‘But what if you lost everything?’ Dee’s eyes were wide.
‘It’d be tough, but it’s only stuff.’ Leah shrugged.
‘Who’s Sasha?’
‘She’s my dog, Alex.’
‘Ah,’ he replied, ‘so there is someone waiting at home for you, missing you.’
‘I suppose so. She does miss me.’
‘Why’d you come out here?’ Dee asked.
‘The same reason as everyone else: I needed a job and this one pays well.’
‘Yeah, but you’re a nurse, you could get a job anywhere. Not like some of us.’
Ben stood up. ‘I’m going for a beer.’
Alex started stacking up plates. ‘Right behind you.’
He saw Dee’s gaze dart from him to Leah, and back to him. ‘Yeah, me too,’ she said, although she hadn’t finished her meal. She pushed back her chair, threw Leah a half-apologetic glance, and then said, ‘Why don’t you come and have a drink, Leah? They have soft drink.’
Alex couldn’t believe he was holding his breath, waiting for her reply.
‘Okay, I will,’ she said and he relaxed. She picked up her plates and, after dumping them on the trolley, they trooped across to the wet mess.
The bar was buzzing. There was only wiggle room in what had seemed a huge space when it was empty.
‘What’ll you have?’ Dee shouted close to Leah’s ear.
‘You’d better make it a lemon squash.’
Dee nodded and disappeared towards the bar. Leah found herself being sucked into the crowd, three-deep around the bar. Blokes she recognised smiled, slapped her on the back, and offered to buy her a drink. She could see Alex at the bar, half a head above everyone else.
Two drinks later, wired from the noise and energy in the bar, Leah knew there was no point going to bed yet. Dee had left her to go and prop up the bar beside Phil, and after making small talk with Jason and a couple of rigging and construction workers, she decided to return to the office and finish the notes from the debrief. Alex didn’t look as if he’d be moving from his position at the bar any time soon. She made her escape.
Syd Randall, another campie, was lifting bags of rubbish out the back door of the admin office. He was about Leah’s height, wiry, with a thin face that had more lines than a 10-kilometre stretch of highway. Nondescript brown hair pulled back into a straggly plait hung down between his shoulder blades. His hazel eyes sparked with intelligence.
‘Evening, Syd. Don’t lock the door, and leave the light on please. I’m going in.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re another one of those workaholic types.’
‘Not really, but I’ve had a couple of soft drinks on top of a huge meal.’
‘Do you play chess? Come back to the bar. I knock off in five and I’ll give you a game.’
‘Gee, I haven’t played chess in years. But not tonight, thanks. I’ll take a raincheck, though.’
‘I’ll hold you to that.’ Syd beamed and Leah was startled to see two rows of even white teeth any dentist would be proud of. ‘Goodnight, Leah,’ he said and trudged off, laden with a vacuum cleaner and the bags of rubbish.
Locking the door on the inside, Leah powered up the split system, made sure it was blowing warm air and not cold before she sat down. She stared at the computer screen for several minutes before logging on and finishing off the notes from the daily debrief. Then she wrote up the work permits for the morning and made a start on the next day’s reports.
A weekly management meeting was held in Nickel Bluff every Friday. She was looking forward to it. Men in suits from the companies involved in the project flew up from Adelaide for the meeting. They expected up-to-date, real-time information. Leah sifted through Steve’s reports and began drafting the details she’d need to provide at the meeting the day after tomorrow.
She was packing up her desk when Alex came in, bringing with him the beery smell of the wet mess. He peeled off his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair.
‘Didn’t expect to see you here,’ he said.
‘Dee hooked up with Phil, and there’s nothing on the telly.’
‘You should have come and had a beer with Ben and me.’
‘Nah, no alcohol for me. I need to have my wits about me if someone has an accident or gets sick.’
‘One light beer won’t hurt.’
Leah sighed. ‘What are you trying to say, Alex?’
‘Nothing, really. Only don’t take yourself too seriously.’
‘Huh?’
‘I can see by the look on your face you think I’m picking on you again. I’m not.’ His voice softened. ‘Believe it or not I’m trying to make things easier for you.’
He eased onto the corner of his desk, close enough for her to reach out and touch him. The room, which had been comfortably warm, suddenly became uncomfortably hot. She edged her chair sideways.
‘Well, please don’t. I don’t want, or need, any preferential treatment.’
He stood up, shoved his hands in his pockets. He was still too close for comfort.
‘Fair enough. But if you don’t believe anything else, believe this: I’m not giving you preferential treatment. I’d offer the same advice to any colleague. It’s in my best interests for this place to run as smoothly as possible.’ He walked around the desk and sat down. ‘That’s me doing my job.’
Leah pressed her lips together and met his cool contemplation head on. For some reason he was really pushing her buttons tonight.
‘Okay. Thanks for the tips.’ She lifted her hands and counted off three fingers. ‘Don’t gossip with Ruby. Don’t take myself too seriously and, last but not least, don’t upset Frank Ballard. Got it!’ Her chair creaked as she stood up. It was the most uncomfortable thing she’d ever sat in.
‘I bet that smart mouth of yours has got you into trouble before today, hmm?’ he said.
Much to her horror, she blushed. The room felt like a sauna.
‘Well, here’s another tip,’ Alex said, his voice dangerously quiet. ‘I’m a fair man, but I do have my limits. It’d be in your best interests not to push them too hard.’
Leah’s stomach dropped to her toes. He’d never acknowledged that he knew about the three-month probation clause in her contract, the power he had over her. But now she had no doubt.
The blood left her face faster than it had rushed in moments before, but she returned his relentless cool scrutiny. Then the air conditioner clunked as the fan cut off. Alex coughed. Leah reached for her jacket.
‘Goodnight,’ she said, surprising herself with the evenness of her tone. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
Leah let herself out the back door. She took a long breath, letting it out slowly. It had been low for Alex to make a veiled threat like that. But in a way, he’d been right, too. Her mouth had gotten her into trouble before. It didn’t always pay to say what you really thought.
She trudged back to her room, turned on the TV, muted the sound and prepared for bed. Sleep didn’t come and she was almost relieved when someone pounded on her door, asking if they could see the nurse.
‘I can drive if you like,’ Leah said, moving towards the dual cab in the car park.
‘There’ll be others to bring back from this afternoon’s plane, and there’s more leg room in the LandCruiser.’
She changed direction and didn’t argue. A break from opening and closing gates would have been a bonus. But if you were tall, sitting in the back of a dual cab meant you almost had to fold your legs up your backside to fit in.
It was Friday morning. The management meeting in Nickel Bluff started at nine thirty and it was barely after eight. Leah had dipped the fuel and water tanks after the pre start.
Yesterday, the water truck from Coober Pedy had delivered a load and the tank was full. She estimated they had about three days’ worth of diesel remaining in the cell. In the afternoon, accompanied by a workman from Nickel Bluff, she’d travelled south to the newest section of road to put out the
road signs – speed zones, call signs and hazard warnings. On her return there’d been another new employee waiting for an induction. She’d been so busy her feet had barely touched the ground, and after yesterday morning’s pre start she hadn’t seen Alex again until the evening’s daily debrief.
Clicking her seatbelt into place, she threw a casual glance his way. After their heated exchange on Wednesday night, she’d given him a wide berth. Last night he’d stayed in the office after the debrief and she doubted he’d been to dinner. There’d been no sign of him in the bar when she’d detoured past to buy another phone card to call Eve.
This morning he looked tired and preoccupied; he had barely spoken a word. After the fourth gate she couldn’t stand the sullen silence any longer.
‘Look, Alex, about the other night. I was out of line. I’m sorry.’
Alex’s gaze darted sideways. ‘All right,’ was all he said.
The day was overcast, the clouds low and leaden. A sharp wind blew in from the south-west. She wondered if it’d rain. Hard to imagine the forty-plus temperatures of summer. She put her hand to the passenger window. The glass was icy. Cold inside and outside the vehicle, she thought, and reached forward to turn up the heater.
As they neared Nickel Bluff, completed transmission towers stood silently in the lunar-like landscape. In the distance a small mob of emus rushed somewhere. She smiled at their unusual gait. They looked so top-heavy. A flock of corellas flew overhead, stark white specks against the steely grey sky.
They’d be away the whole day. After the management meeting they’d inspect the small electricity substation being built on the outskirts of Nickel Bluff. After that they’d take a look at the power line under construction out to the bore fields, the water source for the Nickel Bluff mine.
Leah smothered a yawn, stretching out her legs, grateful to see the shimmering humps of the Nickel Bluff mine appear on the skyline. When the radio crackled, Alex slowed and pulled right off the road to let a road train pass. This one was loaded with steel for the towers. He waited until the dust had settled before continuing.
‘Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a double-shot espresso right about now,’ she said, breaking the long silence. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been up for four hours already.’
‘Any callouts last night?’
‘No,’ she said, finger-combing her hair and refastening it in its band.
‘I noticed you had late-night patients Wednesday night.’
‘Mmm. Toothache. Some things even beer can’t cure.’
‘You need to wake me if you get called in the middle of the night.’
She glanced over at him. ‘Why?’
‘Just do it, Leah.’
‘Did Steve?’
A muscle in his jaw twitched. ‘No, but then Steve isn’t an attractive, single woman either. He’s built, and even a drunk would have second thoughts about upsetting him.’
He thought she was attractive? Annoyance and frustration completed the mix of emotions swirling in Leah’s stomach. She opened her mouth to fire back a response but his earlier broadside about not wanting any complications with female employees on his watch sprang to mind. This was an argument she couldn’t win.
‘Okay.’ She folded her arms and stared straight ahead. ‘I’ll knock on your door when I get called out in the middle of the night.’ From the corner of her eye she saw him nod.
‘Thanks,’ she conceded, somewhat begrudgingly.
The Nickel Bluff camp was a hodgepodge of temporary buildings near a site that would eventually be a semi-permanent village. The camp was a kilometre from the mine itself.
The company offices consisted of several demountable buildings joined together end to end. A row of 4WDs, of various makes and models but all covered with the trademark red dirt, were lined up along the front of the building.
The Nickel Bluff medical centre, another smaller transportable hut, was next door, the familiar 4WD ambulance parked on a gravel pad at the front.
‘We have the meeting here and then lunch at the camp mess,’ Alex said, reversing the LandCruiser into a vacant park.
He raised his eyebrows when Leah grabbed a battered briefcase from behind her seat.
‘What?’
‘Where on earth did you find that thing?’
‘Under my desk. I needed something to carry my gear in.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said, swinging his laptop bag off the back seat.
Leah examined the scarred briefcase and noticed for the first time the faded remnants of gold initials engraved on one corner. She hurried to catch up with Alex. ‘Is it yours?’
‘It was. I thought I’d thrown it out. It wouldn’t lock anymore.’
‘It locks now. Someone must have fixed it. You can have it back after the meeting.’
He stopped suddenly in the middle of the walkway and she barrelled into him with an audible ‘Oomph!’ He took off his sunglasses and turned around slowly, his arm brushing her breasts.
She stepped back, riveted by the look in his blue eyes. If she’d had to describe it she couldn’t have, but it sent a shiver right through her. A good shiver. The kind of shiver that sent a trail of tingles right through her.
‘It’s yours, Leah. Use it for as long as you want. I don’t need it,’ he said, and she could see a pulse beating at his temple.
As an RN, she’d counted a thousand or more pulses over the years and she’d swear his was beating much faster than it should have been. ‘Okay,’ she said.
A car door slammed and a familiar voice called out. ‘Leah Jackson! What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?’
She spun around, dropping the briefcase. ‘Paul!’ she cried. ‘I was hoping you’d be here today.’ She scanned his familiar, lined face, the silver-grey hair in need of a trim, the warmth in his gentle brown eyes. He enveloped her in a bear hug and then gripped her shoulders, holding her at arms length.
‘How are you? Eve sends her love, by the way.’
‘I’m good. Great. Gradually getting my head around it all.’
He looked her up and down. ‘You look well. But have you lost weight?’
‘No! Who could lose weight with Ruby’s cooking?’ Leah laughed and gave Paul’s generous waistline a pat. ‘Eve still got you on that five and two diet?’
He shuddered. ‘No, thank god. Actually she’s been a bit down lately.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, she misses the cut and thrust of a high-powered job.I don’t think she’s worked out how to fill in her days since retirement came out of the blue.’
Leah wanted to know more but remembered Alex was standing a few feet away and could hear everything. She turned to find him watching her intently. Paul took the hint and extended his hand to Alex.
‘Good to see you, Paul,’ Alex said, as the two men shook hands.
‘Alex, how are you? How’s your dad?’
‘On the mend, thanks. Being discharged today.’
‘Has your father been in hospital?’ Leah looked from one man to the other, miffed that Alex hadn’t mentioned it.
‘Dad had triple coronary artery bypass grafts. There were complications. We thought he wasn’t going to make it, for a while there.’
His father had recently had open-heart surgery and nearly died, and he’d never thought to mention it? They shared an office. They’d eaten meals together. What was it with this man?
Paul glanced at his watch. ‘It’s nearly nine thirty. We’d better get inside, get a coffee,’ he said and herded them up the steps towards the door.
Leah tried to catch Alex’s eye but he looked everywhere else but at her, and after introducing her to the other managers and her Nickel Bluff counterpart, he sat on the other side of Paul. The coffee was surprisingly good, not the usual instant variety.
There were eight people present and Leah was the only woman. Several of the men kept glancing at her and by their expressions she gathered they were having a hard time assimilating a woman in their
midst. Tough, she thought.
Halfway through the agenda they broke for refreshments.A platter of scones, jam and cream had appeared with more freshly brewed coffee. Leah was in heaven.
‘Are you keeping up with it all?’ Paul asked when she sat down with a laden plate.
‘Mostly. There are a couple of things I didn’t quite get, but I’m sure they’ll fall into place. Steve’s notes and records are really detailed and easy to understand.’
‘It gets a bit heated if the project’s behind and costs blow out. No one wants to pick up the tab. We’re progressing nicely at present, but if we hit rock and the boys can only drill two towers a day instead of four —’
The chairman called the meeting back to order. Everyone shuffled papers and they moved on to the next agenda item. Paul and Alex gave reports, and when it was Leah’s turn she managed to read out her brief notes, outlining the accidents, incidents and safety issues, without fumbling.
At lunch Leah tried to catch Alex’s eye again. There was a spare seat beside her, but he sat at the opposite end of the table. She was beginning to think he was avoiding her.
Paul must have noticed her frustration. He patted her on the arm and said, ‘Leah, I’ve worked with Alex for a lot of years. He’s always been a closed book.’
‘We share an office. I can’t believe he didn’t tell me about his dad.’
‘He’d been separated from his wife for six months before I knew anything about it, and even then I had to hear it from his sister.I wouldn’t even know about his dad if Alex hadn’t needed a replacement so he could go home on leave.’
‘Is he close to his father?’
‘Yes. Claire took the twins and the house, and Alex moved home with his dad. His mother died years ago.’
Leah’s gaze travelled down the lunch table to where Alex sat, deep in conversation with one of the other managers. As if he sensed her scrutiny, he looked up. The man beside him kept talking and Alex shifted his attention back to the conversation.
‘It’s a bloody miracle the old man didn’t die. I suggested Alex take more time off, but he was insistent about coming back to work.’
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