Chapter 10: The Meeting in Meadowood

Chapter 10: The Meeting in Meadowood

The information which Mel Bakersfeld had been given about a meeting in Meadowood was quite correct.

The meeting had started half an hour earlier in a church hall. It had started late because the 600 people who had come had to fight their way to it through thick snow. But they had come.

They were the sort of people you would find in any small town. An equal number of men and women were present. As it was Friday night, most of them were dressed informally. Several newspaper reporters were also there.

The room was uncomfortably crowded and full of smoke. All the chairs were taken, and at least a hundred people were standing.

Only an extremely serious matter could have brought them out from their warm homes on such a terrible night. They were all, at the moment, extremely angry.

They were angry for two reasons. First, because of the noise which could be heard night and day in their homes, and second, because even during this meeting the noise of planes taking off was making it impossible for them to hear one another. In fact, it was unusually noisy tonight. Of course, they did not know that this was because runway three zero was blocked by the Aereo-Mexican plane, so that runway two five was being used. This was the runway nearest to Meadowood.

During a short silence, the red-faced chairman announced loudly that it was impossible to live in such terrible conditions.

‘We have tried to reason with the airport management,’ he shouted, ‘but they take no notice of our suffering.’

The chairman was Floyd Zanetta, the sixty-year-old manager of a printing company. Near him sat a younger man, a lawyer called Elliott Freemantle.

‘What do the airport and airlines do?’ Zanetta shouted. ‘I’ll tell you! They pretend to listen to us. They make empty promises to us. They are nothing but cheats and liars!’

The word ‘liars’ was lost in a sudden, almost unbelievable burst of sound. The room shook, and a glass of water on a table near Zanetta almost fell to the floor. The noise ended as suddenly as it had begun. This had been happening since the beginning of the meeting.

Zanetta continued. ‘As I said, they are cheats and liars. I think what is happening now proves it, and-’

‘Mr Chairman,’ a woman’s voice interrupted, ‘we’ve heard all this before. What I and all the others here want to know is what we can do about it!’

‘If you’ll kindly let me finish-’ Zanetta said. He never did. Once again, the terrible noise exploded over them. Some people even began to laugh, and Zanetta looked hopelessly around him.

He began to speak again, telling the people of Meadowood that they could not afford to be polite any longer. He had brought Elliott Freemantle, a lawyer who had made a special study of cases like theirs, to give them some good advice.

He talked on and on. Elliott Freemantle was getting restless.

He wanted the old fool to stop talking and sit down. Elliott had taken care to dress well and expensively for this meeting. He knew that people liked their lawyers to look successful.

He was hoping to become even more successful over this airport business. Few of Elliott’s colleagues believed that he knew much about law, but they all had to admit that he knew how to make money. In fact he had made no special study of noise problems, but he was clever enough to have made Zanetta believe that he knew all about the subject.

Thank God! Zanetta had finished at last! Before he had even had time to sit down, Elliott was on his feet and talking.

‘If you’re expecting me to be kind and understanding, you can go home now,’ he began roughly. ‘I’m not offering you my shoulder to cry on. My business is law, and nothing but law.’

This speech made everyone look up. He saw that he had their attention. The reporters began writing busily.

‘I have no interest in your personal problems,’ he told them. ‘My only aim is to see that justice is done. I’m selfish and I’m single-minded, but I’ll be able to help you where a nice understanding lawyer would fail.’

He watched their faces closely as he spoke. He had guessed correctly that they were tired of words and ready for action. He noticed a man who was whispering to his wife, and guessed from the expression on his face that he was saying: ‘This is what we wanted to hear.’

‘Now listen,’ Elliott said. ‘I’m going to talk about your problem.’

He told them that laws about noise were changing fast. In many recent cases it had been proved that an airport could be taken to court by ordinary people just like the people who lived in Meadowood. And they could win, too. An airport could be forced to pay them a large amount of money. He did not tell them how rarely this happened, and how often people lost such cases. In fact, he didn’t really care whether they won or lost their case. He thought that they would probably lose - if the case ever reached the courts at all. What he wanted was the money they would pay him. He had already calculated that he could make twenty-five thousand dollars out of these people. All that they had to do was to sign a paper which named him as their lawyer.

He finished his speech with these words: ‘There is no time left for anything but action. Action now!’

A young man who was sitting near the front of the hall sprang to his feet. ‘Tell us what to do!’ he shouted.

‘You must start - if you want to - by signing this paper.’

‘Yes, we want to,’ several hundred voices replied.

The meeting had been a great success, just as Elliott Freemantle had expected it to be.

He had promised them action, and that was what they would get. The action would begin at the airport. Now. Tonight.