He thought about Wakefield while he worked. The old mining towns, the mills converted into flats, the bypass they’d built twenty years ago that had somehow made the traffic worse. Beneath it all, the same network of drains, most of them laid when Victoria was Queen. Every house, every street, was connected by these subterranean rivers of waste. And every spring, the roots came back.
“It’s the downstairs loo,” she said, leading him through a cluttered living room. “Gurgles something awful. My Harold used to sort it, but… well. He’s two years gone now.” drain root cutting wakefield
Twenty minutes later, he heard it—the glorious, satisfying gloop of a blockage clearing. Water rushed through the pipe, carrying the last of the debris away. He ran the camera down to inspect. The cut was clean. A circular tunnel now ran through the heart of the root mass, wide enough for waste to pass. But the roots themselves were still there, alive, clinging to the outside of the pipe. They’d be back. They always came back. He thought about Wakefield while he worked
He fed the electric eel into the pipe. The machine hummed, then growled as the blades bit into the root mass. He felt the vibration through the rubber grips—a juddering, tearing sensation as the cutter spun at high speed. Grrrnd-chunk, grrrnd-chunk. It was an ugly sound, the noise of violent surgery. Shredded root fragments, looking like shredded coconut, began to flush back past the manhole. He worked methodically, pushing the cable further, clearing a path inch by inch. The pipe was old, fragile. If he pushed too hard, he could shatter the clay and create a bigger problem. Too gentle, and the roots would regrow in a month. Every house, every street, was connected by these
Frank grunted. Roots. The word was a curse in Wakefield. The city’s old Victorian clay pipes were a labyrinth beneath the streets, and the sycamore and willow trees that lined the avenues had a malicious sense of direction. They could smell the warm, nutrient-rich water leaking through a hairline crack from fifty feet away.
“All done,” he said. “Flush the loo a couple times. Should be fine for another year, maybe two.”
Frank got back in his van. He sat for a moment, looking at the sycamore tree at the end of the street. Its roots were down there right now, blindly, patiently reaching for the next crack. His job wasn’t to win the war. It was to perform a little emergency surgery, buy some time, and move on to the next blocked drain in Wakefield. He started the engine, the van vibrating through the morning drizzle, and headed off toward another address, another weeping pipe, another silent, subterranean invasion.