Gravity Versus Gravity, page 14
She then looked at George and said, “Okay, George. Can you please read out the checklist?”
George took out a paper and started reading, “Roofs except of concrete to be checked and secured where necessary; No materials on roofs - even flower pots to be removed; Doors and windows to be checked; Electric wiring to be tightened; Dos and Don’ts to be given to every house; Evacuation plan to be posted on every building.” He put down the paper and said, “Well, those are the principal ones. Should I also read out the minor ones?”
“No, we can do that at a later meeting. Does anyone have any questions?”
Amy raised her hand. “I oversee the entire Edgeware Road. This place has the largest number of non-concrete roofs. I anticipate that I may be the last one to finish work. I may need additional hands,” she said.
“The person who gets over with her or his area joins the person who has the largest amount of work left. So, don’t worry. You might have all members of the team at your service should you be the last one,” Louisa said.
“I have a list of people and machinery that we would be getting. Does everyone get the same numbers?” George said.
“Don’t worry about others,” Louisa said. “If you think that your numbers are not enough, you could discuss with me separately.”
“Okay,” replied George.
“Any more questions?” Louisa asked, expecting several more. But everyone remained silent.
“That’s nice,” she continued. “We’ll save some time in doing actual work than continuing our discussion. So, we break for now, and we’ll meet at ten tonight for the review meeting.”
When Louisa entered the meeting room at ten PM, not a single person was present. Corwin came in first. Then others trickled in with a gap of five to ten minutes. By the time everyone had assembled, it was past eleven.
“I’m aware that none of you has energy left for this meeting but a review every day is important. I would like to hear about your problems and everyone’s suggestions on resolving these problems. If you would like to share an experience which would make others wiser, please do so. General advice is also welcome. Please keep it short considering that all of you are tired.”
James was the first to speak, “Today, I found two dozen homes in Finchley Road, which had huge overhead tanks. These tanks are full of water. The tanks themselves are fully secured. The two which were not, have been secured by our technicians. My question is whether the water in these tanks would be affected by the zero-gravity event?”
“Yes, any amount of water anywhere in the zone would go up in the air. And this will happen even if the overhead tanks have a closed lid at the top.”
“What is the solution?”
“Drain all the tanks and seal the inlet. I’ll ask the Borough Councils to stop supplying water to these tanks from tomorrow.”
“But how will the people manage without water?” Ingrid said.
“That is not my problem. I’ve a job in hand which I’m supposed to deliver.” She moved her glance across the room and asked, “Any more questions?”
“I have a suggestion,” Amy said.
“Yes, please go ahead,” Louisa said.
“Some residents are not very cooperative. I have a suggestion on how we can deal with them.”
“How?” Louisa asked.
“For every house, where the inspection has been successfully done, we put a tick mark on our inspection charts and paste the green tick mark sticker near the front door. For those, who don’t cooperate, we put an additional cross mark. The Borough Council can later impose fine on them.”
“We are crossing into someone else’s jurisdiction. You can put any such experiences in the remarks column of the inspection charts. We’ll find a way later to deal with all such cases.”
Diana raised her hand. “I don’t have question or a problem for which I’m looking for a solution. But I want to relate an incident that happened with me today,” she said.
Everyone suddenly seemed fully awake. If Diana had an incident, it meant something very big had happened. Diana was a very calm girl. She was slim, beautiful, and looked delicate in her five-foot frame. Looking at her physique, one could get the wrong impression that Diana was fragile. She was a Judo champion and had represented the UK at the Commonwealth Games.
Diana continued, “It happened so that when I reached a house in Weber Road, I think it was number 101, all my team members had fallen behind. The crane was in the previous block. The plumbers were two houses away. The engineers were somewhere else. The handymen were far behind. In short, I entered number 101 alone. The middle-aged man who opened the door was all smiles when he saw me first. He gladly showed me all the places. He took me to the rooftop, where he had taken care of everything himself. Everything was perfect. When we were going down the stairs, I felt as though his hands brushed past my back. I ignored it thinking it was by mistake. It happened again when we had descended. Then he moved his arms around my waist. I told him to stop. He put his hand on my cheeks.”
“Then?” asked George inquisitively.
“Then what,” Diana continued. “My instincts kicked in. I bent his arms and hit him with my knee. I did not even use my full force. The man fell flat on the ground like a sheet of paper. I thought life had gone out of him. Fortunately, he was only unconscious. I left the house.”
“Not the right approach but let us close the chapter here.”
“But there is a point here,” James said. “What should we do if we get into a situation like this?”
“Avoid getting in a situation like this. We neither have enough time for these things to interfere in our job nor would it be sensible to spend time finding a solution when such incidents do occur. From now on, none of you would ever go alone into a house. Please ensure that you have at least one other person with you.”
The next day, Boyle started early. He had completed twenty-three houses by the time it was eight. The twenty fourth house was a two-storied house with a garden which seemed neglected. Boyle was a huge person. He was six and a half feet tall and weighed over hundred twenty kilograms. He would have entered alone disregarding Louisa’s house. But seeing the condition of the house, he thought of waiting till at least one member of the team had caught up with him.
The crane operator, Morgan was the first one to arrive.
“Can you get off your crane and come with me inside the house?” Boyle asked.
“Okay,” Morgan said and followed Boyle into the garden.
Boyle rang the bell and waited. He rang twice. Still, there was no response. He knocked the door hard. After a minute, a middle-aged woman opened the door slightly just enough to put her head into it.
“Yes?” she asked suspiciously.
“We are from DIMA.”
“If that is a part of the Borough Council, I have nothing to do with you.”
“No, we are not from the Borough Council. You may not have heard about the zero-gravity event.”
“No,” replied the woman.
“Please sign this confidentiality document, and I’ll tell you,” Boyle said.
The woman immediately signed the paper.
Boyle took some minutes to explain about the zero-gravity event to the woman.
“If this is true, it is very dangerous,” the woman said in the end. “What do you want from me?”
“Your cooperation in helping you.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“By securing your entire house so that when you come back after the zero-gravity event, your house is safe and so are all the things in the house.”
“Are we supposed to leave our house?”
“Yes, three days before the event, everyone is supposed to be out of Central London.”
“Well, that should not be difficult. But securing my things may not be easy,” the woman said.
“Why so?” Boyle asked.
“I have not let anyone come inside my house for the last twenty-seven years. But since you have come here on an important assignment, I’m going to let you in.”
The woman opened the door half wide. Boyle did not have to ask the woman for an answer. The whole corridor was full of stuff. There was barely any space to even pass through.
“What is this?” Boyle asked.
“My collection. I’m a compulsive buyer. I’ve been collecting all sorts of items over the last thirty years. And I’ve not discarded a single thing in these thirty years. Not even soap covers or shoeboxes.”
“This is interesting,” Morgan said, looking at Boyle. “I’ve never come across such a person.”
“Are you sure, you don’t want to discard any of the items now?” Boyle asked.
“Not, not even a matchbox,” the woman replied.
“We cannot force you to do that, but you’ll have to let us secure the items the way we want to.”
“How?”
We’ll put them in wooden crates and shut them with a lock.”
“And how will I take them out when the whole episode is over?”
“That will be your job. You could ask for professional help on payment if you wish to.”
“Then I’m not going to allow you to touch my things.”
“Madam, you don’t have the liberty of saying yes or no. We have to do it.”
“No!” said the woman sternly and tried to close the door. Boyle held it with his hands.
“Madam, I must warn you that if you don’t allow us to do our work, you would have to be detained by our law enforcement officials.”
The woman gave in. “Come in,” she said, lowering her voice. “But just ensure that you don’t mix things from different rooms.”
“We’ll try our best,” Boyle said, getting inside. Once inside, he did not know if even mixing all the items should pose any problem. All the rooms were filled with what Boyle felt was junk. Boyle took out his wireless and asked seven handymen to join him.
“Gosh!” the handymen said in unison when they entered the house.
“Is this a dump yard?” one of them asked.
“We cannot finish this work in one day,” another said.
“Let Morgan put the cab of his crane through the roof and take out all the stuff. We would be done in an hour. Maximum three truckloads,” the third handyman said.
“We are wasting time discussing possibilities. The only option we have is to put these things in wooden crates and secure them,” Boyle said.
“Not me,” one handyman said.
“Not me either,” another said.
“Those who are ready, please follow me. Those who are not can carry on with the other buildings.”
Three handymen left immediately. The other four stayed behind. Morgan also decided to help Boyle. The woman, who was already impressed with Boyle’s sincerity, decided to give a helping hand. The team toiled for three hours without a break. They were able to do more in lesser time than what they had expected. Everyone sat down exhausted on some of the chairs that had been freed of the boxes on top of them.
“My house looks very different,” the woman said, surveying her rooms.
“Maybe you’ll have a change of mind and discard some unwanted stuff.”
“Not within the house,” the woman replied. “And not now,” she continued.
“Then when?”
“After the zero-gravity event.”
“Oh,” Boyle said. “That would be of use to you. But not to us.”
“I know that. You can take away everything from the garden. I put things which I don’t like out in the garden.”
“Thanks,” one handyman replied. “We’ll save at least an hour.”
“Let me get you something to eat,” the woman said, getting up to leave for the kitchen.
Boyle was hungry but was not sure if he would be able to eat what the woman would bring. Her house was the filthiest that he had seen in his entire life.
The kitchen should be filled with cockroaches, he thought.
The woman came out with two packets of short bread and a packet of scones. They looked clean and fresh from outside. She handed them over to Boyle. Boyle quickly looked at the expiry date. It was more than three months away. He passed on a packet each of shortbread and scones to the handymen and Morgan. He took out two pieces of shortbread. The shortbread melted in his mouth.
How delicious! he thought. I’ll not forget this moment. The tastiest shortbread in the dirtiest house.
With the break over in ten minutes, all of them got down to work, which was over in an hour.
As the men left for the garden, the woman said, “Thanks to all of you. Because of you, I’ve been able to see many of my things which I had forgotten had existed.”
“Another good reason you should throw away all your junk,” one of the handymen said.
Morgan parked his crane near the gate. The men put the stuff in the garden in big heaps, which Morgan lifted with his crane and dumped on the two trucks. The work was over in less than an hour.
“No more energy left for doing anything else today,” one of the handymen said.
“Yes, all of you deserve proper rest today. Let us break for the day.”
Boyle called Louisa and told her about the difficult day they had and how everyone had put in the best efforts. Louisa gladly gave permission not to attend the meeting at night.
Everyone was happy to leave early. On his way to the Underground station, Boyle could not help praying that he did not have another such house in the remaining days.
The next morning Boyle met Ingrid at the Underground station.
“How was the meeting yesterday?” Boyle asked.
“Nothing extraordinary. We shared information about our day’s work.”
“If I were not very tired yesterday, I would have loved to come to the meeting and given all of you an exciting story.”
“What happened?” Ingrid asked.
Boyle related the incident about the house the day before.
“Bad luck!” Ingrid said at the end. “I don’t think anyone has had such a difficult day yet.”
“Yes, I hope that no one has such a bad day.”
“I hope, too,” Ingrid said before getting off at her station.
Ingrid was thinking about Boyle’s incident all the way from the Underground station to her first building. Little did she know that she was not going to have a light day either.
Ingrid waited for her teammates to join in. The first five buildings were a joyride. Not much work. No junk. No loose objects.
The sixth building looked scary from outside.
“Oh, oh!” Ingrid said to the handyman who was accompanying her. “Looks like this house is inhabited by ghosts.”
“That would be good. We would not have lots of work to do if that is true. Let’s pray that this is not the junk house like the one about which you told me today.”
“Boyle had described his junk house to be something similar.”
“In any case, we have to do our work. Let us go inside.”
The two of them went through the garden, which was unkempt but did not have a lot of stuff. They rang the bell. The door opened, and a strange looking dirty man with long hair and beard came out.
Ingrid whispered to the handyman, “Looks like a junk collector.”
The man’s face was expressionless. “What do you need?” he asked.
Ingrid requested the man to sign the confidentiality agreement and described about the zero-gravity event.
“I hope you are not a collector,” she said after she had finished describing the zero-gravity event.
“How do you know that?” the man said with a slight expression of surprise on his face.
“We have such wide experience that we have a knack of knowing about such things.”
“I’m impressed,” the man said.
“So how long have you been collecting your stuff?” Ingrid asked with the intention of finding out how much work they could expect.
“What do you mean by stuff?”
“Things. All sorts of things. You said you are a collector.”
“Yes, I’m a collector but not a collector of all sorts of things.”
“Then what?”
“I collect snakes.”
“What!” Ingrid and the handyman exclaimed together.
“I’m too scared of snakes,” the handyman said, trying to leave.
“Hold on, Jamie,” Ingrid said, holding the handyman’s hand to prevent him from leaving.
“Don’t worry,” the man said. “I love my snakes, and all of them are in boxes.”
“How many do you have?”
“Two hundred and seventy-three.”
“All of them in this building?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t some of them ever escape?”
“I’m an expert. I can never let that happen.”
“Do they ever slide out of their boxes?”
“That, of course, keeps on happening from time to time. But I put them back before they slide out of my house.”
“Are they poisonous?”
“About half of them, yes.”
“Since there is no way that we can put the snakes in crates, I’m afraid we would have to take them out of Central London.”
“I don’t have any other place to go.”
“We’ll have to find a solution. Let me call my boss.”
Ingrid called Louisa and explained the situation to her.
“Take them to the zoo.”
“Will they allow?”
“I’ll call them.”
“Are you sure?”
“No one can say no to us during such times.”
“Okay,” Ingrid said, satisfied at Louisa’s solution.
Ingrid called a truck and four more handymen. All of them wore two layers of gloves each and shifted nearly a hundred boxes to the truck within the first hour.
It was then that the man discovered that five snakes were missing from the boxes. “We’ll find them,” he said coolly and continued to help the handymen place the boxes carefully on the truck.
While the man was outside, one of the snakes wound itself round a handyman’s leg. The handyman came out yelling. He was shaking his leg frantically.
