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.
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