point." Edmund said. "And he could help with rebuilding."
"Well we can use every helping hand right now." Jenny said. "And I assume that you brought your own kitchen."
Byron nodded a rougeish smile flashing across his lips. "I never leave without it."
Jenny and Edmund helped Byron set up his construction trailer home, which turned out to be surprisingly comfortable.
"You build this yourself?" Jenny asked looking around inside. Outside it was old metal with a failing paint job, inside it was all simple polished wood.
"With help of friends. I learned a lot building it. It was also the best way to own a tiny house of my own. And if I don't like a place I can take it an just leave. I don't lie to be stuck in a place. The world is large and there are some many interesting places that I want to visit. And this way I can do so without ever leaving home. Last winter I decided that the weather her was pushing me towards dark, sad thoughts, so I decided to go to the south of France. Took me a while to get there and then it took me three more weeks until I found a place where I could work in a restaurant kitchen but it was really worth it. I learned so much in those months..."
"I'm impressed." Jenny said. Edmund nodded.
"No need. Moving around, learning, growing. It's the most natural thing to do." Byron said.
"But now you want to do this?" Jenny asked, "If you decide us to join us you'll be stuck her for a while."
"I know." said Byron. "This is a big project. Which is why I'd love to be part of it. You are still starting out. Being able to be here from its inception, it's not often that one gets a chance like this. If you'll have me, I'd be honoured."
"You've got your self a deal." Jenny said. Byron smiled and nodded to himself. "Almost." Jenny added.
Byron's smile faded.
"First of all we need to actually sample your cooking. And if we like that we'll have to talk about money." she said.
The smile recovered. "Challenge accepted." said Byron.
Jenny joined the others working on the watermill. Once all floors where finally stabilised they put a tarp on the gaping hole on the roof. Thanks to the rains constant distaste for the dirty earth below, the inside of the mill was damp but not terribly so. All things considered they had been lucky in their misfortune as the rubble and dust that the collapsed roof had left behind had soaked up most of the water making it easier to sweep up. When Edmund mentioned this tiny ray of light Claire ruined it by pointing out that they had to find a way to heat up the mill sharpish or it would be eaten away by mould. Jenny pointed out that the mill had been free of mould all on its own for since pretty much forever, which led to a strange discussion where Claire maintained that it might be true for the moment there was no way of knowing that that had always been that way or that the roof situation had not ruined the micro climate inside the building in a way that opened up the proverbial doors to their fungal overlords. It took all of Edmund's diplomatic skills to keep Jenny calm thus preventing an unfortunate event of passionate murder. He persuaded Claire to work out what exactly they needed to build the roof ring and asked Jenny if she maybe could find out if there was a company that could provide them with the skylight.
A few hours later Jenny was still in a foul mood as she had not managed to get anyone on the phone who could help her that very instant and now had a list filled with dates from a few days to weeks from now until someone would come to even have a look at the blasted roof. She left the watermill to get some fresh air. Outside night had fallen over the city painting everything in darkness, while the fog had stayed where it was as it had taken a fancy to this part of the country. There was something peaceful about this scene. A little light spilling out into the the street from the mill behind Jenny, everything else just the fog muted sounds of work inside and the soft sleepy murmur of the river which was gently rolling towards the distant sea.
Jenny was slowly drifting into this feeling of calm when she was pushed out of it by a dissonant clanging noise. The sound of a broken cow bell being beaten again and again for the sins it had committed during its life.
It was Byron. Dinner was ready.
He had made enormous amounts of stew in a giant pot that had serious cauldron ambitions. It was too big, too heavy and too hot to carry alone so they used a broom handle to carry the pot by its handle. Jenny feeling the weight of the food on her shoulder as they marched towards the mill wondered if this was how the early hunter gatherers had felt when they had successfully hunted a cave bear or something. She found that thought funny, as she considered them pre-cooking the meat where they had killed it and letting it simmer down while they brought it home so they could start eating with their tribe the moment they arrived home. Maybe stopping on the way if they came across some nice herbs or tasty mushrooms.
Inside everyone had gathered in the main room. Stun and Dan had put a folding table against the wall facing the main entrance where they had put a crate of beer. Barbara had added strange decanters full of water and wine as well as paper plates and plastic glasses, all of them obviously from her extensive collection of art and design objects.
The people themselves had gathered around the centre of the room where they had placed several portable lamps on the floor creating a contemporary campfire that would have delighted Barbara's friends from the world of art.
There were loud cheers when they saw Jenny and Byron carrying the food inside. soon every one was sitting on the ground sharing, food drink and stories. The stew was delicious, the perfect food after a day full of hard labour and damp cold weather. Byron had not taken any chances and made more then enough. The result was that in the end everyone, apart from Byron himself who knew his food and Adrian who knew a trap when he saw one, was too full to move for quite a while. In this state they started to talk about the watermill again. What it would become one day. What it could be. What it needed to be.
"How much of the land around us belongs to the mill anyway?" asked Byron.
"It extends to the bushes upstream, and all of it down to the path to the little bridge." said Edmund waving his hands in general directions. "Then the river and the pavement." he nodded to emphasise his point.
"Do you have a plan?" Jenny asked.
Byron nodded standing up walking to a window overlooking the western side of the mill, where the little bridge stood. It was dark outside so he mostly just saw his own reflection. "It would be nice to have an herb garden." he said. "There enough sapace for that, you could also add some vegetables to it."
"I like that idea." Jenny said unfolding her legs and arms trying to get up. "So people can see where their food comes from." once she stood she moved towards the table to get some more wine. She held the decanter in one hand ready to pour herself another helping when she said, "The people coming here can actually choose their ingredients!"
"Like Subway's?" asked Edmund.
"No, not like that." Jenny said waving her glass dismissively at Edmund, "They can walk through the garden and actually point at the things they want to have in their food. It doesn't get much fresher than that." she said turning towards the group holding her glass and decanter up in triumph."
"I like that idea." said Byron
"As long as there is still anything to harvest." said Claire.
Jenny turned to Claire, she was feeling protective of her idea and would fight everyone for it, but she saw in Claire only the cold clear eyes of someone used to work with real numbers. "Of course only as long as there is a harvest." said Jenny, thinking that she really need to get used to the way of Claire's thinking, or strangling her what ever came first. "As long as there are crops left over, you can go and chose what you want. A summer bonus. It's not like you can adopt a plant in advance..." her eyes grew wide, "or can you? Imagine, you can have tomato plant, watch it grow, maybe even take care of it!"
"Oh good idea!" said Edmund. "We could offer bundles where you can adopt an entire salad."
"Now you are just getting carried away." said Claire
"Isn't that great?" Jenny said and in the end everyone got carried away even Claire.
Thursday, 15 November 2018
Project Coffee Break Redux 009
Chapter 10
Jenny tuned to Claire next who was sitting hunched over her laptop, a computerized fortress that had been somehow been stuffed into a briefcase.
"Will it work." Jenny asked.
"Will what work?" Claire said not looking up.
"The ring on the roof."
"I'm pretty sure it will."
"Good. When can we start with it?" Jenny said looking around the room trying to come up with a new set of priorities.
"We should start as soon as possible. But I will have to do measurements and calculations. We have to do this right. So I'd guess." she looked up for a moment guestimating her way to an answer she could live with. "Two days. After that we can start work on the roof. Dan and Adrian are working on stabilising what is left, that will take them the rest of the day. Stu is busy laying the lifeline to the the city. That leaves you and Edmund on cleaning duty."
Jenny's eyebrow twitched, Claire had somehow assumed command over the situation and was now suddenly telling her what to do? She relaxed her hand that had somehow bunched into fists. She considered crushing Claire under her laptop for a second. She then took a moment to consider her own plan for the situation, the main difference between her plan and that of Claire was that in her plan she was a dashing leaser rallying the troops to work together to save the watermill, with everyone doing pretty much the same things Claire had said. So it was an ego problem then. She eye balled Claire who was absorbed in her work, apparently Jenny and the rest of the world had ceased existing again. As annoying as she had been there had been no malice or smugness in her voice. Jenny had worked with these kind of people before, often they were either from technical fields or the military, where everything was done in the most pragmatic way possible. Pragmatism often forgetting how important the social component could be. In the end Jenny send her ego back into its room, promising it a big juice steak in the evening to balance things out. This was not the mole-hill she was going to die on.
She had turned around to go and look for Edmund when she stopped and turned back to Claire "By the way how much is this going to cost me."
"Hmm?" asked Claire still looking at her screen. "To be perfectly honest, it is really hard to tell this early in the project."
"No, not the project," Jenny said, "I was talking about you. how much are you going to cost me?"
No Claire looked at her, her eyes appearing over the top of the laptop. "Don't worry about it." Claire said, her eyes fixed on Jenny's.
"That's easy for you to say. It's my money and look around," she said with a wide gesture, "not a single money tree in sight."
Claire rolled her eyes at that. "It won't be that much all things considered. There is something really interesting about this place and being able to work here is much more interesting than the usual boring shit I am asked to do. This is a proper challenge. This is what I was actually trained for."
"So, pro bono then." Jenny said baring her teeth with only a hit of dark humour.
Claire snorted. "Sure. The moment my rent pays itself and I have no more need to feed myself. But I'll cut you a deal. Two and a half grand for the entire project. Should you by some miracle stay below that you'll get the difference back."
"Two and a half grand? Are you serious." Jenny asked the corners of her moth moving down into normal position now leaving only teeth and no humour behind.
"Look just first inspection here would cost you around 250 pounds for a normal house with an up to date ground plan. This here is not normal and there is nothing in here that is even remotely up to date. I need to do measurements quite a lot of them, of the rooms of the materials and I have to do some proper detective work to see if the structure is sound. Based on the complexity of the project and the size of the building alone you haver at the very least another thousand right then and there. Add to that my hourly rate that even at a discount would be one hundred pounds..." she let that sink in for a moment. "I'm pretty sure that you will start making money in a weeks time. If you prefer I can of course charge you the usual rates."
The teeth disappeared now too, leaving Jenny with a probing expression. She walked back to Claire and hunched down in front of her, closing her eyes. She ignored the "er..." from Claire and tried to feel the room. The smell of damp and mildew vanished, there was again the feeling of warmth and light summer breeze. She opened her eyes again that had to adjust to the sudden darkness of a late autumn afternoon. "Deal." Jenny said. "Two and a half thousand it is." she got up and left the room. Hearing Claire say "OK. So that happened." behind her.
Jenny found Edmund outside standing next to a large piece of rock that he had hauled of the milling room, with the help of a wheelbarrow that lay beside it looking as defeated as him. Edmund was on his phone a lively gesture with his left hand dying mid air. "Yes I understand. I just need one of the big ones. I have no idea how many cubic feet that is. Big!" the hand flared up into the air again. "Well just tell me the sizes then." He listened intently, moving his lips silently trying to work of the dimensions in his head. "Yeah, maybe not the last one. The one before that? Do you know the measurements of that? Meters or feet, 'ts all the same to me. Yeah. I'll wait." he turned towards Jenny with his long black coat and his slouched shoulders he looked like the worlds most disappointed raven. He held his hand over the speaker "I'm trying to get a skip for all the rubbish." Jenny wondered for a moment if Edmund maybe was born in the wrong age, why didn't he just use the mute button? "Yeah. Skip." she said. "Maybe we should have gotten one of those earlier..."
"You think?" said Edmund eyeing the place where the might Mount Trash had been replaced a a growing pile of rubble that was starting to look like a real mountain and one that garbage disposal would not simply come and take with them.
"Yes?" Edmund said talking to the phone again. "7 meters? Times what? It doesn’t say? You know what. Never mind. We'll take it. Yes. Right, that's the address. It's not number 7 though. It's right across the street. There is no number. Because it's and old building? You can't miss it it is a giant watermill. Yes. You know? Like a windmill but with a river instead of wind? Just tell the driver. Yeah... thank you. And to you. Goodbye." Edmund exhaled. "So how are you holding up then?" he said.
"Better than you it seems." Jenny said. "I think this is going to work."
Edmund laughed, it started bitter but became good natured as it went on. He shook his head, his posture straightening. "Now it's going to work?" he said.
"Yeah." Jenny said grinning. "Now I've seen everything and I think I understand it all now."
Edmund's smile froze for a moment he waited, looking around to see if fate so tempted decided to add something else to their rich buffet of misfortune. But as no one was hit by lightning and no sink-holes opened up to swallow what was left of the mill he relaxed again. "So where does this come from?"
"Have you been to the basement yet?" Jenny asked.
"No, still need to get my wellies, I don't want to get wet feet. In this weather that would be...", he looked at Jenny's wet feet. "...suicide. But I guess something as trivial as pneumonia won't stop you..."
"There can't be a pneumonia without the bacteria, you told me so yourself." Jenny said.
"Still... that", he pointed to her soaked shoes, "is a shit idea. Never mind. What about the basement?"
"It is solid rock. It looks like a long time ago people carved the basement out of the rock."
"Why?"
"I have no idea. Maybe because they needed a safe space? And that is exactly what that is." she pointed to the mill. "A safe space. Out here all kinds of shit can happen. And they do. The universe is a scary chaotic place but in there, there is a safe space." Jenny said.
Edmund looked at the ruined roof. "You have a very strange definition of safe..."
"Nothing is just safe Edmund. You have to work for it. The people who first carved out the rock had to work for it, then the people who build on it and even the idiots who are responsible for that," nodded towards the collapsed part of the building, "worked hard to build on that. And to be fair, it only collapsed because of neglect. You are the scientist Edmund. There's something about close systems and entropy and work that explains all that."
"I'm glad to see how little you have learned from me." Edmund said.
"It's true though. You want order, you have to work for it. You want safety you need to work for it. You want to maintain it, you have to work for it."
"True." said Edmund.
"And once we have pushed all the uncertainty and chaos out of the door again, and this is the important part" Jenny said raising her index finger, "we can share it with others. We can be safe together. Like a..."
"Is this going to be another strained metaphor?" Edmund asked.
"Perhaps?"
"Maybe you should consider setting up a safe space for defenceless threatened metaphors too?"
"Right now I'm considering punching you." Jenny said feeling happy for having such a magnificently annoying friend in Edmund.
"Fair enough. But first, do something about those wet shoes and trousers of yours.
Barbara took care of the clothing situation. First she forced Jenny into a bathroom that had grown out of the dreams marble must have when it is still in a quarry thinking what it might become when it grows up. In there she was commanded to take a warm foot bath, there was an actually mini tub just for that installed in the floor, while she took care of her cloths and made her a tea. It was the first time Jenny had seen Barbara acting her age. There were a lot of "oh dears" and "don't worry Barbara will take care of this"s.
Jenny tried to relax while waiting for Barbara to return but the bidet standing next to her looked like it had a restraining order banning it from getting near any human being ever again. It looked resentful and full of appetite. Jenny shuddered.
Barbara returned with a fresh towel and a large plastic rugged plastic mug which would have gotten along just fine with Claire's armoured laptop.
"Here." she said to Jenny giving her first the towel, followed by the mug after she had dried her feet and legs. "Now we'll find you something nice to wear."
"Right..." Jenny followed her wrapping the towel around her waist as in impromptu skirt. While Barbara didn't seemed bothered about Jenny being without trousers, Jenny felt uncomfortable without them. She followed Barbara upstairs wondering what Barbara might have that she could wear. The answer was: a lot. Once upon a time Barbara had had a walk in closet until it had decided to walk out and take over most of the first floor. There were clothes everywhere. In all stylers a wild range of sizes and all colours known to mankind and others of which only a small number of artists knew the names of. What to Jenny had appeared like a simple endeavour of just getting a skirt or pair of pants and with a bit of luck a pair of shoes she could wear until her own things were dry again turned into an odyssey that took almost an hour. Much of the time the increasingly exasperated Jenny was fighting off Barbara who was constantly distracted by clothes that would be 'the perfect fit' for Jenny and sudden bursts of inspiration about where they could take her 'personal style'.
In the end she got a surprisingly comfortable pair grey flecked cargo pants. "Those," Barbara said "are from the Urban Worker Tribes collection of a friend of mine. Great designer, horrible at marketing. It has pockets, loops and stuff like that for everything. You should keep it!" she said with mounting enthusiasm.
"What?No I can't possibly accept or pay for this." Jenny said.
"Pay? Bah." Barbara dismissed, "When am I going to wear them? Also not they are finally complete. These trousers are made for work. They will never be done if they stay here catching dust, or if they are worn by some clueless Instagram model..." an idea was dawning on her. "Do you have an Instagram account?"
Jenny had to stop herself from asking how she knew about Instagram. "Not really. And no!"
"Hmmm?" Barbara asked summoning all innocence that was indebted to her wrapping it around here like a fur. "I don't know what your problem is. Nevermind you also need some shoes."
To Jenny's surprise it took Barbara only a few minutes to find a pair of heavy work boots which again, were a suspiciously good fit. "How do you know my shoe size?" she asked.
"I don't" Barbara said. "But as I help people I get tons of free stuff. And this is not simple merch. Everything you see here are prototypes, first version, all made by hand. And these come in all different kind of sizes. Those you can keep too." Before Jenny could say anything. "They don't fit my feet."
"What do you get out of this." Jenny asked.
Barbara looked at her obviously considering if she was going to be offended but in the end decided to be understanding. When she looked at Jenny she was again very close to being a grandma instead of the ageless art guerilla. "I get to see you succeed Jenny. I get the deep satisfaction to remove stones be they small or great from the path you chose to walk. And, at least that is what I hope, I get to see your project grow and bloom." she said her expression shifting towards the impish again turning her from granny back towards the fair folk.
"Thank you." Jenny said trying not to blush.
"Oh and free coffee and food for the rest of my life once the place finally opens." Barbara added. "There you go ulterior motive revealed."
Jenny laughed. "Right now you can get all the coffee you want. We'll see about the food."
Jenny tuned to Claire next who was sitting hunched over her laptop, a computerized fortress that had been somehow been stuffed into a briefcase.
"Will it work." Jenny asked.
"Will what work?" Claire said not looking up.
"The ring on the roof."
"I'm pretty sure it will."
"Good. When can we start with it?" Jenny said looking around the room trying to come up with a new set of priorities.
"We should start as soon as possible. But I will have to do measurements and calculations. We have to do this right. So I'd guess." she looked up for a moment guestimating her way to an answer she could live with. "Two days. After that we can start work on the roof. Dan and Adrian are working on stabilising what is left, that will take them the rest of the day. Stu is busy laying the lifeline to the the city. That leaves you and Edmund on cleaning duty."
Jenny's eyebrow twitched, Claire had somehow assumed command over the situation and was now suddenly telling her what to do? She relaxed her hand that had somehow bunched into fists. She considered crushing Claire under her laptop for a second. She then took a moment to consider her own plan for the situation, the main difference between her plan and that of Claire was that in her plan she was a dashing leaser rallying the troops to work together to save the watermill, with everyone doing pretty much the same things Claire had said. So it was an ego problem then. She eye balled Claire who was absorbed in her work, apparently Jenny and the rest of the world had ceased existing again. As annoying as she had been there had been no malice or smugness in her voice. Jenny had worked with these kind of people before, often they were either from technical fields or the military, where everything was done in the most pragmatic way possible. Pragmatism often forgetting how important the social component could be. In the end Jenny send her ego back into its room, promising it a big juice steak in the evening to balance things out. This was not the mole-hill she was going to die on.
She had turned around to go and look for Edmund when she stopped and turned back to Claire "By the way how much is this going to cost me."
"Hmm?" asked Claire still looking at her screen. "To be perfectly honest, it is really hard to tell this early in the project."
"No, not the project," Jenny said, "I was talking about you. how much are you going to cost me?"
No Claire looked at her, her eyes appearing over the top of the laptop. "Don't worry about it." Claire said, her eyes fixed on Jenny's.
"That's easy for you to say. It's my money and look around," she said with a wide gesture, "not a single money tree in sight."
Claire rolled her eyes at that. "It won't be that much all things considered. There is something really interesting about this place and being able to work here is much more interesting than the usual boring shit I am asked to do. This is a proper challenge. This is what I was actually trained for."
"So, pro bono then." Jenny said baring her teeth with only a hit of dark humour.
Claire snorted. "Sure. The moment my rent pays itself and I have no more need to feed myself. But I'll cut you a deal. Two and a half grand for the entire project. Should you by some miracle stay below that you'll get the difference back."
"Two and a half grand? Are you serious." Jenny asked the corners of her moth moving down into normal position now leaving only teeth and no humour behind.
"Look just first inspection here would cost you around 250 pounds for a normal house with an up to date ground plan. This here is not normal and there is nothing in here that is even remotely up to date. I need to do measurements quite a lot of them, of the rooms of the materials and I have to do some proper detective work to see if the structure is sound. Based on the complexity of the project and the size of the building alone you haver at the very least another thousand right then and there. Add to that my hourly rate that even at a discount would be one hundred pounds..." she let that sink in for a moment. "I'm pretty sure that you will start making money in a weeks time. If you prefer I can of course charge you the usual rates."
The teeth disappeared now too, leaving Jenny with a probing expression. She walked back to Claire and hunched down in front of her, closing her eyes. She ignored the "er..." from Claire and tried to feel the room. The smell of damp and mildew vanished, there was again the feeling of warmth and light summer breeze. She opened her eyes again that had to adjust to the sudden darkness of a late autumn afternoon. "Deal." Jenny said. "Two and a half thousand it is." she got up and left the room. Hearing Claire say "OK. So that happened." behind her.
Jenny found Edmund outside standing next to a large piece of rock that he had hauled of the milling room, with the help of a wheelbarrow that lay beside it looking as defeated as him. Edmund was on his phone a lively gesture with his left hand dying mid air. "Yes I understand. I just need one of the big ones. I have no idea how many cubic feet that is. Big!" the hand flared up into the air again. "Well just tell me the sizes then." He listened intently, moving his lips silently trying to work of the dimensions in his head. "Yeah, maybe not the last one. The one before that? Do you know the measurements of that? Meters or feet, 'ts all the same to me. Yeah. I'll wait." he turned towards Jenny with his long black coat and his slouched shoulders he looked like the worlds most disappointed raven. He held his hand over the speaker "I'm trying to get a skip for all the rubbish." Jenny wondered for a moment if Edmund maybe was born in the wrong age, why didn't he just use the mute button? "Yeah. Skip." she said. "Maybe we should have gotten one of those earlier..."
"You think?" said Edmund eyeing the place where the might Mount Trash had been replaced a a growing pile of rubble that was starting to look like a real mountain and one that garbage disposal would not simply come and take with them.
"Yes?" Edmund said talking to the phone again. "7 meters? Times what? It doesn’t say? You know what. Never mind. We'll take it. Yes. Right, that's the address. It's not number 7 though. It's right across the street. There is no number. Because it's and old building? You can't miss it it is a giant watermill. Yes. You know? Like a windmill but with a river instead of wind? Just tell the driver. Yeah... thank you. And to you. Goodbye." Edmund exhaled. "So how are you holding up then?" he said.
"Better than you it seems." Jenny said. "I think this is going to work."
Edmund laughed, it started bitter but became good natured as it went on. He shook his head, his posture straightening. "Now it's going to work?" he said.
"Yeah." Jenny said grinning. "Now I've seen everything and I think I understand it all now."
Edmund's smile froze for a moment he waited, looking around to see if fate so tempted decided to add something else to their rich buffet of misfortune. But as no one was hit by lightning and no sink-holes opened up to swallow what was left of the mill he relaxed again. "So where does this come from?"
"Have you been to the basement yet?" Jenny asked.
"No, still need to get my wellies, I don't want to get wet feet. In this weather that would be...", he looked at Jenny's wet feet. "...suicide. But I guess something as trivial as pneumonia won't stop you..."
"There can't be a pneumonia without the bacteria, you told me so yourself." Jenny said.
"Still... that", he pointed to her soaked shoes, "is a shit idea. Never mind. What about the basement?"
"It is solid rock. It looks like a long time ago people carved the basement out of the rock."
"Why?"
"I have no idea. Maybe because they needed a safe space? And that is exactly what that is." she pointed to the mill. "A safe space. Out here all kinds of shit can happen. And they do. The universe is a scary chaotic place but in there, there is a safe space." Jenny said.
Edmund looked at the ruined roof. "You have a very strange definition of safe..."
"Nothing is just safe Edmund. You have to work for it. The people who first carved out the rock had to work for it, then the people who build on it and even the idiots who are responsible for that," nodded towards the collapsed part of the building, "worked hard to build on that. And to be fair, it only collapsed because of neglect. You are the scientist Edmund. There's something about close systems and entropy and work that explains all that."
"I'm glad to see how little you have learned from me." Edmund said.
"It's true though. You want order, you have to work for it. You want safety you need to work for it. You want to maintain it, you have to work for it."
"True." said Edmund.
"And once we have pushed all the uncertainty and chaos out of the door again, and this is the important part" Jenny said raising her index finger, "we can share it with others. We can be safe together. Like a..."
"Is this going to be another strained metaphor?" Edmund asked.
"Perhaps?"
"Maybe you should consider setting up a safe space for defenceless threatened metaphors too?"
"Right now I'm considering punching you." Jenny said feeling happy for having such a magnificently annoying friend in Edmund.
"Fair enough. But first, do something about those wet shoes and trousers of yours.
Barbara took care of the clothing situation. First she forced Jenny into a bathroom that had grown out of the dreams marble must have when it is still in a quarry thinking what it might become when it grows up. In there she was commanded to take a warm foot bath, there was an actually mini tub just for that installed in the floor, while she took care of her cloths and made her a tea. It was the first time Jenny had seen Barbara acting her age. There were a lot of "oh dears" and "don't worry Barbara will take care of this"s.
Jenny tried to relax while waiting for Barbara to return but the bidet standing next to her looked like it had a restraining order banning it from getting near any human being ever again. It looked resentful and full of appetite. Jenny shuddered.
Barbara returned with a fresh towel and a large plastic rugged plastic mug which would have gotten along just fine with Claire's armoured laptop.
"Here." she said to Jenny giving her first the towel, followed by the mug after she had dried her feet and legs. "Now we'll find you something nice to wear."
"Right..." Jenny followed her wrapping the towel around her waist as in impromptu skirt. While Barbara didn't seemed bothered about Jenny being without trousers, Jenny felt uncomfortable without them. She followed Barbara upstairs wondering what Barbara might have that she could wear. The answer was: a lot. Once upon a time Barbara had had a walk in closet until it had decided to walk out and take over most of the first floor. There were clothes everywhere. In all stylers a wild range of sizes and all colours known to mankind and others of which only a small number of artists knew the names of. What to Jenny had appeared like a simple endeavour of just getting a skirt or pair of pants and with a bit of luck a pair of shoes she could wear until her own things were dry again turned into an odyssey that took almost an hour. Much of the time the increasingly exasperated Jenny was fighting off Barbara who was constantly distracted by clothes that would be 'the perfect fit' for Jenny and sudden bursts of inspiration about where they could take her 'personal style'.
In the end she got a surprisingly comfortable pair grey flecked cargo pants. "Those," Barbara said "are from the Urban Worker Tribes collection of a friend of mine. Great designer, horrible at marketing. It has pockets, loops and stuff like that for everything. You should keep it!" she said with mounting enthusiasm.
"What?No I can't possibly accept or pay for this." Jenny said.
"Pay? Bah." Barbara dismissed, "When am I going to wear them? Also not they are finally complete. These trousers are made for work. They will never be done if they stay here catching dust, or if they are worn by some clueless Instagram model..." an idea was dawning on her. "Do you have an Instagram account?"
Jenny had to stop herself from asking how she knew about Instagram. "Not really. And no!"
"Hmmm?" Barbara asked summoning all innocence that was indebted to her wrapping it around here like a fur. "I don't know what your problem is. Nevermind you also need some shoes."
To Jenny's surprise it took Barbara only a few minutes to find a pair of heavy work boots which again, were a suspiciously good fit. "How do you know my shoe size?" she asked.
"I don't" Barbara said. "But as I help people I get tons of free stuff. And this is not simple merch. Everything you see here are prototypes, first version, all made by hand. And these come in all different kind of sizes. Those you can keep too." Before Jenny could say anything. "They don't fit my feet."
"What do you get out of this." Jenny asked.
Barbara looked at her obviously considering if she was going to be offended but in the end decided to be understanding. When she looked at Jenny she was again very close to being a grandma instead of the ageless art guerilla. "I get to see you succeed Jenny. I get the deep satisfaction to remove stones be they small or great from the path you chose to walk. And, at least that is what I hope, I get to see your project grow and bloom." she said her expression shifting towards the impish again turning her from granny back towards the fair folk.
"Thank you." Jenny said trying not to blush.
"Oh and free coffee and food for the rest of my life once the place finally opens." Barbara added. "There you go ulterior motive revealed."
Jenny laughed. "Right now you can get all the coffee you want. We'll see about the food."
Project Coffee Break 008
Chapter 9 Clarity
The rain had given up an the earth it so loathed deciding that it if it had to go down to ground level it would touch as little as possible turning into a thick fog. When the group left Barbara's house to get back to work they could hardly see the windmill on the other side of the street. Despite knowing better Jenny felt alone in this moment. She left the others behind their muffled voices slowly swallowed by the fog, moving towards what was left of her dream. The looming carcass of the watermill slowly solidifying out of the white mist in front of her while the lights of the houses bind her slowly vanished. The part of the roof that had collapsed was pointing bits of splintered beams towards the heavens, a futile gesture perhaps but this building would not breakdown without a fight. Seeing this comforted Jenny. She placed her hand on the heavy wooden door, she had come to think of this door as the main entrance. The real main door was probably near the milling room, but to her this was the real one, this was the door she had passed through when she had taken shelter from the rain. As she moved inside she felt sheltered again. Over the last few weeks she had passed through the steps of grief: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, in several variations and combinations; it was exhausting. She was ready to leave all of that behind. She went to the breakthrough in the wall that led downstairs, garbed one of the torches that were standing there and went downstairs.
The light of the torch illuminated grey steps step worn smooth by centuries of use. Jenny noticed that everything down here was made from the same grey stone. With a splash she found the last step and the rest of the water. It was bitter cold and reminded her that she should have gotten her rubber boots first. She didn't care. She got worse things to worry about than wet feet. She had imagined that the basement would be a creepy place, dark, damp and full of the things that other people had left here to rot. It certainly had its share of empty bottles, the odd mattress, folding chairs rusted into strange forms, enough to make any haunted house prod, but it lacked the feeling of ruin. This place in its strange dilapidated way felt safe. The decaying items here did not tell the story of a place that had been left in a hurry, but one that had been maintained with love. Here was a room where Jenny could see the skeleton of a dead sofa. the remains of two or maybe three large chairs grouped around a low wooden table that had just turned black in its years under water but was unwavering in its function. There where shadows on the grey walls of where once posters had hung and while there were broken bottles pretty much everywhere they were covered in wax. Once upon a time this had been a cherished place. Jenny imagined this being the secret retreat for the local teenagers where they could be the adults they knew they were.
Every room was like that. These were nests. The dark was not a menacing dark hiding unknown predators but the reassuring dark of a comfy duvet, the kind that made one invisible to the monsters. People had found solace here, company, joy, friendship, hope. As Jenny examined the walls she could see for how long this had been this way. They were all marked with names, dates and little pictures. A surprising amount from them endearing while those which were obscene were so in a way that would have been hilarious to the adolescent mind. Jenny sniggered when she saw an especially silly one. Some walls had been papered others had been plastered over, the water revealing many layers one over another all of them carrying the mementos of the many, many people who had found shelter here. At one point Jenny removed a large bit of plaster revealing the same grey stone as the one the steps where made off and even there on the original surface were names written in old long dead languages.
As she emerged from the basement, she had left all the stages of grief behind she was now calm, having not found acceptance but determination.
The others upstairs were busy putting up portable steel columns according to the acerbic commands of Claire who did not waste time on being nice when she had to stabilise a patient. They were to busy to talk to Jenny or maybe they did not dare talking to her preferring her to be the one to start a new conversation, and set the tone for it. This suited Jenny just fine, she didn't want to talk, she wanted to feel the watermill, to understand it like she had done when she had fallen asleep there on her first day dreaming of her grandfather. Now that she knew what she was looking for it was easy for her to notice that this warm feeling permeated the whole place. She entered the milling room. Here too she could feel it. This was a safe place even with the broken roof. She to the middle of the room climbing over the rubble and looked up into the sky. She felt warm, but up there there was just the grey sky and the apathetic rain that was still falling under protest towards the earth. Of course it was, the sun did not break through, there was no symbolic ray of light. It was not this kind of story. But that didn't matter. Jenny closed her eyes, she could feel the misty rain coating her face, it was a nice clean feeling, but beyond that she could feel the summer sun, it was bright and warm, telling her that everything would be alight.
The rain had given up an the earth it so loathed deciding that it if it had to go down to ground level it would touch as little as possible turning into a thick fog. When the group left Barbara's house to get back to work they could hardly see the windmill on the other side of the street. Despite knowing better Jenny felt alone in this moment. She left the others behind their muffled voices slowly swallowed by the fog, moving towards what was left of her dream. The looming carcass of the watermill slowly solidifying out of the white mist in front of her while the lights of the houses bind her slowly vanished. The part of the roof that had collapsed was pointing bits of splintered beams towards the heavens, a futile gesture perhaps but this building would not breakdown without a fight. Seeing this comforted Jenny. She placed her hand on the heavy wooden door, she had come to think of this door as the main entrance. The real main door was probably near the milling room, but to her this was the real one, this was the door she had passed through when she had taken shelter from the rain. As she moved inside she felt sheltered again. Over the last few weeks she had passed through the steps of grief: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, in several variations and combinations; it was exhausting. She was ready to leave all of that behind. She went to the breakthrough in the wall that led downstairs, garbed one of the torches that were standing there and went downstairs.
The light of the torch illuminated grey steps step worn smooth by centuries of use. Jenny noticed that everything down here was made from the same grey stone. With a splash she found the last step and the rest of the water. It was bitter cold and reminded her that she should have gotten her rubber boots first. She didn't care. She got worse things to worry about than wet feet. She had imagined that the basement would be a creepy place, dark, damp and full of the things that other people had left here to rot. It certainly had its share of empty bottles, the odd mattress, folding chairs rusted into strange forms, enough to make any haunted house prod, but it lacked the feeling of ruin. This place in its strange dilapidated way felt safe. The decaying items here did not tell the story of a place that had been left in a hurry, but one that had been maintained with love. Here was a room where Jenny could see the skeleton of a dead sofa. the remains of two or maybe three large chairs grouped around a low wooden table that had just turned black in its years under water but was unwavering in its function. There where shadows on the grey walls of where once posters had hung and while there were broken bottles pretty much everywhere they were covered in wax. Once upon a time this had been a cherished place. Jenny imagined this being the secret retreat for the local teenagers where they could be the adults they knew they were.
Every room was like that. These were nests. The dark was not a menacing dark hiding unknown predators but the reassuring dark of a comfy duvet, the kind that made one invisible to the monsters. People had found solace here, company, joy, friendship, hope. As Jenny examined the walls she could see for how long this had been this way. They were all marked with names, dates and little pictures. A surprising amount from them endearing while those which were obscene were so in a way that would have been hilarious to the adolescent mind. Jenny sniggered when she saw an especially silly one. Some walls had been papered others had been plastered over, the water revealing many layers one over another all of them carrying the mementos of the many, many people who had found shelter here. At one point Jenny removed a large bit of plaster revealing the same grey stone as the one the steps where made off and even there on the original surface were names written in old long dead languages.
As she emerged from the basement, she had left all the stages of grief behind she was now calm, having not found acceptance but determination.
The others upstairs were busy putting up portable steel columns according to the acerbic commands of Claire who did not waste time on being nice when she had to stabilise a patient. They were to busy to talk to Jenny or maybe they did not dare talking to her preferring her to be the one to start a new conversation, and set the tone for it. This suited Jenny just fine, she didn't want to talk, she wanted to feel the watermill, to understand it like she had done when she had fallen asleep there on her first day dreaming of her grandfather. Now that she knew what she was looking for it was easy for her to notice that this warm feeling permeated the whole place. She entered the milling room. Here too she could feel it. This was a safe place even with the broken roof. She to the middle of the room climbing over the rubble and looked up into the sky. She felt warm, but up there there was just the grey sky and the apathetic rain that was still falling under protest towards the earth. Of course it was, the sun did not break through, there was no symbolic ray of light. It was not this kind of story. But that didn't matter. Jenny closed her eyes, she could feel the misty rain coating her face, it was a nice clean feeling, but beyond that she could feel the summer sun, it was bright and warm, telling her that everything would be alight.
Wednesday, 14 November 2018
Project Coffee Break Redux 007
Chapter 8 The tower.
When Edmund arrived at the watermill late in the morning her found Jenny mostly wandering around the building starting into space.
"Everything OK?" he asked.
"What?" she had noticed Edmund when he had arrived but since then lost sight of him when ever she blinked. "Yes. I'm just thinking."
"About what?"
"Good question. Everything?"
"Well that clear that up then." said Edmund. "So, Adrian tells me that Dan has risen from the dead. If you say the word we can go and buy supplies. He gave me a rather long list of things we need already. Or we could wait for the structural engineer to arrive.
Jenny stared through Edmund for a while. "We should go to the building centre first. I think that is the place where we can get the most things done without causing another disaster. The engineer will be able to work here even if we aren't here. I think I would go crazy...er if I have to follow someone around who will be looking for all the weak spots of my mill. I'd rather I was given the bad news directly."
"Good point." Edmund said. They drove through the outer halo of the city to a place a large storehouse had found fertile ground and expanded over a considerable area before its growth was inhibited by surrounding streets. Inside of it a building supplies store had taken residence and filled out the sprawling building. Dan was already there waiting for them, when he saw them he smiled his crooked smile and greeted them. "Good morning, got the list?"
Edmund answered by waving a large sheet of paper at him. They spent the next few hours buying surprising amounts of concrete, several form of steel mesh and other things to keep the concrete in place. Prodigious amounts of wires and an astonishing amount of pipes. They, or rather Dan rented out a wide variety of machinery they'd need for the construction. Enough to have Jenny slash an entire month for which she would be able to pay wages for. 'And this is only the boring stuff.' she thought suppressing a slight shudder. It was no use complaining though, things needed to be bought and that was that. She still had enough to pay Adrian's gang for months.
They also rented a large transporter for the larger machines and all the bulky stuff. The smaller things were put into Edmund's trusty old Vauxhall.
When they returned the excavator was almost done opening a narrow but deep trench from the street to the old mill and as not carefully removing the last bits of earth next to the building itself. Stu was gesticulating to direct the excavators process. When he saw that they had returned he stopped the machine with held up hand.
"They are almost done." he shouted "Almost done too." he then turned back and beckoned the excavator to continue.
Dan said to Jenny "Tell Adrian to move his lazy arse outside and help us with unloading the transporter. The earlier we can bring it back the better." Not waiting for an answer he turned around opened the sliding door of the transporter and started to unload its cargo.
Jenny and Edmund went inside. There was no one in the the main room, so they went through the corridor into the milling room that was also empty. But they could hear muffled voices from the gallery. There was no one in the second floor either. They finally found Adrian and the engineer in the third floor. The engineer was a tiny lithe woman of maybe forty, she was wearing a dirty overall, a battered hard hat and a medium sized hammer. Her hands where in her hips and she was looking at the roof.
"I'm not sure about this." the engineer said. The wood looks damp and soft. Also that part she pointed towards the centre of the ceiling. "That's not a proper arch. It's too flat and over-extended." she shook her head. Stuck the hammer under one arm, took out an impressively large notebook from inside her overall and scribbled something down. "That needs to be replaced with a proper arch. Or columns, which will mean that we have to do the same thing down stairs, as there is virtually nothing holding up that floor either." Looking up from her book she noticed Jenny and Edmund for the first time. "And you are?"
"I'm Jenny Davis and this here is my friend Edmund Vollhardt." Jenny said.
"Ah the owner. I am Claire Mortimer. Pleased to meet you." she moved towards Jenny, offering her hand. "You have a very nice place here. Very interesting. This building was built in at the very least three phases and lucky for you the first architects of this mill knew what they where doing. The second generation was adequate and the less we say about the third the better."
"That's good?" Jenny asked.
"Oh yes considering the circumstances very much so. It is better to have a piece of crap build over a solid foundation than have a master work attic sitting on top of s tick house. I already got what ever blueprints there were at the land-registry which wasn't much. But it is a start. Adrian here already told me what you want done and there’s quite a few things that you can get started on immediately. Like sealing the basement for example. I will measure the rest of the mill in that time and make a proper ground plan in that time." while talking Claire was moving the group slowly but surely out of the room. As they arrived at the door there was a strange noise that they felt more than they heard. Something between a dissonant screech and a deep rumble. The mill reacted to it by shuddering, the wooden beams in the ceiling groaning, the bursting. It looked deceptively slow to Jenny. The wood breaking apart, the roof tiles falling inwards towards the floor where Claire had stood only a minute before. The engineer's eyes grew wide and with surprising force the small woman shoved Jenny and Edmund into the door frame, dragging Adrian behind her and then somehow awkwardly holding them there in place like stopper made out of arms, legs and confused faces. The mill around them shifted once more, there was a loud crack followed by an even louder crash as the floor in the room gave way falling into the milling room below.
No one dared to move for a while, until Claire nodded to herself and said. "I think we're OK to move now." They unfolded themselves out of the door frame into the corridor outside of the ruined room, only Claire moving a step back inside. She looked up at the hole in the roof where a cloud speckled sky could now be seen.
"You know what. I think I know what we can do with that."
"How is that not a disaster?" asked Jenny to shocked to feel anything right now.
"First of all lets leave this area for now it is not safe." said Claire shooing then away back to the stairs where a horrified Stu and Dan scrambling upstairs.
"We're okay." said Claire still very calm. "No need to panic. We need to leave the premise for now though so that I can assess the situation. We will need some pillars to stabilise the roof of the big room, the one with the shaft thing from the water wheel? And I will need to recalculate a few things and see how we can stabilise the building as fast as possible." Stu nodded, Dan stared.
"Dan are you still the hardware guy?" Claire asked.
"Yeah."
"OK then you go get me telescopic metal columns to stabilise this. Chop chop."
Dan nodded. "I need everyone here to help me unloading the transporter." Adrian and Stu immediately started moving. Jenny and Edmund Were about to follow them.
"Not you two." said Claire. "Adrian some parts of Adrian that are needed for self preservation have atrophied a long time ago, he will be fine working. But you two will need to sit down, get a warm blanket and maybe a cup of tea."
"I'd rather stay in motion." said Jenny. "And I would really love it if this building would stop falling apart."
"I'm sure you are dear, but in a few minutes all of us will start getting the shakes and that is the time when we should be sitting." she held up one hand it was shivering in a quick continuous tremor. "Adrenalin is almost gone." she said her smile more a grimace now.
A few minutes later they lay sprawled in Barbara's living room. Jenny sat slumped in a bloated arm chair that was mostly soft cushion. It was like sitting in a friendly cloud. Jenny was mostly focused on breathing while the scene of the collapsing roof tried to replay itself in her mind over and over.
Edmund was lying on the couch legs lying on a little pile of throw pillows eyes closed but moving rapidly. Claire lay on the floor her legs propped up on the couch table. Together they looked like a strange contemporary version of a renaissance painting. Three Bourgeoisie in different states of shock.
Barbara entered the room with a large try carrying a teapot several cups, as before not one matching the other, a big silver sugar container and a strange crystal carafe full of milk. She played the tray on the table and served everyone in the room one by one with softly spoken words.
"Now what?" it was Jenny who spoke first. "At this point it would be easier to tear the entire mill down and build a new one."
"Not really." said Claire. "First of all, if we did that, the city would have our heads on the platter. While there is no preservation order for the place, thank god. You got the place under the condition of preserving it. Right?"
"Yes." said Jenny gripping her cup hard. She was getting tired everything going wrong the whole time.
"That gives us some leeway. As I said before the upper part of the building was shoddy work in the first place. Put there several hundred years after the mill was first built. Actually the mill it self seem to be an addition. Have you been to the basement yet?"
"No. Not yet. Until this morning it was underwater." Jenny said.
"Well you should have a look at it. The basement is the oldest part of the building. You'll see what I mean. And it was build for eternity. The watermill they built on top is also designed to stand there come hell or high water. The people who build lacked knowledge but they had good instincts and technique apart from that they were also very fond of reinforcing everything. That just leaves us with the part where the latest generation involved was under the impression that everything with walls and a roof on top is a proper house."
"And how exactly is that supposed to help me?" Jenny asked.
"We get rid of the parts that do not work. The building just did us the favour of showing us which of these parts are the ones that really don't work. I will sort through the rest."
"OK..." said Jenny. "What are we going to put there instead? Won't you have to redesign the roof?"
"Yes. And I have a design in mind. One that will work out cheaper and faster than what I was originally considering."
"Really? And what would that be." said Jenny crossing her arms and leaning back half of her slowly vanishing into the cloud chair.
"A skylight." said Claire. "The roof hasn't got the right angle to cover the space it does. That's why it collapsed. We just take the hole in the roof, make it round and cap it with a ring and voilà you get a proper arch. You can leave the hole open, or insert a window, or you can build a tiny roof over it. Your choice really."
"And that will work?" Jenny asked.
"If I say so, it will."
"I like the idea." said Edmund. "Imagine being in the mill room, the generator humming gently, looking up and seeing the sky." he smiled.
"That does sound nice." Jenny said relaxing bit and vanishing further into the cushions.
"And," said Clair, "it will look dope, as the young people say these days."
"No one says that." said Edmund.
When Edmund arrived at the watermill late in the morning her found Jenny mostly wandering around the building starting into space.
"Everything OK?" he asked.
"What?" she had noticed Edmund when he had arrived but since then lost sight of him when ever she blinked. "Yes. I'm just thinking."
"About what?"
"Good question. Everything?"
"Well that clear that up then." said Edmund. "So, Adrian tells me that Dan has risen from the dead. If you say the word we can go and buy supplies. He gave me a rather long list of things we need already. Or we could wait for the structural engineer to arrive.
Jenny stared through Edmund for a while. "We should go to the building centre first. I think that is the place where we can get the most things done without causing another disaster. The engineer will be able to work here even if we aren't here. I think I would go crazy...er if I have to follow someone around who will be looking for all the weak spots of my mill. I'd rather I was given the bad news directly."
"Good point." Edmund said. They drove through the outer halo of the city to a place a large storehouse had found fertile ground and expanded over a considerable area before its growth was inhibited by surrounding streets. Inside of it a building supplies store had taken residence and filled out the sprawling building. Dan was already there waiting for them, when he saw them he smiled his crooked smile and greeted them. "Good morning, got the list?"
Edmund answered by waving a large sheet of paper at him. They spent the next few hours buying surprising amounts of concrete, several form of steel mesh and other things to keep the concrete in place. Prodigious amounts of wires and an astonishing amount of pipes. They, or rather Dan rented out a wide variety of machinery they'd need for the construction. Enough to have Jenny slash an entire month for which she would be able to pay wages for. 'And this is only the boring stuff.' she thought suppressing a slight shudder. It was no use complaining though, things needed to be bought and that was that. She still had enough to pay Adrian's gang for months.
They also rented a large transporter for the larger machines and all the bulky stuff. The smaller things were put into Edmund's trusty old Vauxhall.
When they returned the excavator was almost done opening a narrow but deep trench from the street to the old mill and as not carefully removing the last bits of earth next to the building itself. Stu was gesticulating to direct the excavators process. When he saw that they had returned he stopped the machine with held up hand.
"They are almost done." he shouted "Almost done too." he then turned back and beckoned the excavator to continue.
Dan said to Jenny "Tell Adrian to move his lazy arse outside and help us with unloading the transporter. The earlier we can bring it back the better." Not waiting for an answer he turned around opened the sliding door of the transporter and started to unload its cargo.
Jenny and Edmund went inside. There was no one in the the main room, so they went through the corridor into the milling room that was also empty. But they could hear muffled voices from the gallery. There was no one in the second floor either. They finally found Adrian and the engineer in the third floor. The engineer was a tiny lithe woman of maybe forty, she was wearing a dirty overall, a battered hard hat and a medium sized hammer. Her hands where in her hips and she was looking at the roof.
"I'm not sure about this." the engineer said. The wood looks damp and soft. Also that part she pointed towards the centre of the ceiling. "That's not a proper arch. It's too flat and over-extended." she shook her head. Stuck the hammer under one arm, took out an impressively large notebook from inside her overall and scribbled something down. "That needs to be replaced with a proper arch. Or columns, which will mean that we have to do the same thing down stairs, as there is virtually nothing holding up that floor either." Looking up from her book she noticed Jenny and Edmund for the first time. "And you are?"
"I'm Jenny Davis and this here is my friend Edmund Vollhardt." Jenny said.
"Ah the owner. I am Claire Mortimer. Pleased to meet you." she moved towards Jenny, offering her hand. "You have a very nice place here. Very interesting. This building was built in at the very least three phases and lucky for you the first architects of this mill knew what they where doing. The second generation was adequate and the less we say about the third the better."
"That's good?" Jenny asked.
"Oh yes considering the circumstances very much so. It is better to have a piece of crap build over a solid foundation than have a master work attic sitting on top of s tick house. I already got what ever blueprints there were at the land-registry which wasn't much. But it is a start. Adrian here already told me what you want done and there’s quite a few things that you can get started on immediately. Like sealing the basement for example. I will measure the rest of the mill in that time and make a proper ground plan in that time." while talking Claire was moving the group slowly but surely out of the room. As they arrived at the door there was a strange noise that they felt more than they heard. Something between a dissonant screech and a deep rumble. The mill reacted to it by shuddering, the wooden beams in the ceiling groaning, the bursting. It looked deceptively slow to Jenny. The wood breaking apart, the roof tiles falling inwards towards the floor where Claire had stood only a minute before. The engineer's eyes grew wide and with surprising force the small woman shoved Jenny and Edmund into the door frame, dragging Adrian behind her and then somehow awkwardly holding them there in place like stopper made out of arms, legs and confused faces. The mill around them shifted once more, there was a loud crack followed by an even louder crash as the floor in the room gave way falling into the milling room below.
No one dared to move for a while, until Claire nodded to herself and said. "I think we're OK to move now." They unfolded themselves out of the door frame into the corridor outside of the ruined room, only Claire moving a step back inside. She looked up at the hole in the roof where a cloud speckled sky could now be seen.
"You know what. I think I know what we can do with that."
"How is that not a disaster?" asked Jenny to shocked to feel anything right now.
"First of all lets leave this area for now it is not safe." said Claire shooing then away back to the stairs where a horrified Stu and Dan scrambling upstairs.
"We're okay." said Claire still very calm. "No need to panic. We need to leave the premise for now though so that I can assess the situation. We will need some pillars to stabilise the roof of the big room, the one with the shaft thing from the water wheel? And I will need to recalculate a few things and see how we can stabilise the building as fast as possible." Stu nodded, Dan stared.
"Dan are you still the hardware guy?" Claire asked.
"Yeah."
"OK then you go get me telescopic metal columns to stabilise this. Chop chop."
Dan nodded. "I need everyone here to help me unloading the transporter." Adrian and Stu immediately started moving. Jenny and Edmund Were about to follow them.
"Not you two." said Claire. "Adrian some parts of Adrian that are needed for self preservation have atrophied a long time ago, he will be fine working. But you two will need to sit down, get a warm blanket and maybe a cup of tea."
"I'd rather stay in motion." said Jenny. "And I would really love it if this building would stop falling apart."
"I'm sure you are dear, but in a few minutes all of us will start getting the shakes and that is the time when we should be sitting." she held up one hand it was shivering in a quick continuous tremor. "Adrenalin is almost gone." she said her smile more a grimace now.
A few minutes later they lay sprawled in Barbara's living room. Jenny sat slumped in a bloated arm chair that was mostly soft cushion. It was like sitting in a friendly cloud. Jenny was mostly focused on breathing while the scene of the collapsing roof tried to replay itself in her mind over and over.
Edmund was lying on the couch legs lying on a little pile of throw pillows eyes closed but moving rapidly. Claire lay on the floor her legs propped up on the couch table. Together they looked like a strange contemporary version of a renaissance painting. Three Bourgeoisie in different states of shock.
Barbara entered the room with a large try carrying a teapot several cups, as before not one matching the other, a big silver sugar container and a strange crystal carafe full of milk. She played the tray on the table and served everyone in the room one by one with softly spoken words.
"Now what?" it was Jenny who spoke first. "At this point it would be easier to tear the entire mill down and build a new one."
"Not really." said Claire. "First of all, if we did that, the city would have our heads on the platter. While there is no preservation order for the place, thank god. You got the place under the condition of preserving it. Right?"
"Yes." said Jenny gripping her cup hard. She was getting tired everything going wrong the whole time.
"That gives us some leeway. As I said before the upper part of the building was shoddy work in the first place. Put there several hundred years after the mill was first built. Actually the mill it self seem to be an addition. Have you been to the basement yet?"
"No. Not yet. Until this morning it was underwater." Jenny said.
"Well you should have a look at it. The basement is the oldest part of the building. You'll see what I mean. And it was build for eternity. The watermill they built on top is also designed to stand there come hell or high water. The people who build lacked knowledge but they had good instincts and technique apart from that they were also very fond of reinforcing everything. That just leaves us with the part where the latest generation involved was under the impression that everything with walls and a roof on top is a proper house."
"And how exactly is that supposed to help me?" Jenny asked.
"We get rid of the parts that do not work. The building just did us the favour of showing us which of these parts are the ones that really don't work. I will sort through the rest."
"OK..." said Jenny. "What are we going to put there instead? Won't you have to redesign the roof?"
"Yes. And I have a design in mind. One that will work out cheaper and faster than what I was originally considering."
"Really? And what would that be." said Jenny crossing her arms and leaning back half of her slowly vanishing into the cloud chair.
"A skylight." said Claire. "The roof hasn't got the right angle to cover the space it does. That's why it collapsed. We just take the hole in the roof, make it round and cap it with a ring and voilà you get a proper arch. You can leave the hole open, or insert a window, or you can build a tiny roof over it. Your choice really."
"And that will work?" Jenny asked.
"If I say so, it will."
"I like the idea." said Edmund. "Imagine being in the mill room, the generator humming gently, looking up and seeing the sky." he smiled.
"That does sound nice." Jenny said relaxing bit and vanishing further into the cushions.
"And," said Clair, "it will look dope, as the young people say these days."
"No one says that." said Edmund.
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
Project Coffee Break Redux 006
Chapter 7
The next day Jenny was back to the watermill early in the morning. It was still dark and the sun would refuse to look down on them for several more hours. Even the light drizzle floated with the greatest reluctance towards the ground. If it found anything else on its way down, like say Jenny, it would instead attack her with rabid fury crawling beneath her warm cloths biting the warmth out of her in tiny chunks. Jenny was not a morning person and this morning was doing everything to convince her that her instincts were right. She should have stayed in bed. Maybe adding one or two extra blankets only to be sure. But this was a morning she was not going to miss. Adrian had told her that today would be the day where they would get an excavator to dig a trench to connect the watermill to the circulatory system of modern civilisation. He had told her that he could take care of all of that. He knew who to talk to to get an official connection. Someone who would be happy to just hand over the work to them instead of having to do it themselves. He just needed a certified copy of the document with which the city had passed the responsibility over the mill over to Jenny. As much as Jenny would have loved to stay away and wait for others to take care of the disaster that was the watermill she had decided against it. That was the cowards way. A road that she had been taking for all to long. While she could not do the work herself, this was still her plan and her battle and just because everything seemed to be conspiring against her did not mean she would back down. Fuck that.
So she stood there a lonely figure standing in the cold illuminated by a soft glow of sympathy light she got from the street-lamps who stood a way back on the civilised part of the street, who by their nature could not look right at her but at the very least send a glimmer of solidarity towards her.
First she heard the call of the excavator. A deep rumbling growl. Then she felt the vibration of the street as it started to resonate with the machines power over the earth. Then at last she saw the lights appear down the street, the many shining eyes of a metal dragon. This was a machine that knew it was a beast. Followed by another car carrying his loyal subjects with it.
The excavator came to a halt not far from the watermill where Stu had pointed out the water line. It turned its spotlight eyes towards the mill, which just stood its ground as it had for so many centuries now.
From behind the glare of the beasts eyes Adrian appeared.
"Good morning ma'am." he said.
"Good morning Adrian." she said nodding. "When can we start?"
"Pretty much immediately. The city needs to see your papers, the a signature and we can start. During the excavation Stu'll check the basement. I'll do a detailed check of the building so that I can brief our statics man when he arrives here this afternoon. And Dan's sleeping in."
"Sounds good to me." Jenny said. "So who needs my signature."
Out of the dark appeared a creature from the city tribe. This one was different to the one in the city office. A strange hybrid that worked half the day inside an office the other half out in the body of the city proper, maintaining it the city according to its own plans. It followed the ritual of greeting and pleasantry. Examined the papers Jenny gave to it in the most cursory way. Jenny wondered if they new it was real by contact, they had developed special sense to see if it was the real thing or they maybe just didn't care. And how comes the city can give a part of itself into her care and yet not know that it did so?
"... and there and there." said the creature from the city tribe to Jenny offering her a pen. She stared at it for a second noticing that she was being presented with a clipboard holding the official documents for her to sign. The parts helpfully marked with highlighter by the creature in front of her.
"Oh. Yes of course." she said, putting her signature where it was required thus sealing the contract. As she had done so the thing from the city double checked, nodded and then a smile flickered on its face revealing a the friendly face of a middle aged man.
"You've got a good team working for you here." he said. "Adrian and his boys always do great work. I for one am glad to see that you got this watermill. There are many beautiful places her in the city that just get ignored. We keep telling the higher ups that we have to be doing something about it. To preserve sites like these. But it is always to expensive." the man shook his head. "You're doing good work here." he nodded. "Adrian told me about the situation with the basement. I remember that Sutcliffe was complaining about that botched job. So if you need any help with you'll know where to find me."
"er... yes. Thank you." Jenny said. The man from the city said goodbye to Adrian and disappeared into the darkness beyond the excavator beast.
"So about that lawyer." Adrian said.
"We're working on it." Jenny said as the excavator came to life again and moved into position to bite the first chunk out of the earth.
The morning crawled along at snails pace. Seeing the excavator doing its work quickly went from being impressive to being quite boring. There was a certain meditative charm to it which was the last thing that Jenny needed, now that the adrenalin of the last few days was finally ebbing away it was replaced by a deep fatigue. She went inside to see if she could make herself useful there. It was to dark to clean up inside. She had gotten half a dozen battery powered lamps and place inside the mill but instead of providing adequate light they just gave more prominence to the darkness. Not that there was much what she could do right now anyway. Pretty much everything that she could move by hand was gone. It was now shovels and wheel barrows time, but that required shovels and wheel barrows which she did not have yet. That was among the fist things she was going to get later. She would meet with Dan later at a building centre, but for that the centre had to open its doors and Dan his eyes.
She thought of going into the basement to see how Stu was doing but decided against it as she had not thought of wearing rubber boots that day. The pump they had installed was doing good work, however the water down there was still ankle deep and would probably stay at that level until Stu had discovered where the water was coming from. She doubted that there was much she could do down there besides getting wet feet. She looked down the stairs seeing the glow from Stu's helmet light, she wondered what it looked down there. The pump had been working since yesterday and it was only now that it was even possible to enter the basement. Her curiosity had to wait until she got herself the proper footwear.
She turned back towards the door and looked out. A figure that tightly wrapped in a heavy coat was walking towards her from the dark.
"You're up early." Jenny said to Barbara.
"It happens when people start ripping open the street in the middle of the night." Barbara said. Now that she had come closer Jenny could see her face. It was a face that did not want to be seen. "Are you busy?" she asked.
"Not really. I've given my magic signature. Until the rest of the world wakes up there isn't much I can do." Jenny said.
"How about some breakfast then?"
"I wouldn't say no to a cup of tea."
Perfect." Barbara said, "Follow me."
Barbara's house was not what Jenny had expected. But then it didn't really surprise her either. It was not an old ladies house, which made perfect sense to Jenny as the only thing old about Barbara was the amount of years she had lived. What was surprising was just how stylish the house was, in a messy way. The furniture was designer furniture following no particular style but chosen for their own merit and then carefully combined with each other so that their different styles complemented each other. There were paintings on the wall, modern, contemporary, impressionist, expressionist and some other styles that Jenny could not identify. What stopped the house from looking like exhibition for art and design were the clothes carelessly draped over the chairs and couches. The books and magazines scattered on every flat surface and the legions of glasses mugs and cups placed on top of them to prevent them all from flying away in case they suddenly came to life.
Strangely enough the kitchen was spotless. Still all very stylish but in a deeply utilitarian way. Every surface be it metal, stone or polished wood was clean. In hear everything had its precise place and function.
"Take a seat." Barbara said gesturing at one of three bar stools in front of an elevated counter facing the work space of the kitchen Jenny sat down and watched Barbara prepare tea using a tea maker that looked like it belonged inside of a 1960s interstellar space ship.
"What is it you do again?" Jenny asked.
"Hmm..." Barbara thought about the question for a while. "That's a hard question to answer." she said while she turned to the tea maker that had just announced that it was done with a load 'clack' noise. She poured the tea into two fashionable but miss matched mugs which looked like they could be the protagonists of a cup oriented buddy movie. "Maybe a gardener?" Barbara said, trying out the description in her mind. "Or a collector?" she considered the taste of that thought for a moment. "Milk? Sugar?" she asked.
"Huh?" it took Jenny a moment to process the question. "A bit of both. Thanks."
Barbara added a bit of milk to both mugs. "No not quite a collector." A tablespoon of sugar added to Jenny's cup the one she considered the old cup who bent the rules when it was necessary.
"You are not talking about plants." Jenny said. It was not a question, more a statement intended to give Barbara something to build her thoughts around.
"No I'm talking about... artists." she took the other cup, the young wild one that did things by the book until its hot temper got the better of itself. "She took a sip of tea, grimaced because it was too hot and put the cup down again. "But then artist isn't quite the right word either."
"So you are a kind of patron then?" Jenny asked.
"Do I look that rich?"
Jenny took a look around the bespoke kitchen. "Actually yes."
Barbara followed Jenny's gaze. "Ah. You've got a point there. But this is the fruit of my labour and not the other way round."
Jenny smiled judging the heat from her mug she tried a little sip of her tea. Good strong with a tinge of sweetness. "That still doesn't answer my question."
"I said it wasn't an easy question to answer." Barbara said still looking for the right words. " I help people, creative people with their work. Having an idea is just a seed for it to grow it needs to be tended and taken care off. That is a lot of hard work. Everyone has ideas, but bringing the more ambitious to fruition is hard."
"Yeah, I've noticed." Jenny laughed shaking her head, humour slwoly returning to her.
"Midwife!" Barbara said. "It fits but it make me sound so old."
Jenny knew when it was time to stay silent.
"Somewhere in between a gardener and a midwife." Barbara said slowly nodding. "I'm usually get there when the seed is has already opened, but I am there to tend the sapling. I help nurturing it, protect it." Barbara's soul was starting to glow. "Making sure that it survives the many storms that come to finally see it bloom. That's what I do." she looked at Jenny smiling a smile that had warmed generations before her. Right at this moment Barbara looked ancient yet ageless.
"Oh." Jenny could see how that was hard to explain. "You must have seen quite a lot of interesting things in your life."
"Like you could never imagine." Barbara said. "There were a lot of failures along the way too. But if I may have my moment of hubris, I helped bring several great works into this world which would have otherwise died in the minds of their creators."
"How did you know that that was what you wanted to do." Jenny asked. "And how did you turn that into a job?"
"The official version would be that I could see talent in other people since I was young. That I noticed that most creative people have a really hard time of making their ideas a reality. Either because they doubt themselves, they are doubted by others or because they simply don't know where to look for help."
"And the unofficial version?"
"The unofficial version or the truth as I like to call it is that when I was young I was a fan first and everything else second. I was here when the early rock bands appeared and I was loving it. The show the spectacle the people. At first I was just a groupie I guess you could say. Following bands around, talking to the musicians feeling the thrill of being part of it, getting to know other artists and their work. It was, it is intoxicating. When you meet people who see things that are just out of reach for the so called normal people who are happy getting their work done and use what ever they earn in money to recover what they have lost to their daily routine... you cannot help but to be in awe." Barbara was lost for a moment reliving these sublime moments.
"So you started out as a muse?" Jenny said feeling impressed.
Barbara snorted. "No. I was a vampire."
Jenny stopped mid sip. "A vampire?"
"I wasn't creating anything. I was just following these people around and eating up what they created. I was elevated by association. But I wasn't doing anything on my own. And this might be hard to imagine but back in the beginning it was actually easy to be close to the so called stars. It was a smaller world back then. But as they rose in fame and the fans went from a few dedicated people to an untold number of fanatics it became increasingly harder to get near them. I was 'lucky'" Barbara made air quotes with her fingers, "that I was among the first. I was friends with enough stars that I was still invited to the parties. However it became abundantly clear that the flame I was warming myself with was growing more and more distant with every day that passed. Until one day I found myself out side on the lawn of some fancy mansion, the sun was was rising again, it was one of those parties, that I realised that my life was coming to an end." Barbara exhaled.
"Where you thinking about suicide." Jenny asked. Somehow the thought of a woman like Barbara committing suicide was hard to imagine.
"No. In a way that would have been easier. Wrong and cowardly, but easier. I had lived my life exactly like I felt it had to be lived I had been right there in the moment and those moments had been spectacular. This was the point where I noticed that those moments where going to leave me behind and when that happened the thing that kept me going would be gone. And then what? I had no 'real'" the air quotes again, "qualifications to speak off and in contrast to the people I admired I had no artistic ability. At all."
"Everyone has artistic ability." Jenny said. Feeling like an idiot the moment the words had left her mouth.
"True. How are your drawing skills?" Barbara asked.
"er... do doodles count?" Jenny said.
"Ability is not the same as skill. And I had spent years of my life enjoying the skills of others, not cultivating my own what ever they may be. Also I never felt that drive. When you see artists, whether they are called that or not you can see it in the way they do things. They are not necessarily consumed by it but even among the unwilling, once they do their thing there is a clarity to it. There never was in clarity in what I did."
"But you said you followed those artist with deep determination."
Barbara wagged her finger at Jenny. "You are cheating. You already know how the story ends. For me this was my darkest moment. It was made worse by the fact that I was not at the end of the line. I knew that there was still a good deal of sunshine left but I knew that night was coming. I could feel it approach."
"So what was the the plot twist." Jenny asked. She took another sip of her tea which to her surprise was now merely warm.
"First came the time when I felt like the shortest candle. Feeling how I was dwindling but I could hardly stop to burn. In a way I pushed even harder. Trying experience as much as I still could. I talked to more people made more acquaintances while slowly sinking deeper into my dark thoughts. It was around this time that I noticed the other people at the fringes. I had been so distracted by the bright light of the famous that I did not notice the glowing embers of the many other artists who were working in obscurity. The plot twist was called Anne."
"Anne?"
"A young painter I knew without knowing at that time. You know the kind of person. You keep appearing at the same parties, start knowing each other, do some small talk, but you never don't get to see the real person behind the pleasantries."
Jenny had never had known someone like that. She obviously didn't go to enough parties. "Yeah. That kind of person.", she nodded,
"Well it was in the time I was sinking into an early but fulminant mid-life crises that I got to know her. Intimately."
"Right." Jenny said preferring to not let her curiosity stop the flow of the story.
"Anne was a painter. Out of art school for a while mainly maintaining herself by doing the odd job here and there, what she really wanted... what she needed was to be recognized though. When I went to the parties I was there to gorge myself on the radiance of others. She however went there to be seen. She might as well have been invisible. She lacked the ego of the self declared genius. She didn't think highly of her work. Actually the way she told it her work was rubbish, but it should be seen by others so that they may help her improving. To get to the point where she could actually express what she wanted to convey effectively." Barbara paused for a moment gazing at her tea. She took another swig. "These days you'd say that her self marketing was atrocious. But as I got to know her, I also got to know her art. And it was impressive. Far from perfect, still to restricted by what she had learned and by her lack of confidence. But you could see her energy and power past all of that. Her work was usually dark but always with something bright and colourful breaking out of that darkness. She did things like no one else, and she was good. To me it was obvious that the only way for her was up. That's not what happened. She kept working to make ends meet. Work on her art. Go out and be ignored by everyone. And bit by bit her flame was dying.
It was OK for me to fade away, you know? I was not happy about it, but in the end the world would not miss me. But her? Life had never felt so unfair to me like in the moment where I saw where Anne was heading. And that was something I was not going to let happen."
"What did you do?" asked Jenny her hand resting on her now cold tea cup.
"I still knew pretty much everyone. So I talked to the right people and made them look. I also gave Anne a crash course in advanced social skills so that she stopped killing her work in the eyes of others before they had a chance to judge for themselves."
"It worked." Jenny said. Not a question. Had it not worked she would not be sitting in this kitchen and not have this conversation.
Barbara nodded. "It worked. It was a lot of work, but in the end it was easier than I had thought it would be. I thought I would have to fight more, but Anne's art did all the fighting for me. It was mostly of talking to people. Bringing them together and make them appear at the right place at the right time. It meant an end to the odd jobs and she could finally focus on her art. She never became famous outside of certain circles, but I think that's just for the better. All things considered."
"What happened to her?"
Barbara's smile found something bitter and broke over it. "In the end her flame burnt to bright and she was consumed by it. She had some very good years but in then end... I don't really know what happened we had grown apart by that time. If I wanted to see her I could just see how she was in the various galleries you could find her work at. She was for a while resplendent but then her work took a turn back towards the dark. I thought she was maturing, getting back to her roots, following more 'adult' themes. I was wrong. I think. In the end she died of drug overdose..."
Silence.
Jenny thought about what she could say but everything she could say sounded stupid in her mind. This woman had opened up to her in a way that was a bit overwhelming considering that they just met a bit over a week ago.
"So..." Jenny cleared her throat, "what happened with you?"
"In general or after Anne had died?"
"Both..."
"In general:", Barbara took a deep breath, "I discovered my skill. I was no artist and would never become one. But I knew people and I know great works when I see them. I have a feel for potential. I had spent so much time around it that I had become an expert of sorts. So this became my calling. I left the burning light that had drawn me into the field and went looking for the embers making sure that they at least got a chance to blossom instead of fading away. Anne's fate... Anne's fate reminded me that I had a certain responsibility, that I was playing with fire after all. I took more care of the people I helped afterwards. That was stupid too, I became overprotective and ruined some perfectly good friendships. It took me a long while to get the balance right. To help people, to take care of them, while at the same time not becoming controlling." Barbara sighed. "And there are some people who just can't be saved. The best you can hope for is that as long as they stay they at least get the chance to be their best selves."
"I see." said Jenny slightly overwhelmed.
Barbara look at her, "Well, you asked." she said and laughed.
"So...er..." Jenny fidgeted on her bar stool.
"You've got a question." Barbara asked with an expectant smile.
"Yes. Well..."
"You want to know if I am helping you. In a professional capacity?" Barbara said.
Jenny flinched. "Yeah?"
"Right now I am helping you in a friendly capacity. Professional would mean I get a cut. That would not be right. At least not now. I'm fine, you have enough problems of your own, you don't need an 'investor'" there where the air quotes again, "to make things worse. But I see the spark in you. I am really curious about what you are going to do with the watermill and I introduced you to Adrian, who in turn introduced you to the man from the city." Barbara looked supremely satisfied as she said that. "Right now I'm perfectly happy sitting at the sidelines enjoying the spectacle. And providing tea and comfort if the need arises. Who knows what the future might bring." Barbara smiled a smile full of conspiracy and winked at Jenny.
Jenny opened her mouth and closed it again.
"You're welcome. Oh and see to it that the statics guy appears today. Adrian is an absolute professional but he tends to be a bit to convinced about his instincts when it comes to buildings which means that he sometimes starts to knock down walls and ask questions later. While I do trust him these days you need and architect for a loft extension, let alone a crumbling mill."
The next day Jenny was back to the watermill early in the morning. It was still dark and the sun would refuse to look down on them for several more hours. Even the light drizzle floated with the greatest reluctance towards the ground. If it found anything else on its way down, like say Jenny, it would instead attack her with rabid fury crawling beneath her warm cloths biting the warmth out of her in tiny chunks. Jenny was not a morning person and this morning was doing everything to convince her that her instincts were right. She should have stayed in bed. Maybe adding one or two extra blankets only to be sure. But this was a morning she was not going to miss. Adrian had told her that today would be the day where they would get an excavator to dig a trench to connect the watermill to the circulatory system of modern civilisation. He had told her that he could take care of all of that. He knew who to talk to to get an official connection. Someone who would be happy to just hand over the work to them instead of having to do it themselves. He just needed a certified copy of the document with which the city had passed the responsibility over the mill over to Jenny. As much as Jenny would have loved to stay away and wait for others to take care of the disaster that was the watermill she had decided against it. That was the cowards way. A road that she had been taking for all to long. While she could not do the work herself, this was still her plan and her battle and just because everything seemed to be conspiring against her did not mean she would back down. Fuck that.
So she stood there a lonely figure standing in the cold illuminated by a soft glow of sympathy light she got from the street-lamps who stood a way back on the civilised part of the street, who by their nature could not look right at her but at the very least send a glimmer of solidarity towards her.
First she heard the call of the excavator. A deep rumbling growl. Then she felt the vibration of the street as it started to resonate with the machines power over the earth. Then at last she saw the lights appear down the street, the many shining eyes of a metal dragon. This was a machine that knew it was a beast. Followed by another car carrying his loyal subjects with it.
The excavator came to a halt not far from the watermill where Stu had pointed out the water line. It turned its spotlight eyes towards the mill, which just stood its ground as it had for so many centuries now.
From behind the glare of the beasts eyes Adrian appeared.
"Good morning ma'am." he said.
"Good morning Adrian." she said nodding. "When can we start?"
"Pretty much immediately. The city needs to see your papers, the a signature and we can start. During the excavation Stu'll check the basement. I'll do a detailed check of the building so that I can brief our statics man when he arrives here this afternoon. And Dan's sleeping in."
"Sounds good to me." Jenny said. "So who needs my signature."
Out of the dark appeared a creature from the city tribe. This one was different to the one in the city office. A strange hybrid that worked half the day inside an office the other half out in the body of the city proper, maintaining it the city according to its own plans. It followed the ritual of greeting and pleasantry. Examined the papers Jenny gave to it in the most cursory way. Jenny wondered if they new it was real by contact, they had developed special sense to see if it was the real thing or they maybe just didn't care. And how comes the city can give a part of itself into her care and yet not know that it did so?
"... and there and there." said the creature from the city tribe to Jenny offering her a pen. She stared at it for a second noticing that she was being presented with a clipboard holding the official documents for her to sign. The parts helpfully marked with highlighter by the creature in front of her.
"Oh. Yes of course." she said, putting her signature where it was required thus sealing the contract. As she had done so the thing from the city double checked, nodded and then a smile flickered on its face revealing a the friendly face of a middle aged man.
"You've got a good team working for you here." he said. "Adrian and his boys always do great work. I for one am glad to see that you got this watermill. There are many beautiful places her in the city that just get ignored. We keep telling the higher ups that we have to be doing something about it. To preserve sites like these. But it is always to expensive." the man shook his head. "You're doing good work here." he nodded. "Adrian told me about the situation with the basement. I remember that Sutcliffe was complaining about that botched job. So if you need any help with you'll know where to find me."
"er... yes. Thank you." Jenny said. The man from the city said goodbye to Adrian and disappeared into the darkness beyond the excavator beast.
"So about that lawyer." Adrian said.
"We're working on it." Jenny said as the excavator came to life again and moved into position to bite the first chunk out of the earth.
The morning crawled along at snails pace. Seeing the excavator doing its work quickly went from being impressive to being quite boring. There was a certain meditative charm to it which was the last thing that Jenny needed, now that the adrenalin of the last few days was finally ebbing away it was replaced by a deep fatigue. She went inside to see if she could make herself useful there. It was to dark to clean up inside. She had gotten half a dozen battery powered lamps and place inside the mill but instead of providing adequate light they just gave more prominence to the darkness. Not that there was much what she could do right now anyway. Pretty much everything that she could move by hand was gone. It was now shovels and wheel barrows time, but that required shovels and wheel barrows which she did not have yet. That was among the fist things she was going to get later. She would meet with Dan later at a building centre, but for that the centre had to open its doors and Dan his eyes.
She thought of going into the basement to see how Stu was doing but decided against it as she had not thought of wearing rubber boots that day. The pump they had installed was doing good work, however the water down there was still ankle deep and would probably stay at that level until Stu had discovered where the water was coming from. She doubted that there was much she could do down there besides getting wet feet. She looked down the stairs seeing the glow from Stu's helmet light, she wondered what it looked down there. The pump had been working since yesterday and it was only now that it was even possible to enter the basement. Her curiosity had to wait until she got herself the proper footwear.
She turned back towards the door and looked out. A figure that tightly wrapped in a heavy coat was walking towards her from the dark.
"You're up early." Jenny said to Barbara.
"It happens when people start ripping open the street in the middle of the night." Barbara said. Now that she had come closer Jenny could see her face. It was a face that did not want to be seen. "Are you busy?" she asked.
"Not really. I've given my magic signature. Until the rest of the world wakes up there isn't much I can do." Jenny said.
"How about some breakfast then?"
"I wouldn't say no to a cup of tea."
Perfect." Barbara said, "Follow me."
Barbara's house was not what Jenny had expected. But then it didn't really surprise her either. It was not an old ladies house, which made perfect sense to Jenny as the only thing old about Barbara was the amount of years she had lived. What was surprising was just how stylish the house was, in a messy way. The furniture was designer furniture following no particular style but chosen for their own merit and then carefully combined with each other so that their different styles complemented each other. There were paintings on the wall, modern, contemporary, impressionist, expressionist and some other styles that Jenny could not identify. What stopped the house from looking like exhibition for art and design were the clothes carelessly draped over the chairs and couches. The books and magazines scattered on every flat surface and the legions of glasses mugs and cups placed on top of them to prevent them all from flying away in case they suddenly came to life.
Strangely enough the kitchen was spotless. Still all very stylish but in a deeply utilitarian way. Every surface be it metal, stone or polished wood was clean. In hear everything had its precise place and function.
"Take a seat." Barbara said gesturing at one of three bar stools in front of an elevated counter facing the work space of the kitchen Jenny sat down and watched Barbara prepare tea using a tea maker that looked like it belonged inside of a 1960s interstellar space ship.
"What is it you do again?" Jenny asked.
"Hmm..." Barbara thought about the question for a while. "That's a hard question to answer." she said while she turned to the tea maker that had just announced that it was done with a load 'clack' noise. She poured the tea into two fashionable but miss matched mugs which looked like they could be the protagonists of a cup oriented buddy movie. "Maybe a gardener?" Barbara said, trying out the description in her mind. "Or a collector?" she considered the taste of that thought for a moment. "Milk? Sugar?" she asked.
"Huh?" it took Jenny a moment to process the question. "A bit of both. Thanks."
Barbara added a bit of milk to both mugs. "No not quite a collector." A tablespoon of sugar added to Jenny's cup the one she considered the old cup who bent the rules when it was necessary.
"You are not talking about plants." Jenny said. It was not a question, more a statement intended to give Barbara something to build her thoughts around.
"No I'm talking about... artists." she took the other cup, the young wild one that did things by the book until its hot temper got the better of itself. "She took a sip of tea, grimaced because it was too hot and put the cup down again. "But then artist isn't quite the right word either."
"So you are a kind of patron then?" Jenny asked.
"Do I look that rich?"
Jenny took a look around the bespoke kitchen. "Actually yes."
Barbara followed Jenny's gaze. "Ah. You've got a point there. But this is the fruit of my labour and not the other way round."
Jenny smiled judging the heat from her mug she tried a little sip of her tea. Good strong with a tinge of sweetness. "That still doesn't answer my question."
"I said it wasn't an easy question to answer." Barbara said still looking for the right words. " I help people, creative people with their work. Having an idea is just a seed for it to grow it needs to be tended and taken care off. That is a lot of hard work. Everyone has ideas, but bringing the more ambitious to fruition is hard."
"Yeah, I've noticed." Jenny laughed shaking her head, humour slwoly returning to her.
"Midwife!" Barbara said. "It fits but it make me sound so old."
Jenny knew when it was time to stay silent.
"Somewhere in between a gardener and a midwife." Barbara said slowly nodding. "I'm usually get there when the seed is has already opened, but I am there to tend the sapling. I help nurturing it, protect it." Barbara's soul was starting to glow. "Making sure that it survives the many storms that come to finally see it bloom. That's what I do." she looked at Jenny smiling a smile that had warmed generations before her. Right at this moment Barbara looked ancient yet ageless.
"Oh." Jenny could see how that was hard to explain. "You must have seen quite a lot of interesting things in your life."
"Like you could never imagine." Barbara said. "There were a lot of failures along the way too. But if I may have my moment of hubris, I helped bring several great works into this world which would have otherwise died in the minds of their creators."
"How did you know that that was what you wanted to do." Jenny asked. "And how did you turn that into a job?"
"The official version would be that I could see talent in other people since I was young. That I noticed that most creative people have a really hard time of making their ideas a reality. Either because they doubt themselves, they are doubted by others or because they simply don't know where to look for help."
"And the unofficial version?"
"The unofficial version or the truth as I like to call it is that when I was young I was a fan first and everything else second. I was here when the early rock bands appeared and I was loving it. The show the spectacle the people. At first I was just a groupie I guess you could say. Following bands around, talking to the musicians feeling the thrill of being part of it, getting to know other artists and their work. It was, it is intoxicating. When you meet people who see things that are just out of reach for the so called normal people who are happy getting their work done and use what ever they earn in money to recover what they have lost to their daily routine... you cannot help but to be in awe." Barbara was lost for a moment reliving these sublime moments.
"So you started out as a muse?" Jenny said feeling impressed.
Barbara snorted. "No. I was a vampire."
Jenny stopped mid sip. "A vampire?"
"I wasn't creating anything. I was just following these people around and eating up what they created. I was elevated by association. But I wasn't doing anything on my own. And this might be hard to imagine but back in the beginning it was actually easy to be close to the so called stars. It was a smaller world back then. But as they rose in fame and the fans went from a few dedicated people to an untold number of fanatics it became increasingly harder to get near them. I was 'lucky'" Barbara made air quotes with her fingers, "that I was among the first. I was friends with enough stars that I was still invited to the parties. However it became abundantly clear that the flame I was warming myself with was growing more and more distant with every day that passed. Until one day I found myself out side on the lawn of some fancy mansion, the sun was was rising again, it was one of those parties, that I realised that my life was coming to an end." Barbara exhaled.
"Where you thinking about suicide." Jenny asked. Somehow the thought of a woman like Barbara committing suicide was hard to imagine.
"No. In a way that would have been easier. Wrong and cowardly, but easier. I had lived my life exactly like I felt it had to be lived I had been right there in the moment and those moments had been spectacular. This was the point where I noticed that those moments where going to leave me behind and when that happened the thing that kept me going would be gone. And then what? I had no 'real'" the air quotes again, "qualifications to speak off and in contrast to the people I admired I had no artistic ability. At all."
"Everyone has artistic ability." Jenny said. Feeling like an idiot the moment the words had left her mouth.
"True. How are your drawing skills?" Barbara asked.
"er... do doodles count?" Jenny said.
"Ability is not the same as skill. And I had spent years of my life enjoying the skills of others, not cultivating my own what ever they may be. Also I never felt that drive. When you see artists, whether they are called that or not you can see it in the way they do things. They are not necessarily consumed by it but even among the unwilling, once they do their thing there is a clarity to it. There never was in clarity in what I did."
"But you said you followed those artist with deep determination."
Barbara wagged her finger at Jenny. "You are cheating. You already know how the story ends. For me this was my darkest moment. It was made worse by the fact that I was not at the end of the line. I knew that there was still a good deal of sunshine left but I knew that night was coming. I could feel it approach."
"So what was the the plot twist." Jenny asked. She took another sip of her tea which to her surprise was now merely warm.
"First came the time when I felt like the shortest candle. Feeling how I was dwindling but I could hardly stop to burn. In a way I pushed even harder. Trying experience as much as I still could. I talked to more people made more acquaintances while slowly sinking deeper into my dark thoughts. It was around this time that I noticed the other people at the fringes. I had been so distracted by the bright light of the famous that I did not notice the glowing embers of the many other artists who were working in obscurity. The plot twist was called Anne."
"Anne?"
"A young painter I knew without knowing at that time. You know the kind of person. You keep appearing at the same parties, start knowing each other, do some small talk, but you never don't get to see the real person behind the pleasantries."
Jenny had never had known someone like that. She obviously didn't go to enough parties. "Yeah. That kind of person.", she nodded,
"Well it was in the time I was sinking into an early but fulminant mid-life crises that I got to know her. Intimately."
"Right." Jenny said preferring to not let her curiosity stop the flow of the story.
"Anne was a painter. Out of art school for a while mainly maintaining herself by doing the odd job here and there, what she really wanted... what she needed was to be recognized though. When I went to the parties I was there to gorge myself on the radiance of others. She however went there to be seen. She might as well have been invisible. She lacked the ego of the self declared genius. She didn't think highly of her work. Actually the way she told it her work was rubbish, but it should be seen by others so that they may help her improving. To get to the point where she could actually express what she wanted to convey effectively." Barbara paused for a moment gazing at her tea. She took another swig. "These days you'd say that her self marketing was atrocious. But as I got to know her, I also got to know her art. And it was impressive. Far from perfect, still to restricted by what she had learned and by her lack of confidence. But you could see her energy and power past all of that. Her work was usually dark but always with something bright and colourful breaking out of that darkness. She did things like no one else, and she was good. To me it was obvious that the only way for her was up. That's not what happened. She kept working to make ends meet. Work on her art. Go out and be ignored by everyone. And bit by bit her flame was dying.
It was OK for me to fade away, you know? I was not happy about it, but in the end the world would not miss me. But her? Life had never felt so unfair to me like in the moment where I saw where Anne was heading. And that was something I was not going to let happen."
"What did you do?" asked Jenny her hand resting on her now cold tea cup.
"I still knew pretty much everyone. So I talked to the right people and made them look. I also gave Anne a crash course in advanced social skills so that she stopped killing her work in the eyes of others before they had a chance to judge for themselves."
"It worked." Jenny said. Not a question. Had it not worked she would not be sitting in this kitchen and not have this conversation.
Barbara nodded. "It worked. It was a lot of work, but in the end it was easier than I had thought it would be. I thought I would have to fight more, but Anne's art did all the fighting for me. It was mostly of talking to people. Bringing them together and make them appear at the right place at the right time. It meant an end to the odd jobs and she could finally focus on her art. She never became famous outside of certain circles, but I think that's just for the better. All things considered."
"What happened to her?"
Barbara's smile found something bitter and broke over it. "In the end her flame burnt to bright and she was consumed by it. She had some very good years but in then end... I don't really know what happened we had grown apart by that time. If I wanted to see her I could just see how she was in the various galleries you could find her work at. She was for a while resplendent but then her work took a turn back towards the dark. I thought she was maturing, getting back to her roots, following more 'adult' themes. I was wrong. I think. In the end she died of drug overdose..."
Silence.
Jenny thought about what she could say but everything she could say sounded stupid in her mind. This woman had opened up to her in a way that was a bit overwhelming considering that they just met a bit over a week ago.
"So..." Jenny cleared her throat, "what happened with you?"
"In general or after Anne had died?"
"Both..."
"In general:", Barbara took a deep breath, "I discovered my skill. I was no artist and would never become one. But I knew people and I know great works when I see them. I have a feel for potential. I had spent so much time around it that I had become an expert of sorts. So this became my calling. I left the burning light that had drawn me into the field and went looking for the embers making sure that they at least got a chance to blossom instead of fading away. Anne's fate... Anne's fate reminded me that I had a certain responsibility, that I was playing with fire after all. I took more care of the people I helped afterwards. That was stupid too, I became overprotective and ruined some perfectly good friendships. It took me a long while to get the balance right. To help people, to take care of them, while at the same time not becoming controlling." Barbara sighed. "And there are some people who just can't be saved. The best you can hope for is that as long as they stay they at least get the chance to be their best selves."
"I see." said Jenny slightly overwhelmed.
Barbara look at her, "Well, you asked." she said and laughed.
"So...er..." Jenny fidgeted on her bar stool.
"You've got a question." Barbara asked with an expectant smile.
"Yes. Well..."
"You want to know if I am helping you. In a professional capacity?" Barbara said.
Jenny flinched. "Yeah?"
"Right now I am helping you in a friendly capacity. Professional would mean I get a cut. That would not be right. At least not now. I'm fine, you have enough problems of your own, you don't need an 'investor'" there where the air quotes again, "to make things worse. But I see the spark in you. I am really curious about what you are going to do with the watermill and I introduced you to Adrian, who in turn introduced you to the man from the city." Barbara looked supremely satisfied as she said that. "Right now I'm perfectly happy sitting at the sidelines enjoying the spectacle. And providing tea and comfort if the need arises. Who knows what the future might bring." Barbara smiled a smile full of conspiracy and winked at Jenny.
Jenny opened her mouth and closed it again.
"You're welcome. Oh and see to it that the statics guy appears today. Adrian is an absolute professional but he tends to be a bit to convinced about his instincts when it comes to buildings which means that he sometimes starts to knock down walls and ask questions later. While I do trust him these days you need and architect for a loft extension, let alone a crumbling mill."
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