On the drive back to Camp One, Leah landed in the back seat beside a surly, burly rigger with two days’ worth of ugly stubble and body odour. He was one of two passengers they’d collected at the airport. She and Alex had been late, their passengers antsy.
When she introduced herself to her travelling companion, he grunted and continued to ignore her. Needless to say, with a vehicle so chock full of testosterone, her role as gate bitch was a fait accompli, as much as it irritated her. At least it gave her a minute or two of fresh air. When Alex caught her eye in the rear-view mirror after gate number three, she returned his sympathetic smile with an exaggerated eye roll.
Her day wasn’t over when they arrived at the camp – there were safety inductions to do for Mr BO and his mate, and then the daily debrief and preparation of the following day’s work permits. The first-aid room and its satellite phone needed to be checked. In her flurry to get away that morning she’d run out of time.
By six o’clock everyone was crammed into the contractor’s office waiting for Alex, who was on the phone. Little was secret around this place and when he’d asked for privacy and closed the door, tiny prickles of apprehension had trickled down Leah’s spine. She hoped it wasn’t that Fergus had taken a turn for the worst or the twins were in trouble.
And there as always, like a stone in her shoe, was the fact of her probation. It could be Crawley. Leah was pragmatic enough to realise everything she said or did could and would be used against her if the situation arose. Not only had Leah compromised her position as safety advisor, but Alex had compromised his position as her supervisor by becoming personally involved with her. She wondered which side of the fence he’d sit if their involvement was discovered and her ‘suitability’ for the job was put under more scrutiny. In any event she’d inevitably be the loser.
‘Do you want a coffee, Leah?’ Dee asked, forcing Leah’s focus away from the closed door and back to the room.
‘Thanks, Dee, that would lovely. Tea, please; black, two sugars.’
‘Are you all right, Leah?’ Ben asked.
‘I’m good, thanks,’ she said, then bowed her head and pretended to be occupied with her pen and paper.
‘Probably all the bullshit from the management meeting in the Bluff,’ Tony said. ‘Be enough to make anyone’s eyes glaze over.’
Everyone laughed. Today Tony had brought the beer. They took it in turns and because Leah didn’t drink beer, it was accepted that she didn’t take a turn. She’d noted over the weeks that Frank was often curiously late the times it was his turn to shout. He always arrived after one of the others had slipped over to the bar for the six-pack. If anyone else noticed, they didn’t comment.
Dee returned with their tea. She put Leah’s on the desk, and said, ‘I heard that skinny cleaner, Stacey, is pregnant. I wonder who the father is?’
Leah didn’t miss Ben’s slow intake of breath before he said, ‘And how is that any of your business?’
Dee flushed. ‘I was just making an observation. The girl’s still a teenager.’
‘Well, it sure as hell wasn’t me,’ drawled Frank.
‘Yeah, the girl’s got better taste than that,’ Tony teased and every-one except Frank laughed. Tony slapped him on the back. ‘Lighten up, mate!’ he said and before Frank could reply, Alex walked in and they got down to business.
After the meeting Dee sidled up to Leah and said, ‘Is it true, then? She’s pregnant?’
‘You’ll have to ask her,’ Leah said.
‘I wondered if she was okay, if there’s anything I can do. She’s very young,’ Dee said and Leah paused on her way out of the office, taken aback by the concern in the other woman’s voice.
‘Why don’t you talk to her, Dee? She might appreciate that.’
‘I will,’ Dee said and gave Leah a rare smile before retreating into the contractor’s office.
‘Who’d have thought?’ Leah said, shaking her head as she shrugged into her jacket. ‘I’m going to dinner. I’ll finish off later.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Alex said without looking up from his computer screen. ‘Dee goes home on rest leave tomorrow. Phil will be in a foul mood by Monday. Then Phil will go off into the loving arms of his wife for a few days and Dee will have steam coming out of her ears until he gets back. Be prepared.’
‘Wanna bet? I have a feeling things are changing for Dee. Can’t put my finger on it exactly, but —’
‘And you’d bet on a feeling? Trust me, Leah, I’ve known these people for a long time. There’s a definite pattern.’
‘Maybe, but I’m not going to give up on Dee. I think she can turn her life around.’
Alex slowly shook his head. ‘Well, my money’s on the status quo.’
Leah lifted her chin. ‘And I’d say there’s a definite pattern there, too.’
Alex’s expression hardened. ‘We’re talking about Dee and Phil. Don’t make the mistake of thinking we’re talking about anything, or anyone else.’
‘Fair enough,’ Leah said lightly. As she left she was careful not to trip on the elephants in the room.
‘That bloke sure can put away the booze. Do you reckon he’s an alcoholic?’
Ben followed Alex’s gaze to where Phil was slumped at a table in the wet mess, a can of beer in his hand and a hoard of empties on the table in front of him.
‘Wouldn’t be surprised.’
Alex caught the eye of the person serving behind the bar. He jerked a thumb in Phil’s direction and shook his head, mouthing the words, ‘No more’. The bartender gave Alex a nod and he turned back to Ben. ‘I reckon I’ll have to have a word with him. Not exactly role-model material, our Phil. Seems to get the job done well enough, but have you ever known him not to drink?’
‘Nope.’ Ben’s eyebrows crawled together. ‘What day is it?’
‘Thursday, last time I looked.’
‘Ah, well Dee’s been away since Saturday. Hard to say if he’s drinking in excess tonight because he misses her, or because tomorrow he goes home to his wife and kids for the weekend.’
Alex laughed without humour and shifted his attention to where Leah sat facing Syd over the chessboard.
‘That girl’s a beggar for punishment,’ Ben said. ‘Never known Syd to lose a game yet.’
‘If anyone can beat him, it’s Leah.’ But then Syd grinned, and she wailed and threw her arms up in defeat. ‘Obviously that won’t be tonight.’
‘My money’s on Syd, and always will be.’ Ben drained his beer and flicked the empty over the bar and into the recycle bin.
Alex watched jealously as Leah chatted to Syd. Together they packed the chess pieces away. He itched to go over to her, throw an arm around her and pull her in for a hard kiss; stamp her as his. He almost laughed out loud imagining the response he’d get – from her and everyone else in the bar.
‘Another one?’ Ben said beside him and Alex shook his head.
Leah waved in their direction and called out, ‘Goodnight, fellas,’ before cruising out the door. Alex wanted to go after her, but caught the speculative gleam in Ben’s eye. He stayed rooted to the spot.
Syd wandered over and they shot the breeze until Alex finished his drink. He was on the verge of saying goodnight himself when there was a crash, followed by silence, and then howls of laughter.
Phil was so drunk he’d fallen off his chair, bumping the table as he fell, and all his empty beer cans had rained down on top of him. Alex groaned and wished he had left the bar earlier. Or better still, that he hadn’t come in at all.
‘Does this happen often?’ he asked.
‘Every once in a while,’ Ben said.
Syd gave a snort of disgust. ‘I’d have stopped serving the prick about three beers ago.’
What astounded Alex the most was that everyone immediately went back to their drinks. Not one of them made any effort to help Phil.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘we’d better get him back to his room.’
‘His room’s next to
mine. You two take him back and I’ll check on him later,’ Syd offered.
Alex shuddered. Ben appeared unmoved.
‘What are we going to do about Phil?’ were Leah’s first words to Alex the following morning, when, on hearing her door, he’d emerged from his room so he could walk to breakfast with her.
‘Whatever you do, don’t do a random breathalyser this morning,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with Phil. Dee’s away, remember.’
‘Really? The man has a serious drinking problem.’
‘I knew he liked a drink, but I’ll admit I had no idea how much.’ Alex had worked with Phil on other jobs and wondered why he’d never noticed his excessive drinking before now. Maybe if he’d frequented the bar more often, he would have noticed.
They walked on in silence, stones crunching underfoot.
‘I can’t see any stars,’ Leah said tilting her head skywards. ‘It might rain.’
The early morning was mild, the monotonous grumble of the generator more noticeable under a blanket of cloud.
‘I hope not. Rain is the last thing we need. It’ll slow everything down.’
‘It seems weird, hoping it won’t rain in a desert.’
They were nearly to the mess when Frank sauntered past. ‘Aaah, look at you two walking to breakfast together. How cosy.’
‘You’ve got a problem with that, Frank?’ Leah snapped.
‘Now, why would I have a problem?’ Frank skipped up the steps in front of them and held open the mess door. ‘After you,’ he said with a flourish.
‘Wanker,’ Alex heard Leah mutter under her breath.
He nudged her with his elbow as she brushed past him.
And surprise, surprise, there was Phil, looking chipper, shovelling in eggs, bacon, beans and toast. But Alex didn’t miss the bloodshot eyes or the fine tremor in the fingers holding his fork.
Piling food onto his plate in the noisy, crowded mess, Alex looked around him and felt momentarily disorientated, as if his world was spiralling out of his control. Nothing was the same as it had been only weeks ago. One of his contract supervisors was a drunk, another cut corners to the point of being unsafe, and he was being pressured by senior hierarchy to fire his female safety advisor. The same female safety advisor he’d recently begun a relationship with. It was as if he was seeing the place and the people he worked with clearly, for the very first time. And himself. He didn’t know if he liked what he saw.
Leah wasn’t the least bit surprised when Alex’s prediction about Dee was so far off the mark it was laughable. The woman who drove in from Port Augusta on Saturday afternoon was almost unrecognisable as the one who’d driven out the previous week. This Dee was happy, laughing, and she’d ditched the ghastly eye make-up.
‘You must have had a good rest leave,’ Leah said as they stood together at the urn, making tea before the daily debrief.
‘I did,’ Dee said, beaming. ‘Couldn’t have been better.’
Leah raised her eyebrows for more information but Dee just smiled some more before disappearing into the contractor’s office for the meeting.
‘Maybe Phil has agreed to leave his wife,’ Alex speculated when they were alone in their office after the debrief.
‘I doubt it. He’s home in Port Pirie with his wife, and she’s been home in Port Augusta.’
‘They have telephones in both those places,’ he said with a supercilious smile.
‘You know what I think?’ Leah said, sitting on the desk and swinging her legs. ‘I think she’s met someone else; given Phil the flick for good. I bet that’s the reason he went on a bender Thursday night.’
Alex frowned. ‘You might have something there, but nah . . .’ he said, slowly shaking his head. ‘Happened too quick. She would have only been home five days.’
‘Who knows? It could have been love at first sight. It happens, you know.’
‘I thought she had the hots for Phil.’
‘Ah, but a woman’s heart can be a fickle thing.’ Leah slid to her feet. ‘I told you there was something going on with her. Maybe she’s finally come to her senses. Phil might be an affable sort of a bloke, but he’s a drunk who is never going to leave his wife and kids. There is no future for them. Maybe Dee realised that. She probably wants kids of her own.’
‘She’d be too old for that, wouldn’t she?’
Leah paused with one arm in her jacket. ‘Actually, she’s only three months older than I am. And women are still having babies into their forties.’
Alex folded his arms. ‘What about you, Leah? Didn’t you ever want to have a family?’
She slid her arm into the other sleeve and tucked her hands into the jacket pockets. ‘I would have started a family with Richard, but he didn’t want children. And we were always busy, working, studying, building the house. And then he left me and had a baby with his new, much younger wife. Go figure.’
‘And now?’
She studied her feet, conscious of the clock on the wall ticking loudly.
‘You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.’
‘No, it’s okay. I was just thinking . . . Regardless, I don’t have many years left. You know, each woman only has so many eggs.’
Alex cleared his throat and she looked up to find him watching her, a strange expression on his face.
‘I’ve had a vasectomy,’ he said.
Leah swallowed, her throat unbelievably dry. The narrow distance between them widened.
‘I see,’ she said, and she did. If having children was something she wanted, he wasn’t her man. She wanted to laugh, to cry, to rant against the unfairness of it all, and to berate herself for all the foolish fantasies she’d conjured while lying awake at night waiting for the sound of Alex’s key in his door. Alex just looked sad.
‘I’m going to dinner,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you later.’
At lunchtime on Monday, the beginning of her third week, Leah had a sudden urge to connect with home. At that time of day the wet mess was empty and the payphone would be free.
It hadn’t rained, but the weather had been glum and overcast, much like Leah’s mood. Since her conversation with Alex, he had been reserved, and their few exchanges had been stilted and confined to work. Conflicted was the word that best described how she felt about his casually dropped, ‘I’ve had a vasectomy’.
With their jobs, rosters and Alex’s family commitments, any relationship between them was always going to be a challenge. No newsflash there. However, if having children was important to her, pursuing a relationship with Alex might be fun but it would be fruitless. She was thirty-eight, bearing down on thirty-nine. Her years for having children were running out. If a family was what she wanted, she’d better get cracking – and end things with Alex before it’d hurt too much.
As a younger woman she’d assumed she would have children one day, but Richard had always come up with a dozen reasons why they shouldn’t. About that time she’d asked Eve if she’d ever regretted not having children. ‘No,’ Eve had said. ‘But when I reached menopause I grieved, not because I didn’t have any children, but because I no longer had the choice.’
Was that Leah’s destiny? She sat on the stool and stared at the payphone, wishing she hadn’t gobbled her lunch because it felt like half of it was stuck in her oesophagus. She fed her card into the slot and punched in Eve’s phone number.
Paul had been at the management meeting the previous Friday. He’d looked tired; his head someplace else. Leah had asked after Eve and his answer had been vague.
‘Are you all right?’ Eve said when she answered, cutting across Leah’s greeting. ‘No one’s slashed your jeans or peed in your boots?’
‘No! It’s all good here,’ Leah said. She wasn’t fibbing. It was all good, if she didn’t dwell on the new emptiness in the pit of her stomach. ‘This time next week I’ll be on my way home again. The time flies by. And A—’
Shit! She’d been about to blurt out that Alex had taken her to the mound spring.
/> ‘— and I, ah, still miss my home and my dog. I saw Paul on Friday and he looked tired . . . How are you?’
‘He is tired, and worried about me, the poor love. I’ve given him plenty to fret about, and I haven’t been sleeping. But, you’ll be pleased to know I’ve talked to my GP and agreed to see a psychologist. I have an appointment next week. Paul pushed me into it and I’m glad he did. Now I’ve made the decision I feel better already.’
‘Eve, that’s terrific news. I’m so sorry I haven’t been around for you. You’ve always been there for me.’
‘For god’s sake, girl, don’t waste your time and energy on a guilt trip. You were a teenager. I was the adult. It was my responsibility to look out for you, and I enjoyed every minute of it. And when Richard left? Well, if you want my opinion, he did you a favour.’
‘Yeah, but sometimes a girl needs more than her dog and her friends for company.’
‘You’ll find someone, and when you least expect it. Look at me – your typical spinster – and then when I’d given up all hope, along came Mr Prentice.’
That made Leah smile. ‘Who are you trying to fool? You’re anything but typical.’
Eve gave a throaty laugh. ‘So good to hear your voice, my love, and when you come home, we’ll go put flowers on your mum’s grave.’
Leah dropped the handset back into place and retrieved her phone card. Then, on second thought, she pushed the card back into the slot and dialled Rose’s number. She needed to know Sasha and everything at home was as it should be.
‘I was right, wasn’t I?’
Alex looked up from his computer to where Leah stood grinning in front of his desk. It was Tuesday evening and her cheeks were flushed, her grey eyes sparkling with amusement and triumph.
‘About what?’
‘About Dee and Phil. She has definitely given him the shove, once and for all. And did you notice, there was no eyelash batting at Frank either. She’s met someone else – or decided she’s better off on her own.’
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