Hearts of Oak

by Eddie Robson

  Iona stopped walking and followed Alyssa’s gaze. “You must have seen it before, surely.” It was a bit hidden away these days—a number of tall blocks had been built around it and the path that led to it, once a major thoroughfare, was now a back alley—but everyone surely passed it at some point.

  “Of course,” said Alyssa after a short pause, and then hurriedly added, “I’m just looking at it with fresh eyes because we’re talking about architecture and stuff.”

  “I thought you were thinking about tearing it down.”

  Alyssa spun around. “Me?”

  “I mean ‘you’ as in the planning department. I thought they recommended it should come down to make way for a residential block.”

  “Oh. I don’t know.” She looked back at the building. “Did you design it?”

  Iona was about to say yes, but then she doubted herself. “I, er . . .” She thought she had. She certainly felt that connection she felt with all buildings she’d designed. But now that she thought about, it surely the building was too old to be one of hers? And she couldn’t actually remember designing it.

  But then she remembered the textbook. It was used in there as a demonstration of the techniques that held the roof in place, and all the examples in the textbook were drawn from her own work.

  “Yes,” she told Alyssa. “I did.”

  “Wow, you’re really good.”

  Iona laughed. “How gratifying.”

  “Oh, they can’t tear this down, it’s lovely.”

  Iona shrugged. “One can’t be too sentimental.” Many times she’d seen her creations torn down, broken up, consigned to the furnace, and the energy sent back into the city. Each time she had turned away and set to work on something new. “For me the satisfaction lies in having done the work, not in having it stand there until the end of days.”

  “That would do my head in.”

  “Every building falls down eventually.”

  Together they walked on.

  * * *

  They arrived at the new housing estate that was being built at the city limits. A few months ago this had been part of the forest, but at the most recent cull it had not been replanted and a new area farther out had been seeded in its place. The layout of the new estate resembled a spoked wheel, with six streets leading off from the center. Backing onto each row of houses was a community garden. The wheel motif was to be replicated in the detailing on the houses. As yet, however, the builders hadn’t gotten past the foundations. Which was why Iona had brought Alyssa here.

  Iona ducked under the hazard tape, taking care not to tear it, and walked to the foundations of the nearest house.

  “It is, er . . . alright for us to be here, isn’t it?” Alyssa said, tentatively following her.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Just because of how it’s all cordoned off . . .”

  “Oh yes, as long as you’re with me it’ll be fine.” Where architectural business was concerned she was allowed everywhere as long as she didn’t get in the way.

  A ladder was propped against the side of the foundations and Iona used it to climb down to below ground level. Alyssa held the ladder steady, then joined her.

  “So what are we looking at?” Alyssa said, shoving her hands in her pockets. Alyssa’s hands were constantly in her pockets.

  Iona directed Alyssa’s attention toward the walls that had been built up around the edges of the hole they currently stood in. She showed Alyssa how they were layered and linked, and explained how the boards had been treated to prevent warping as they absorbed moisture from the soil. A stack of fresh boards lay to one side, ready to be put into place tomorrow: Iona picked up one of the shorter boards and pointed out how it had been cut to interlock with the others. “The important thing is to ensure these holes line up,” she said, pointing at a large square hole, “because there’s a locking support beam to slide through that, which will hold them together and form the skeleton of the walls aboveground.”

  Alyssa nodded. “And you always make them out of wood?”

  Iona peered at Alyssa. “What else would they be made of?”

  Alyssa stared back at her for a moment. “Yes, of course. Silly question. Anyway, this was really helpful.” She turned to go back to the ladder—but Iona put a hand on her shoulder.

  “No, you must have been thinking of something else. Tell me.”

  “Ignore me, you know far more about these things than I do—”

  “Tell me,” said Iona with more force than she’d intended. But she desperately wanted to know what was on Alyssa’s mind. Because it was true, the wood warped so easily, there had to be something better than wood but what could that be? She was thinking of the hat, the felt hat, and she felt sure Alyssa was about to say—

  “Stone?” Alyssa said, looking anxious.

  Iona shook her head. “Stone is too precious, the quantities are too small, we need it for furnaces, and—that’s not what you were going to say. What were you going to say?” She tried to be less intense, make it sound like more of an academic interest. “Good ideas can come from anywhere, I just wanted to listen to your—”

  “I was going to say . . . concrete.”

  Concrete. It was a dream-word. Somehow Iona knew Alyssa was about to say a dream-word. Even stranger than that was how the dream-word seemed to fit perfectly in the conversation when, by rights, it should make no sense at all.

  “What is concrete?” Iona asked.

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “It’s . . . just something I heard someone say. I don’t know what it is. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Tell me more about foundations. It’s fascinating.”

  Iona felt sure Alyssa was lying, that she knew what concrete was but didn’t want to say. Did Alyssa have the dreams too?

  3

  “OUCH!” SAID THE KING.

  Clarence trotted into the king’s chambers with a noticeable lack of urgency. “What’s the matter?”

  The king leaned over and showed Clarence his thumb. A splinter protruded from the center of a tiny but growing bead of blood.

  “Are you expecting me to pull it out?” asked Clarence.

  “No, I can do that myself. You asked me what the matter was so I showed you.” The king turned away and walked to the window to get better light. He plucked the splinter out, flicked it away through the window, and sucked on the wound.

  “How did it happen?” asked Clarence. “Was it the wall again?”

  “No, my crown.” The king’s crown lay on the floor, where he had dropped it due to the shock. “I’m sending it back. It’s not properly finished. The inside rim isn’t smooth enough. That could have gone right into my head.”

  “Imagine the carnage. Are you going to have anyone punished for it?”

  “What? No.” The king sucked his thumb again. “When have I ever had anyone punished for anything?”

  “If you did, maybe it would raise standards.”

  “I’m not going to.”

  Clarence sighed. “You always want people to like you.”

  “Yeah,” the king replied, sitting down in his chair by the window. “Of course I do. Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Sometimes a leader has to make difficult decisions. Decisions that might be unpopular.”

  The king thought for a moment. “Don’t think I have.”

  “In which case you’ve been fortunate.”

  “Or maybe this city’s just very well run, eh?” And with that the king opened the newspaper. It was a good edition. Lots of coverage of the funerals, and there was a long article about a day in the life of a materials courier. He read the entire paper from front to back, then went back and skimmed it again. He asked Clarence if previous editions of the newspaper were stored anywhere.

  “No, Your Highness,” Clarence replied.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Why?”

  The king shook the newspaper. “The whole history of the city is in these
.”

  “The history is all in the public records—”

  “But that’s just old maps and planning decisions—I’m talking about this.” The king turned the newspaper to the article about the courier. “Stories about real people and how they lived—people are more important than buildings. There’s so much that no one will know about if we don’t keep these. Right, that’s it—we’re starting a newspaper archive.”

  “We’d need a lot of space—”

  “We’ve got a lot of space. What’s the problem? You don’t usually need convincing about new building projects.”

  “No, but we already have so many construction sites in operation—”

  The king snapped his fingers. “I know—they’re building new offices for the newspaper, right?”

  “Well . . . yes, but it’s been delayed by—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know—but they are moving out of the old offices. So when they move into the new place, the old offices can be the archives.”

  “Well . . . if you’re sure—”

  “I am. I think it’s a good idea.” The king held up today’s edition. “And we can start with this one.”

  * * *

  “Sorry, are you busy?” asked Carter as he entered Iona’s office to find her with an exercise book open on her desk and two piles of similar books on either side of it.

  “Just marking,” Iona replied. But the truth was she had not done any marking for several minutes. Instead she had been staring at the open book while replaying last night’s conversation with Alyssa in her head; thinking ahead to their session tonight; and writing the word concrete on a piece of scrap paper, wondering if she had spelled it correctly. Without drawing undue attention Iona reached out, screwed up the scrap paper, and tossed it in her wastebasket.

  “This’ll only take a moment and then I’ll get out of your hair,” said Carter, placing a copy of this week’s newspaper on her desk. “Have you seen it yet?”

  “Seen what?” Iona peered at the front page, which featured a report from Weston’s funeral. Initially she assumed it had made the front page because of the strange events at the end but she quickly realized the report made no mention of this at all. The funeral was the lead story purely because of Weston’s public standing and the circumstances of his death, and although it was a nice gesture the result was a completely uneventful piece of writing.

  “Gosh, how bizarre,” Iona said, “they haven’t mentioned the disturbance at all. Why act like it didn’t happen?” Finally, she thought, someone to talk to about this.

  “Oh—I don’t know,” said Carter. “Actually that’s not why I brought it to you.” He opened the newspaper and showed her the king’s column, which took up the entire third page. This week it was all about Weston and his contribution to the city.

  “Right,” said Iona, embarrassed to have raised the matter of the disturbance. It seemed Carter wanted to act like it didn’t happen too. “How nice.”

  “Yes, but look.” Carter pointed to the fourth paragraph.

  Iona peered at it and saw her own name amidst a block quote from the eulogy she’d given at Weston’s funeral. “Oh.” She picked up the paper, sat back, and read the text. Rather embarrassing that she’d thought these words wouldn’t be recorded at all, and here they were in the king’s column. She wondered who’d passed this on to him, since he hadn’t been there himself.

  When she was dead, who would speak at her funeral? Would the king write a column about her too? It felt terribly vain to think of it but then she’d designed more buildings than Weston. She’d designed more buildings than anyone.

  Iona held up the newspaper. “Thank you for bringing this—may I borrow it?”

  “Keep it,” said Carter, heading back to the door. “I’ve finished with it.”

  * * *

  During her midday break Iona locked her office while she ate lunch and read the newspaper. In the column the king admitted he had only met Weston a couple of times at opening ceremonies, but had been struck by the outpouring of public feeling upon his death. After some quotes from tributes, the king went on to praise Weston’s contribution to the city and called him a model for his fellow citizens.

  It occurred to Iona that it was odd she had never met the king. Yes, he was an important man and the demands on his time must be considerable, but Iona’s work was closely linked with government and she could certainly consider herself a public figure, if only a minor one. It was surprising their paths had never crossed. All her designs were signed off by the king—she had a meeting at planning later today to receive his feedback on her latest—so he must at least be familiar with who she was, surely? Or maybe he didn’t pay attention to such things.

  Well, if the king didn’t know her name before, he certainly knew it now.

  Iona wondered how long people would remember her for. While her buildings still stood? How long would they stand? What would replace them?

  She put the brakes on this self-indulgent train of thought. She leafed through the rest of the newspaper, which was mostly filled with building reports and consultation debates as usual. Usually she would recycle the newspaper at this point but instead she put it in her desk drawer. It was something nice to remember Weston by.

  * * *

  “Well,” said the chap at the planning department, whose name was Rankin, as he unrolled the plans. He was new—Iona didn’t remember meeting him before—and seemed slightly overwhelmed by the scale of the latest round of projects, including the one they were here to discuss.

  Iona’s proposed design for the new forestry office was one of the most ambitious she had ever submitted, but she had not created it out of hubris. Rather, her intention had been to fit a large building into an already crowded part of town while causing the least possible upheaval. Her innovative concept meant that an adjacent residential block could be preserved, so there would be no need to turf people out of their homes and move them to one of the new estates in the suburbs.

  “We’re all very impressed,” said Rankin, clamping the plans to the display board behind him. “Everyone’s very excited about the design. Very excited.”

  “Great.”

  “We all love what you’ve done. It’s so bold.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “The king especially. He was knocked out when he saw it.”

  “Gosh.”

  “He did have just one note for you.”

  Iona nodded. “Sure. What?”

  “He’d like it to be bigger.”

  Iona looked from Rankin to the plans and back again. “Bigger in what way?”

  “Just generally bigger. I think it’s a mark of how excited he is about it.”

  “Well—” Iona began. “Do you mean taller?”

  Now came Rankin’s turn to glance at the plans. “Yes. Well. He didn’t say.”

  “Broader? More capacity?”

  “Um . . .”

  “All of those things?”

  “Yes. All of them. I haven’t spoken to him personally, you understand.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t enjoy that honor. But he wrote this on the edge.” Rankin pointed at the king’s scrawled note on the corner of the plans. Iona stood, walked over to the board, and squinted at the comment. Indeed, that was the king’s sole instruction: the building should be bigger. And then there was a smiley face.

  Iona straightened up. “Well, making it taller, with this design, putting more weight on the struts . . . I’m not sure it would work. I don’t think it’d be safe.”

  “Oh.”

  “So we’d have to make the whole thing broader as well, but—”

  “Excellent. Do that then.”

  “But that would mean thicker struts, so you’d be looking at extending the whole thing down this side.” Iona ran her finger along one edge of the diagram.

  “We can accommodate that. The king is keen to accelerate the building program.”

  “Oh good,” Iona said, although she couldn’t remembe
r a time when they hadn’t been accelerating the building program. “But what about the residential block?”

  “That’s alright, we’ll demolish it.”

  “Right. I did sort of design the whole thing so that wouldn’t be necessary. That was the whole idea.”

  “That’s really considerate of you,” said Rankin without any sarcasm at all. “But we don’t mind. It’s quite old anyway.”

  * * *

  After the meeting Iona returned to her office to wait for Alyssa, although she was by no means certain she would turn up. They’d parted ways last night on an uneasy note and maybe Iona had scared her off. Iona felt surprised by how keen she was to see and speak to Alyssa again. The young woman understood nothing about architecture but Iona felt increasingly certain she understood other things.

  Iona’s intention had been to finish the marking she’d started earlier, but as she sat down she noted another colleague had left a copy of the newspaper on her desk, presumably unaware she’d already seen it. She was about to toss it in the wastebasket but stopped herself and opened it instead. She stared at the third page, reading the king’s column again, lingering over that fourth paragraph. It was strange to think of the king knowing who she was, because she had always felt like she knew him. But probably everyone felt like that.

  Alyssa entered the office without knocking and Iona hastily set aside the newspaper. “Sorry, got lost again. I read what you said about your friend,” Alyssa said, her manner easy and open and betraying none of the edginess of last night. “It was lovely.” She didn’t sit down. “While I was busy getting lost I had an idea of where we could go today, if you don’t mind.”