Chapter 06

Thursday

I wake up to the alarm and I smile at my two living blankets. They’re lying there with their eyes open and are watching me while grinning from ear to ear - I’m damned if I know what Candy thought she was doing. Pulling my arms out from under them I toss the cover back to sit up. While Jo is trying to work out what I’m up to I half dive and half roll forward to get off the bed to race to the bathroom. As I start the shower I hear Candy laughing in the bedroom. I’m finished just when Candy and Jo arrive for their shower. Entering Mel’s bedroom I wake her and get dressed. She takes her time getting up, so we walk out together: her to a shower with me to get breakfast.

They love the hotcakes with syrup for today’s breakfast. While we eat Mel sits up and looks at me while saying, “My daughters are marrying a millionaire, why the hell am I killing myself in my job?” Both girls look up at her then shrug their shoulders.

I smile while saying, “Because you never asked me how much board I’m prepared to pay you. I’ll happily pay ten percent more than what you currently earn just so you can stay home to cook and clean.” Mel turns to me as her mouth opens and closes a couple of times while she takes that in and tries to think of a response.

A few minutes later I say, “Maybe I should just buy the house off you and pay you to be my housekeeper.” She stops acting like a fish and starts to think.

Several minutes later she asks me to drive her to work today. I smile because I think she’s about to quit her job. From what I’ve heard about her boss it’s the best idea she’s had in ages. Both my girls are smiling.

We’re all soon ready and we get in the car. With Jo driving we head for school. After dropping Jo and Candy off I head for Mel’s work.

Quitting Time

We arrive and I follow her in with an empty sports bag from my boot. She leads me to the staff room and cleans out her locker, sticking it all in the bag. I ask, “He’s likely to demand you work out the time, isn’t he?” She nods. “What if you go in and say it’s about time he gave you a raise because you’ve been here so long and are such a good worker?” She gives me an evil grin as she nods rather vigorously.

I follow her to the boss’ office while getting out my pocket recorder and I turn it on. She knocks and a gruff voice tells her to enter, she walks in and says, “Harry, I’ve worked for you for eight years, so I think it’s past time I got a rise in my pay since I’m the best worker you’ve got.”

Harry shouts his reply, “I don’t give a fuck what you think. You can get to work now at your current pay or get out of the building this minute. Capiche, girlie?”

Mel just says, “If that’s how you feel you can pay me for my time plus all allowances due right now.”

He snarls, “Fuck off bitch.” I give a whistle. When Mel looks my way I shake my head no and motion her out. She leaves the room. While handing over the few work related items she has to the next senior person she tells the other staff what happened and she’s been fired. Outside I put the bag in the car and I sit her down in it before I get my phone out. I call Ahmed and explain the situation. He promises to send someone right over.

Thirty minutes later Ahmed’s Industrial Relations expert, Alice, parks behind us and I tell her what happened. She listens to the tape and makes a phone call. Forty-five minutes later another car pulls up and we meet two government people responsible for handling issues of improper employment activities. They listen to Mel and the tape then they talk to Alice for some minutes. When asked what she wants Mel says, “All I want is what I’m entitled to get and seeing the others aren’t abused by him.” The government people smile.

Another conference by the government people and Alice. She pulls out her tape recorder and has me copy the tape for her. After that the three of them enter the business. I follow to wait in the doorway, after all it’s open for public customers now. The sales staff watch the three in suits go to the main office and knock, I can’t hear what’s said but the boss’ voice soon goes up in volume and pitch.

Several minutes later there’s a lot of banging and slamming from the office, and through the open door I can see one of the government people going through a lot of record books being placed before them. One of the government people makes a phone call while the other does some calculations. After another few minutes Alice comes out with a big smile on her face. She says to me, loud enough for all the staff to hear, “That bastard has been underpaying the staff for years. The IR people aren’t leaving until they’ve worked out all of the arrears and have cheques for all of the staff to pay them up to date. I’ve got a cheque here for Mel for all her entitlements and arrears. Think she’ll be able to use just over twenty thousand dollars?” I smile while the staff gasp, then I see them smile when they realise they’ll be getting some arrears as well.

We walk out and Mel almost faints when she sees the cheque Alice has for her. We thank Alice and she heads back to the office, a nice and easy case, quick to handle, and a happy ending; she likes that. We head to the bank the cheque is drawn on to get it cashed before he can cancel it or interfere with the payment in some other way.

At the bank they don’t have enough spare cash and I don’t want it to be deposited to an account. That way it can still be dishonoured and bounced, but cashed it’s cleared immediately. After a few words the teller cashes the cheque then does a cash deposit into Mel’s account for most of it while she takes a thousand in cash. This makes everyone but her old boss happy. Now he can’t dishonour it if he wants to.

Due to getting a phone call approving the bike we go to the bike sales yard where I place an order for the motor bike. Next is a quick stop at my office to check a few things. Everything is going well so we’re off to the builder’s.

House Plans

We arrive and I park, I haven’t heard anything yet but I wish to see how he’s going. While we walk in the front door my phone rings so I answer it. I start laughing when I recognise the voice, they ask what’s so funny so I say, “Turn around and look in your reception area.” The builder turns around at his desk to look straight at me through the glass partitions for a moment before he hangs up. He’s laughing when he walks out. Great timing on the meeting.

He’s got the rough plans and people are already working on the fine detail ones. The basic assumption for the house is the council approves the sub-development application for the block changes. This’ll give us an open block of land seventy-five metres by fifty metres with another block as the access of thirty metres by twenty-five metres. The access block is on the right as you face it from the street, this will have a five metre driveway (two and a half metres for each direction) on the right hand side of it. The rest will be a playground with a strong fence one and a quarter metres high all the way around it. The twenty metre by thirty metre park will have gates two metres wide: two from the street, and one on our end. Visitors on foot can walk through the park.

The house is to have a two and a half metre wide single direction road around the perimeter. With the traffic required to keep to the left when they enter, go left across the front, then go around the building or around the car park to come back to turn right, and go straight out the driveway. Visitors will drive in, go left, turn right, and park in the parking area in front of the house or drive around the car park to turn right to go out. To leave they go through the rest of the car park, turn right, and go out. The car park is on the right after they turn left in the road and it’s fifteen metres deep by twenty-eight metres wide. Five car spaces of three metres by six metres with two at three and a half metres wide on each side of a three metre wide driveway with a one metre wide garden strip on the end before they exit back into the perimeter road to go out.

Across the end of the car park will be the drive through garage, it’s seventeen metres wide and fifteen metres deep with the entrance off the perimeter road. A garage door will be at each end of it with two rows of car parking spaces inside it, one on each side of the three metre driving lane. Five spaces will be three metres wide while five will be three and a half metres wide, these include the corner ones, and all are six metres deep. This is a secure space for ten vehicles. It’ll have interior access to the main house with a staff apartment above it.

The main house area is a forty-five metre by fifty-five metre rectangle with an open square in the centre. It’ll be three levels of a basement, ground floor, and an upper floor with exterior walls of sandstone looking cement blocks. All of the windows are to be three layers of bullet resistant material, one opaque and one tinted, with security grills. The roof will be one solid structure of the same material to cover the full building; eight very strong metal poles will be at each building corner to support the roof at the four outside and the four inside corners. The house is five zones separated by fire resistant weight bearing walls with a sixth zone for the garage. Area A is a seventeen metre strip along the left side, like an extension of the garage wall. Across the back end is Area B, a twenty metre deep strip from A to the outside wall. Area C is a thirteen metre wide strip from B to the front wall. Area D is a fifteen metre wide strip from C to A. Area E is fifteen metres by fifteen metres in the centre and at the back of Area D.

Ground floor from the front to the back the rooms will be; for Area A a five metre deep kitchen, fifteen metre deep dining room, a twenty-five metre deep gym, a ten metre deep shower and toilet area. Area B has a twenty metre by fifteen metre pool with a two and a half metre walk area around it, plus a three metre wide by ten metre deep area for a spa and a sauna on the end of it. Most of Area C is open space with moveable walls to create a number of games and recreation areas as needed. Across the end is a five metre deep media room. In the left corners of the main open area are two five metre by five metre stair and entry areas to connect all of the three levels. The front left of Area D is a five metre wide by ten metre deep entry area with a ten metre by ten metre library and study area beside it, with the rest of it as an open entertaining area. Area E is an open grass play area with stairs in the back left hand corner of it.

The Area A upper floor is staff apartments that extend over the garage; two four bedroom and four three bedroom apartments off a hall along the inside wall. Most of Area B is left open to air the pool better, but the area above the spa and sauna will be the main bathroom complex for the house. Area C is to have a five metre deep master bedroom and en suite across the front of it with a three metre wide hall running down the centre to the bathroom with bedrooms off the hall that are five metres wide: five on the outside wall with three on the inside wall. Area D is a large open plan family room and lounge space. Area E is open to the roof.

Under the garage is the main security centre and armoury with an open area for a pistol range for the length of area A. Under Area B is the pool equipment area and a cistern under the spa / sauna area. Under Area C is a bowling area and more open recreational areas. Under Area D is an open plan recreational area for the staff while under Area E is a Safe Room complex of a couple of apartments.

The plans that go to council will show many rooms as open areas, but they won’t always show what they’ll really be used for; especially the basement ones. Nor will the lodged plans show the real quality of the materials for the roof and windows. The total floor area under the roof is seven thousand and seven hundred square metres, or eight hundred and fifty-five squares under the old system; that’s a huge mansion in anyone’s world.

I’ve worked with this builder on the construction of high security houses before. So he knows just what I want when I tell him I like the concept and I want full security built-in to all parts of the building. He smiles as he waves to certain staff to get stuck into doing the final plans.

We’re looking at the block plans when I say, “If, by any chance, I get offered the other properties at a reasonable rate I’ll have you subdivide them in the same way to enlarge the playground area as an open field so it’ll have two sections: one with play equipment like swings, and one as a field to run about on while playing games. So think about what to do if that happens, please!” He smiles as he nods. I think he likes the idea of the income he’ll get from this project. Building the house will cost a damn sight more than buying the land.

We discuss the security measures and the fencing a bit more because he wants to do some of the security a little different to what he’s done in the past. Due to houses being so close to the perimeter road he wants to install a high quality steel fence with the bracing on my side to have all of the security sensors and lighting built into the top row of the bracing at two metres off the ground, which is the maximum height the council will approve for a fence. This way the road will be well lit with Light Emitting Diode (LED) area lights without shining into the neighbours’ yards. Also, the cameras and other sensors will have the whole exterior wall open to their view. It does mean someone could get at the sensors from the other side of the fence, but the security system would detect that and sound an alarm, so it’s an acceptable risk. Other sensors will be in the eaves of the roof looking down at the road, the car park, and the playground.

While smiling at the pictures of the fencing he wants to use I say, “Do all the fencing of the properties I own with the same fence. That way it’ll all look uniform so people won’t wonder why it’s the type of fence it is.”

I’m told, “That makes it easier. However, to comply with the council regulations on fences the front fences on the street will only be a metre high and those between the houses in front of the building line will have to match the front fences. Done from the same materials it will give the same effect. The only exception will be the playground fencing along the roads will have to be one and a quarter meter high mesh fencing to allow people to see anyone moving near the fence line. Council safety rules.”

“OK. Plan on it. Also talk to the council about the playground gear. I want you to sound the council out about them leasing the playground area off me for the same value as the rates on it so they can be responsible for its maintenance. That will justify it being a public park. You’ll have to have the playground as its own subdivision to make that easy to do.” He smiles and nods his head in agreement with the need for the two blocks. We discuss a few more minor aspects before I leave him to his work.

All images are also available in high resolution at:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ebk8ve052m0c1rs/AACohN7e_x8OuRFrn0EbQ2L6a?dl=0

The Grounds

The Upper Level

The Basement Level

Afternoon

After a lunch in the restaurant two doors up from the builder’s we go to the car sales yard to see how our van is getting along. Belinda is glad to see me because she’s about to call me. There’s a two week delay on the fridge I want but if I don’t mind paying a bit more they can let me have a bigger model at a heavily discounted price, almost at cost. I agree to the change so we amend the paperwork, signing everything on all of the copies. They’ve worked flat out on the van to have it ready for collection on Monday. I ask them to send it round to another shop that’ll be doing some special work on it for me.

When I name the shop Belinda looks up as she knows it well. I smile and say, “Yes, I’m getting it armoured, that’s why I wasn’t too worried about the window tinting and I wanted the very big motor.” She shrugs. “If your boss is prepared to guarantee that as the final on road price I can give you a cheque for the balance now, to save any delays on Monday.” She smiles and dashes off to see the manager.