Changing Seasons. Summer V, part 3.

Summer V, part 3 “That was the best party ever, yesterday,” Clara said, tossing her namesake up into the air. “Wasn’t it, Clara Anne? You and Sarah Jane were one, and I was eighteen. I got more candles!” Clara Anne shrieked with delight. “But I am still moving out today.”
“Must you?” Annette said, a little woefully.
“I’ll clean Mary’s booster seat before I go. I’m eighteen now, Annette. The twins are sleeping through the night – mostly, anyway! – and I’m not exactly leaving the district, am I?” “Clara Anne and Sarah Jane will miss you.”
“Come on, Annette. They know I’m moving. They’ve seen the house. Mary knows too. I have a home of my own, waiting for me to make my memories in it.” “You do.” Annette knew that Clara was ready to move out, and she wasn’t really trying to hold on to her. But she would still miss having her there all the time.
“And besides,” Clara added. “I have my new venture! All thanks to you and Marcus. So once we’ve had breakfast and cleaned up, I’ll finish packing up. And with me gone, you’ll have an empty bedroom and Clara Anne can move out of your room.”
“Well, I guess every cloud has a silver lining. Do you need a hand?”
“I’ll get one of the guys to help get the desk onto the back of the truck. The rest I can shift myself. Well – they can take the book boxes as well, maybe.” I am going to miss them all. Especially these three. But I do have a house. Old Tench gave it to me, and I’m going to live in it – and use it too. Want to find out my plans for it? This is my new plan. No, I’m not suddenly expecting twins – I’ve got far too much sense for that. But I’m going into the childcare business: we’ve got a lot of small children and no handy grandparents to leave them with. So I’m going to be the grandparent. I’ve had plenty of practice and I know all the children.
And in between, I can work for Marcus and Annette on the farm, paint the art gallery for Rafe, Leo and the others…not the horses though. I’ll leave those to Sal. And Blake’s bees – I don’t fancy those either. But I can earn a living for sure. And this is my garden. I’ve been cultivating it for ages now and it’s coming on nicely. Old Tench is right though – all the watering I’ve done here has got other stuff growing out there. And I’m looking at those weeds next door. I don’t want them coming back to life and invading me. I think I’m going to have to do some weeding there as well. Still, now I’m living here I can do that – the odd half hour every so often.
Every very often, looking at the quantity of them! “Tickla! Tickla!” Mary practically hurled herself into my arms. Clara Anne was much more pragmatic and just made it very clear that she was hungry! Annette was going into Newborough for the day, clothes shopping for all of them, and reckoned that one child was enough to take with her, so I have the other two today. Suits me. Clara’s fun – very outgoing. Very physical: loves being tossed in the air, tickled – you name it, she’s up for it. Well, she was named after me, I suppose. Sarah Jane is much quieter, much gentler…They’re not identical twins, though they do look very much alike; their eyes are different colours, which was very useful when they were babies. Rug. The next thing I’m buying is a rug. This floor’s smooth enough – I know: I sanded it! – but it’s hard on my old bones. I haven’t got a diaper over them like these two have. I don’t actually miss this bit much – Clara Anne’s getting there though: she actually knows when she needs the potty sometimes even if she’s not got round to sitting on it herself yet. Of course, she’s had Mary to watch and copy. Mary can use the potty all by herself, but she still likes an audience. Actually, she likes a story. That’s because I used to tell them to her when we were potty-training her, to encourage her to sit there until she did her business, so to speak. Might have been a mistake, that…And I hope Clara Anne’s not getting any ideas about copying Mary in this. Well, I definitely earned my money today and that feels really good. I’ve done what I swore I’d do when I was only nine years old, when I thought, ‘There must be more to life than this.’
I’ve found somewhere safe. I’ve made a home of my own. And – more than that – I have friends. People who love me. My nine-year-old self just wanted to be safe. She didn’t dare hope for love as well. “You really are going for the ‘see the hunky sculptor at work’ aren’t you?” Rafe said to his brother.
The transformation of the gallery was going on apace now that they’d semi-moved out. “Yep. And I still think that you should sculpt bare-chested. You could be an art installation in your own right. The naked male torso has figured in sculpture from Egyptian times, through the Greeks, the Romans…so a naked male torso sculpting would be amazingly and symbolically self-referential…”
Rafe just looked at Leo. Darkly and meaningfully. It seemed to him that Leo was having way too much fun with this idea. Annette had gone to the top of the building where she’d found those old telephones. Away in the distance, beyond the dry bed of one of the two lakes that had given the town its name, she could see the green walls and red roof of the hut that housed the repeater, giving them their in-town telephone system. They were going to need a mobile signal eventually, but Rafe, Leo and Frank all thought that would come as the town came alive again. “Once we’ve got people coming here…” they’d said.
And that was why she’d come up here – to see how things would look to the people who were going to be coming here. It was looking better, she thought. They needed some flowers outside Leo’s place – trees would be even better. And the roof garden they were planning for the gallery would make a big difference. They needed greenery outside the gym too, and not just inside it. She turned to look out over the other almost-vanished lake – and gasped with amazement! Pools of water had formed in the dried up basin and things were growing there. Clean, fresh water. And greenery, spreading. There had been some plants growing round the original pool, but now there were more. I could ask Old Tench about putting fish in here: he’d know which ones would do well, Amber thought.
We could actively help this ecosystem restore itself. Old Tench was saying that he’d seen things changing as we’ve all watered, tended, cared for the place. We need some scientists to help! Who knows any scientists? The second pool of water was smaller, but when Amber looked up at the gallery she could see how the green was spreading down the hill from it, ready to meet the green coming up and out from the water. I’m not sure if the lake will refill itself completely, Amber thought, but with a bit of help maybe this could be a beautiful wildlife area. I must tell the others about this, ask round everyone to see if they know anyone who could help. This was going to be the entry to the gallery, the shop, the exit too…Leo and Rafe were considering the fire exit.
“What do you think we should do? I reckon leave it as it is, as a nod to the industrial past of the building.”
“You could be right,” Leo acknowledged. “Plus that means we can leave all the others as they are too!” “Clean the brick in here…”
Lucie came over to join in the discussion.
“But leave the industrial feel. And this is going to be the community space, this and the next door room.”
“I’ll miss my big painting space,” Lucie admitted. “It’ll be odd being in a smaller studio.” “We’re not keeping this wallpaper thought. This room looks dreadful! We’ll keep the panelling, see what’s underneath the carpet and do neutral walls for displaying people’s paintings. I thought a children’s section for in here. And over here…” “Don’t mind me,” Amber said as they all piled into her room.
“Over here, I thought settees, coffee tables, coffee machine and we’ve got somewhere for the parents to sit while their children do arty things. But a coffee machine probably means that we’re going to need bathrooms up here.”
“We’re going to need bathrooms on every floor anyway,” Leo said. “I like that idea, Lucie. You and Amber are going to have to shift your stuff very soon though.”
Amber sighed. Loudly. “Bags I Clara for helping me with the painting.” “Which room do you want then?” The old workshops had been knocked down to make way for parking (“Essential,” they had all agreed) and the rooms in the tall slice (“We’ll call it The Slice as an address, when we let the rooms”) were going to be studios. “Front view or back?”
“Front,” Lucie said promptly.
“Back,” said Amber.
“Well, that was painless,” Leo said. “Come and choose.” “And this back door will be the private entrance to the studios,” Rafe said, leading the way in and heading for the staircase to the rooms above.
More painting, Amber thought as she looked at the grubby walls. That hallway wasn’t going to appeal to anyone. “Looking round here makes you realise how much we’ve done already, doesn’t it? I mean, it all looked like this when we arrived. I thought we’d put a couple of bathrooms here in this space. We won’t run to one on every floor though.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Lucie said thoughtfully. “We’d all be here to work – you take bathroom breaks at work and you don’t expect an en-suite office, do you?”
Amber was looking at the view. I want to be higher up, she thought. “This one,” Lucie said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. The light’s fabulous.”
“Then you shall have it, my love. I’ll help you paint it my own self. Or clean the brick, or whatever it is you want to do.” “This one’s too small.”
“Back down to the floor below then?” Rafe asked.
“Isn’t there another floor?”
“I didn’t see another staircase.” It didn’t have stairs, it had a ladder. “This is the view I want.”
“I can see why. But how do we get all your stuff up that ladder?” “Not a problem,” Amber called to him. “Look – there’s a walkway to the main building. This is my room, my writing space. This is where I belong.” They were all in the kitchen at Lucie and Leo’s house – Rafe had kept the van as he needed it to transport his sculptures, so Lucie and Leo had got the kitchen.
“I’m not complaining,” Amber had said. “Leo’s a better cook than Rafe.”
“Humph!” Rafe had said.
“So what was it that you did yesterday that you wanted to tell me about?” Amber asked Lucie. “I biked up to Blake’s place to see how he was getting on – outside the house is looking really good now. I mean, inside’s just the same and he’ll have to do something about the downstairs if nothing else before he opens – people are bound to peer in through the windows – but outside’s okay. And the bee fields are looking good…” “And the pond’s lovely – it gives the whole place a focal point. A far better one than those house ruins, which he’s finally knocked down. Come spring the whole place should be green and growing, and Smallcott Honey will be totally worth a visit. Blake’s thinking of putting a tea room in – tea and scones and honey. It’s far enough away from the other one not to be competition.” “So we can move all of Amber’s and my stuff into our studios tomorrow?”
“Yep. Then you can work all day over there and come home and work all evening here.” But Leo was laughing as he spoke.
“And we should have a kitchen by the weekend,” Amber said. “So we can start cooking for you and you can just rock up for a meal.”
“So if you cook we get omelettes, and if Rafe cooks we get baked beans?”
“Humph!” Amber and Rafe said together.

The art gallery was made by CycloneSue at TSR.
The booster seat is by Sandy at ATS3