Magpie Tales#69

Tess at Willow Manor prompts writers this week with another picture . . 

The Sea Beneath Our Feet

  Heading for Tesco I saw twenty, thirty yards ahead, two guys, in yellow dayglo jackets, workmen. Each carried a slender metal pole, shiny,  shoulder height.  Every so often they would stop and rest the end of the pole on the pavement and . . this was the intriguing bit . . put their ear to the top end of the pole as if listening to something.        Who could resist finding out more?  I came up behind them, and as I got closer, saw that the poles had something like a very small tabla drum on the top end. And they weren't putting the end of their poles on the pavement, but down through the holes in the square metal lids that cover fire hydrants and stop-cocks. I guessed - they were listening for water leaks!  And I thought, "What a brilliantly simple idea!"

  "Excuse me!"

  He didn't hear me at first. "Excuse me! You're finding leaks in the water mains?"

  I figured he'd be only too keen to talk about his job, and when he'd shown me the resonator - the drum thing - and explained how you did a test, he handed me his pole. Oh WOW!  Now I'm a council water leak tester and all!

  "Like this?"  I poked the end into the next hydrant cover along the pavement. I felt it contact something hard.

  "That's the water main. You're close to the stop-cock. What d'you hear?"

  I put my ear to the top of the drum. 

  "Oh wow . . "

  "What you're hearing is the water running in the mains. It's like - "  He seemed to be waiting for me to say "It's like the sound you hear when you hold a sea-shell to your ear.  It sounds like the sea!"

  His mate came up and started jossing him. "Get run in for pickin' up in the street, Frank."

  Frank said, "Get down to the next hydrant, Les,  and do your party piece." And when Les moved off, Frank said, "Listen again . . ?"

  "Lucy" I said, and put my ear to the resonator again, and noticed that, ten yards off, Les seemed to be blowing onto his resonator, his hands cupped round it.

  "Oh my Goodness! Whale song! Coming through the pipes! And the sea sounds. But it's beautiful - rising and falling, so many different notes. How does he do it?"

  "It's a waterman's secret, Lucy.  On a good day the lads up at the pumping station say they can hear him." His face was mock serious. I grinned and handed him back his pole. "Thank you so much. By the way . . what does a leak sound like?"

  Frank just said "That's another secret. Must get on."

 And so I got on as well, to Tesco by way of slow grey rolling ocean wastes through which huge creatures moved with leisured grace, talking, piping, singing, courting each other in the seas beneath my feet.