Water Bowser Consequences 1

Ethel Chadwick stood on the pavement watching somewhat vacantly the bus from which she had just alighted disappear around the corner. She sighed, then stooped to pick up two big bags of groceries, one in each hand (for balance she used to say) and began the trudge to her street and her home. It had been a long day and she had agreed to work overtime that evening to help re-arrange some of the counters in the Woolworths where she worked as a floor supervisor. They would be glad of the extra money, what with the rent on their small terrace house going up again, but …………

As she neared the house she found herself staring at nothing – or to be more precise at an absence. Bill’s van was not there – and he would have finished work a couple of hours ago at least. Puzzled, she accelerated up the passageway to the back of the house and into the yard. She sensed trouble immediately, or rather she smelt it through the open back door.

‘Bill, you haven’t been …’

‘Now don’t start Eth,’ a rather forlorn looking Bill Chadwick raised himself slowly from the chair at the scullery table upon which he had been slumped.

‘Bill … it’s been five years.’

‘Look Eth, I’ve had a bastard of a day and ..’

‘Language Bill! you’re not at work now.’

Bill slumped back on his chair, ‘That’s just it Eth,’ he paused, clearly unwilling to say what he had to say, ‘I’m not in work at all.’

‘Don’t play silly beggars with me William Chadwick!’ Ethel’s voice rose in frustration, ‘nothing justifies …’

‘Mum …. are you OK?’ The scullery door opened and a worried face peered round it.

‘No I’m not! this fool has …’ she collected herself, ‘Oh I’m OK Davey, we’ve both had difficult days, we’re just tired.’

The face appeared uncertain at this, but then its owner decided to accept this statement at face value. ‘Oh ….. er ….. Dad, remember you’re taking me to football trials on Saturday for the under 12s.’ Neither face nor boy waited for confirmation. The door shut, leaving the adults alone again.

‘What did you say?’

‘I only called in the Queen’s for a couple ….’

‘What did you say about work?’

‘Oh …..’ Bill looked as though he was going to cry.

‘Bill … what’s happened?’

‘I got the sack Eth ….. I got the sack.’

Ethel sat down wearily onto one of the other chairs.

‘For drinking?!’ she hissed.

‘No, of course not,’ he flashed her an angry look, ‘for allowing children to play on that old building site over Longley Way.’

‘What ?!’

— x —

Several hours earlier ……

‘So you’re telling me,’ Cyril Mason, part owner and managing director of Mason & Woods General Builders, paused as he pushed back in his swivel chair from the enormous desk that dominated his office, ‘that you caught a group of children pushing a water bowser around just inside the entrance to the Longley Way site?’

Bill Chadwick, cap in hand, standing awkwardly on the other side of the desk divide, nodded.

‘And then, when you went to confront the parents, for the second time I understand, the children argued that the bowser was in the place it always was, at the other end of the site!’

Bill nodded again, ‘I just don’t understand it, when we went to look …. it was. They must have moved it back overni ….’

‘How old were these children Bill?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, anywhere between 9 and 12 I think.’

Cyril shook his head. ‘Anyway, whatever the children were doing they were certainly on the site and had been there every day for a week!  according to this complaint I’ve shown you from one of the houses on Memorial Gardens …. threatening to inform the Police and The Advertiser.

Again Cyril shook his head. ‘And now you tell me that you hadn’t done your daily security check on the site since a week last Thursday?’

Another nod from Bill. ‘I’ve been over on the Yardley Site helping Joe get those drains sorted out – you told me it was important to meet the completion date ……’

‘But it’s not your job to sort out the drains, that’s Joe’s job, he’s the site foreman. You are the general foreman, your job is to make sure Joe does his.’

‘But I know about drains Sir, these were tricky and Joe’s new to the job.’

‘So you have neglected your own responsibilities to prop up a subordinate?’

‘I thought it was a priority Sir.’

‘Now this letter is a priority!’

‘Sir.’

‘We can’t have more bad press after the fuss when we mothballed the site. You should have kept a close eye on things now there’s no on-site foreman.’

‘They’ll be back in school next week, they’ll not trouble us again.’

‘I’m sorry Chadwick, you are going to have to carry the can for this ……. failing to carry out your duties and all that.’

Cyril Mason propelled his chair back to his desk and pressed a button on his intercom, ‘Miss Jennings please make up Mr. Chadwick’s wages to the end of the week, add in any holiday pay etc and give him his cards. He is leaving us today. Oh, and ask Mrs Cooper to come in for dictation, this letter needs to be posted today.