Miracle
My builder has started work.
Well. Okay, I exaggerate. He hasn’t started work. He hasn’t started work. But he has hung his shingle* on my fence.
Hellhounds and I were passing Third House in heavy twilight this evening and there was a pale blotch on my lovely new fence.** And I thought, WTF? They–whoever they are–had better not be using me as a frelling hoarding. And I went off into a teeny fantasy of how long this poster for the one Hampshire concert date of the Stupid Dead People and Bad Bogus Band had been up on my fence*** and how much less credibility I would have with my neighbours as a result than I already do.† Hellhounds and I thereupon approached more closely and . . . lo! Slowly through the darkling air cohered the name of my builder, shining black upon a field of grey.†† Please the construction gods this is a genuine sign††† and if we return tomorrow not only will the little wooden placard still be on the fence§ but there might even be like a van or a truck in the driveway with timber sticking out the back of it and people with tape measures behind their ears striding in and out of Third House’s doors in a purposeful manner. . . .
* * *
* The British don’t use this term: it’s in Chambers (British) dictionary as ‘U.S.’ It’s funny the things you don’t mean to hold onto, but that work for you. ‘Sign’ just doesn’t do it in this instance. Streets have signs. Large corporations have signs. Chicken entrails have signs. An independent working person has a shingle. Since my never-never-land pre-electricity faux-historical high fantasies, where the peasants are all way too clean and everyone has plenty to eat, are also vaguely (faux) British, I have always denied myself the use of this excellent term.^ This deprivation I remember being particularly annoying in ROSE DAUGHTER and SPINDLE’S END.
I got to a shingley spot in the first draft of BELLS OF MAZAHAN and scowled at it for a moment, girding myself for circumlocution, and then I suddenly thought, No, wait! This is Damar! I can pluck the Damarian word out of the ether/ make one up if the words that come from the ether today are for alligator^^ and footrot^^^! Yaaaay!
^ Although it wouldn’t surprise me if I had a brain spasm and have used it anyway, and some British person with an excellent memory, possibly who even reads this blog, is going to write to me some day and say, Huh! Appalachia, maybe, not the Pennines!
^^ They certainly have something like alligators, down in the south. You haven’t met them yet. I haven’t met them yet. I’m in no hurry.
^^^ Anywhere there are feet there is footrot. And in the Third Damarian Novel that doesn’t have a working title+ there’s even a reference to it. The heroine grows up on a farm. I don’t offhand remember which ungulate was suspected of having footrot, but I remember worrying if there was a Damarian word for it. This is one of the weirder aspects of writing a novel that is supposedly taking place in another language: when you want to use one of its words untranslated. If, for example, you’re talking about a thing that isn’t quite an alligator called a coorang, you might as well call it a coorang++. But footrot? It might sound more romantic in another language. But the question perhaps becomes do you want romantic footrot?
+ Regular readers of this blog will be aware that there are several Third Damarian Novels in various states of incompletion
++ Which also appears to be an Australian aboriginal word for sand dune. Hmm. Well, I’ll worry about that when I meet the Damarian alligators.
** The lovely new fence was put up by Atlas, after I found myself hauling hellhounds back through the old one by the tail. It had looked relatively hellhound-proof–well, hellhound-resistant–to the casual eye, and since they’re never out in the front garden unsupervised I thought I could put fence-replacement a few items down on the list. Wrong. Way too many dog-walkers use the footpath on the other side of my hedge. And I particularly didn’t want to wait till the day some lithe and aggressive creature with a nasty attitude and lots of teeth came through it to my side. I’ve already had the iniquitous little terrier that lives next door to Third House rush into my driveway to attack my dogs. Have I mentioned lately that I want to live in a distant wilderness? Except there would probably turn out to be coorangs^. And postal delivery is bad enough in town. Not to mention internet connection.
^ The alligator kind
*** Between guilt and frustration poor Third House is sadly neglected. But it’s like holding my breath every time I go up there: I can’t really do anything till the frelling building work gets done. This was all all ALL founded, as you may or may not remember, on having somewhere to put Peter’s and my–extensive–backlists. I mean, no, not even I would buy a Third House for an attic to put backlist in. But having fallen in love with Third House on sight^ one of its purposes was clearly that its excellent full-length-and-width-of-house attic was there to put backlist in, and, even more amazingly, to put backlist in in such a fashion that one could find the specific book one was looking for. Be still my heart.
Meanwhile backlist sits in boxes all over all the floors, and prevents making any practical decisions about anything.
^ Shortly after we moved into town, have I told you this story? I was wandering forlornly around my new neighbourhood, pathetically trying to feel as if I lived here, and I saw this little house. It’s nothing special, as I’ve probably also told you; it’s a roughly 1930′s, two-thirds stucco one-third wood bungalow. It’s just . . . mine. The cottage had had exactly the same effect on me: in the shock and misery of leaving the old house, here was a little new/old+ house saying, Here! I’m the one! Buy me! It was rather disconcerting to be looking at Third Houses when we hadn’t settled into our first two yet–and this was before the idea of a third house had formally revealed itself to me either–but I did look at Third House and say, never mind, when you come on the market I’ll buy you. And then . . . good gods . . . two years later it did come on the market. And I said great, I’ll have that++, and I’ll put Peter’s and my backlist in the attic.
Which is when all the trouble began. Because the attic floor was not built to carry the weight of lots and lots+++ of books. I do get it that it’s a bungalow and all, so the ground floor walls holding up the attic aren’t cleared for, oh, spare-tower-bell storage++++ or something, but the impression I get from builders, architects and building-regs enforcers is that the attic in its present manifestation is ornamental. In which case why did the previous owner carpet it and put in two Velux windows? Very misleading to future buyers.
+ 1700′s, probably
++ Pause while I sign a contract for 1,000,000 books so I can afford it
+++ and lots
++++ Our tower’s littlest bell is slightly over 600 pounds; the heaviest is slightly under 2000
†I have no credibility with my neighbours. This may be a good thing. But I’m not sure I want it with the aid of the Stupid Dead People and Bad Bogus Band.
†† He definitely counts as an Independent Working Person. It took me a while to discover that the address on his very professional-looking letterhead is his home and the very efficient lady who answers the phone is his wife. Nothing like keeping your overheads down. Especially when I’m paying your bills.
††† Sic. As in chicken entrails.
§ And not a mirage of ME and thwarted hope
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