by Mel Campbell
‘Ugh.’ Rose shook her head. ‘I saw Dave for five minutes at the lunch truck, that’s it.’
‘Long enough for him to break your heart.’
‘Look at these two,’ Rose said, as the mother-daughter team, the Morgans, appeared on screen. ‘Imagine trying to renovate with your mum.’
‘Imagine trying to renovate with your mum,’ Nicola said. ‘She’d be like, “More bookshelves.”’
Rose laughed. ‘Seriously, though, these two are going to be lucky to even finish their house.’
‘But they’re in a great position,’ Nicola said. ‘Their house is almost as finished as the Muellers’.’
‘Yeah, but all they do is fight,’ Rose said. ‘We could hear them yelling at each other from the other side of the court.’
‘You’re not the boss of me!’ Chloe Morgan shouted on screen.
‘Damn straight!’ laughed Nicola. ‘This is hilarious.’
‘No, seriously,’ Rose said. ‘They can’t agree on anything. It’s not just for the cameras, either. The mum wanted to fill the wine cellar with alcopops for the daughter, and the daughter just kept trying to lock her mum down there. They didn’t even finish the cellar – I saw it, and it’s a mud pit. If they ever win a challenge I’ll spend half the day putting in cupboards and the other half tearing them out.’
‘They probably won’t even be able to decide on a Ninja Tradie.’
Now two young men were sitting on a couch talking about their dream wine cellar. It sounded more like a beer cave; one of them wouldn’t stop talking about his videogame high scores.
‘These guys should have won,’ Rose said. ‘All they seem to do is dig. Their whole house is pretty much just a cellar.’
‘I dig ’em,’ Nicola said. ‘Maybe you could hit on one of them? Or both?’
‘I don’t think they’re interested.’
‘Ooh, secret gays,’ Nicola said. ‘That’s sweet.’
‘No, they just seem really focused. I haven’t seen them outside their house once. Everyone else at least comes out for lunch or a coffee, but they never surfaced. I wonder if something’s gone wrong with the foundations; Moss the Boss was over there most of the day.’
‘This is the goss we need to get,’ Nicola said excitedly. ‘Do you think their house is going to fall down?’
‘Not my department. But at a guess …’
Nicola leaned forward.
‘No,’ Rose said.
‘Bugger.’
Now Dave appeared. ‘Noooo,’ Rose wailed.
‘Poor baby,’ Nicola said. ‘You’re better off without him.’
‘Look at his grip on that hammer,’ Rose said dreamily.
‘Yeah, but he just hit his thumb with it.’
‘I’d kiss it better.’
‘Aww,’ Nicola said. ‘But he seems so helpless. Imagine what he’d be like in bed. On second thoughts,’ she said, seeing Rose’s dreamy look, ‘don’t.’
A loud thudding noise came from the screen. ‘Oh look,’ Nicola said, ‘that shelf just fell on his head.’
‘Can’t you even put up a shelf right?’ Michelle was shouting on screen. ‘Did you fit the bracket mounts to the wall?’
‘Bracket mounts,’ Dave said. Rose couldn’t tell if his dazed look was from the recent blow to the head or his struggle with basic construction techniques.
‘They’ve set him up,’ Rose said. ‘If that shelf was going to fall like that, it wouldn’t have stayed up long enough for him to get under it. They’re making shit up to make him look bad.’
On screen, Michelle pushed Dave aside and grabbed a saw out of his hand. ‘I’ll do it myself,’ she snapped. ‘I always do.’
‘This is not a good marriage,’ Nicola said. ‘That woman is mean.’
The scene cut to Dave on the confession couch. Rose recognised the shirt he was wearing; it was the one he’d had on the first time they’d met. ‘We’re a team,’ he was saying earnestly to camera, ‘but that doesn’t mean we both have to do the same job. I’m here to support Michelle, and if that means there are times when she takes the lead, I’m fine with that.’
‘Aww,’ Nicola said, ‘he’s a sweetie.’
‘She’s good at construction,’ Dave said, ‘she’s got a great eye for detail, she’s determined, she knows what she wants, she’s got a clear vision for the house, she knows the materials back to front, she’s got plenty of great ideas, she …’
‘What’s he bringing to the party?’ Nicola said.
‘Just look at him,’ Rose said. ‘He’s bringing plenty.’
Dave was still going. This was weird, Rose thought. He’d hardly mentioned Michelle at all when they’d met, and now he couldn’t shut up about her. Rose knew the producers could do a lot with editing, and for all she knew they’d asked Dave to list every single good quality of Michelle’s he could think of – and then had him make up a bunch more. But this felt like the show was trying a little too hard to sell Dave as a loving husband.
‘There’s got to be a better way to show their love than this,’ Nicola said. ‘Maybe show them kissing once in a while?’
‘It’s pretty weird we barely see them even touch each other,’ Rose said.
‘Maybe their newlywed antics are too hot for TV,’ Nicola said. ‘This is meant to be a family show.’
‘How do you think families get started?’ Rose said. ‘Even the Muellers high-fived once they got their dumb waiter working.’
Len was on screen now, walking out into the middle of Corona Court holding an air horn. ‘Contestants!’ he shouted. ‘Your challenge time … is up!’ He held his arm high, pressed a button and the air horn blared. An explosion sound effect rumbled through Rose’s laptop speakers.
One by one, the contestants emerged to stand in a semicircle in front of their houses, as the camera swooped around them heroically. The Muellers came outside looking happy; the Morgan mother and daughter glared at each other. The two young mates were somehow covered in mud, while the Pereiras looked drunk. Last of all, Michelle strode out the front door of her house, with Dave close behind.
‘Contestants,’ Len said, ‘are you happy with your wine cellars?’
Everyone nodded, some more enthusiastically than others.
‘Sahara and Mick, you have a lot riding on this.’
The interior designers returned Len’s gaze. ‘We’re confident in our workmanship,’ Mick said.
Sahara nodded in agreement. ‘This is what we do best,’ she said.
‘We’ll see if the judges agree,’ Len said.
‘Awww shit,’ Nicola said. ‘They’re screwed.’
‘Really?’ Rose said. ‘I thought they did a good job.’
‘When Len sets someone up like that, you know the judges have slammed them. This is going to be good.’
On screen the judges were now walking through the interior designers’ wine cellar, and they did not look happy.
‘Did you get to meet the judges?’ Nicola said. ‘Did Bob try to grab your butt? He looks like a real sleaze.’
‘No,’ Rose said. ‘They only come in for filming. They don’t wander around on set or anything. And I’ve only been on set for two days – my butt still has a lot to look forward to.’
On screen one of the judges, a burly middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper buzz-cut hair, was pointing at a sculptural wine rack. ‘What the [bleep] is that?’
‘That’s Bob Colorato,’ Nicola said. ‘AKA Bob the Builder. He’s a big guy in construction – his company did the renovations on that stadium that burnt down.’
‘Don’t you mean the renovations that made it burn down? That cheap cladding was made out of firelighters.’
‘They reckon that’s why he got the job,’ Nicola said. ‘Word is, that stadium was haemorrhaging money. Arson seems like Bob’s style. And pay your workers!’ sh
e shouted as Bob started kicking a wall.
‘Bob, please,’ a thin older lady said in a plummy English accent, ‘we’re judges, not a wrecking crew.’
‘That’s Pandora Hampstead-Jones,’ Nicola said, ‘editor of Milk + Honey Monthly. She’s this season’s celebrity judge.’
‘Never heard of her,’ Rose said. ‘Or that magazine.’
‘Milk + Honey’s the kind of magazine that rich people have on their coffee tables. Pandora lives in some design world where it’s all about the latest textures and surfaces. Last week she marked down a kitchen because it had too much bench space.’
Behind Bob and Pandora, a short woman wearing mom jeans and a loose T-shirt pointed at the Pereiras’ cellar door handle. It was an ornate, self-locking knob design that required two hands to manipulate. ‘How are you meant to open this door when you’re holding a bottle of wine?’
‘That’s a Busson,’ Pandora said, outraged. ‘It won three Golden Stools at last year’s Stuttgart Furniture Design Awards.’
‘Wine snobs love that shit,’ said Bob. ‘That’s another three grand to the resale value, no worries.’
‘But you can’t open the door,’ the woman sighed.
‘That’s Jane Lavell,’ Nicola said. ‘She seems really nice. I have no idea what she’s doing on Mansions.’
‘The Busson is the only worthwhile element here,’ Pandora said, her multicoloured resin bracelets clicking together agitatedly as she waved her arms; ‘otherwise this is a disaster.’
‘Maybe if it was twice the size it’d be worth it,’ Bob said. ‘This is doing nothing for the resale value.’
‘How could they make it bigger?’ Rose said. ‘That back wall is clearly part of the foundation. He’s an idiot. She’s an idiot.’
‘I thought they did a good job, overall,’ Jane said. The other two laughed at her.
‘She’s not an idiot,’ Rose said. ‘I like her.’
On screen the interior designers were now sitting on the confession couch. Sahara was crying. ‘I can’t believe Bob said that,’ Sahara said, wiping away a tear, ‘especially after we testified for him at the coroner’s inquest.’
‘I’ll tell you what I think of Bob,’ Mick shouted, his eyebrows knitted fiercely. Suddenly the audio dropped out, leaving Mick angrily mouthing in silence as Len’s voice-over cut in: ‘Up next on Mansions in the Sky! The judges keep judging’ – the screen showed Bob kicking over a table – ‘while Mick has an apology to make.’
‘I’m so sorry, Bob,’ Mick said, looking nervously off camera. ‘I really value your advice and I know you only wanted what’s best for me and my wife and the show and your workers, who I now know worked for free out of the goodness of their hearts.’
The camera panned to Bob, standing to one side with his arms folded, his pinkie ring winking in the studio light. ‘Apology accepted.’
Mick’s shoulders slumped in relief.
‘… for now,’ Bob said. A dramatic musical sting blared.
‘What kind of show am I on?’ Rose said.
Driving to work the next day, Rose had the Mansions in the Sky end credits song stuck in her head. It was best described as gangsta rap. Rose wasn’t a hip-hop fan, but she doubted the rappers had ever been to Australia – and especially never to Ocean Springs. Somehow the lyrics still seemed strangely appropriate:
Out on a court
Where nobody bought
Houses of last resort
Where life is short
Existence is fraught
You’ve gotta make it or you’ll die
Mansions in the Sky
She shook her head, trying to clear her mind of the repetitive beats. She forced herself to think of something as far from hip-hop as possible. Something old, daggy … something that would never come back in style … Old Steve!
He’d been an infuriating boss at the time, but he’d also been friendly and kind. Those were the good old days … except for the insanely boring, repetitive work. And the frustration of a job where she’d never get to use even the most basic of skills. And Old Steve was an eccentric old fusspot. And the pay had been bad, too. She laughed. What was she thinking?
She knew what she was thinking: she was on her way to another day working for the Muellers. On the show the couple seemed actively malicious, but in real life they were merely efficient and humourless. She wanted to feel bad for the way Mansions portrayed them as sinister cartoons, but the depiction was basically true. It was just that in real life they were dull and arrogant, constantly telling Rose they’d made it this far through hard work, even though they’d been given the best house.
They did work hard, but they had no idea that a large part of their job was to be entertaining. For them the competition was real, even though Nicola had told Rose the most popular theory from the Mansions fan forums – that the show was increasingly setting up Dave and Michelle to win.
And then there was Dave. She hadn’t mentioned to Nicola how much the news that he was married had really thrown her. Okay, sure, she’d been thinking about Dave a lot, but they’d hardly even spoken; surely when he said he was married, that should have been the end of it? So why couldn’t she get him out of her head?
Rose prided herself on being practical and level-headed, and it was bothering her that she was thinking so irrationally. Her thoughts kept finding their way back to Dave. The way his smile spread over his face like butter, soft and delicious. His green eyes, locked with hers. The sound of his voice. And the idea of three months around him, without being able to have him, felt like the worst kind of torture. Now, in the privacy of her ute, she let out a lengthy self-pitying sigh.
Up ahead she saw a youngish couple trudging along the side of the road. As she reached them she realised they were the same two people she’d seen on her first day driving to Mansions. Were they wearing the same clothes? By the time this occurred to her, the couple were already in her rear-view mirror, passed by too quickly to confirm her suspicions. They’d definitely looked more defeated than the first time she’d seen them. Had they been out here this whole time?
They look like how I feel, she thought sadly as they vanished behind her. Up ahead, a scrawny stray dog slunk through the weeds by the side of the road, its head down, its tail dragging in the dirt. No, Rose thought as she drove by, that’s how I feel.
She turned yet another corner. On her left was an old, overgrown country graveyard, maybe a dozen cracked and dusty tombstones within a rusting fence. Hmm, she thought, I’m not there yet.
After she parked her ute at the court she checked her make-up quickly in the rear-view mirror – not exactly professional standard, but good enough for background work. She turned to lock the ute and saw someone had written WASH ME in the dust on her rear window.
‘Yeah, I’ll get right on that,’ she said sarcastically.
From the car park she went directly to the Muellers’ house. No point stopping off at the site office when she was booked in with them for the entire week. At least she was getting to actually make cabinets, though the Muellers’ constant supervision made even that a chore. Just for a few more days, though. Rose was a professional, and this was just another job. She had to make it or she’d die: Mansions in the Sky.
But when she arrived at the Muellers’, the couple were standing on their front step, glaring at her angrily as she walked up the path. ‘What are you doing here?’ Alex snapped.
‘We’ve still got twelve cabinets to measure up,’ Rose said, ‘then I’ve got to install the brackets and –’
‘No,’ Karen said, ‘we’ve got twelve cabinets to install. You have to go work for those newlyweds.’
Rose’s heart leapt. ‘What?’ she said, struggling to keep her voice even.
‘I know, right? We won you fair and square,’ Alex said. ‘And yet when we get up this morning we have a producer telling us that our ti
me is up.’
‘This is bullshit,’ Karen said. ‘They’re trying to make us lose.’
‘They are handicapping the winners,’ Alex said. ‘We are too good so we have to be punished.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Rose said, already backing down the path. ‘I’m sure it’s something like that. But what are you gonna do?’
‘Work twice as hard,’ they said in unison.
‘Good luck with that,’ Rose said, turning on her heel. She didn’t want to run off in front of the Muellers but it took every fibre of her being to keep her pace down to a brisk walk as she crossed the court. She had no idea what the producers were up to, but if it meant spending time with Dave – a married man, she reminded herself, he’s married, you idiot – she was all for it.
She didn’t remember she was supposed to go around the back until she’d already knocked on the front door. And then she started wondering why she was knocking on the front door of a television show set where they were already expecting her, and then she started worrying that her hair wasn’t looking right. She was trying to fix it when the door opened and it was Michelle.
Dave’s wife glared at her. She was a slender woman, slightly taller than Rose with pale blue eyes that made her laser stare even more unsettling. The only thing that offset her harsh demeanour was the mass of dark hair piled up in a loose bun above her girlish fringe. ‘You’re meant to go around the back,’ she snapped.
‘Oh sorry, I completely forgot,’ Rose said, ‘they only just told me I’d be working here to Dave … Uh, I mean today.’
Michelle shook her head. ‘Whatever. Just get inside.’
‘Okay,’ Rose said. ‘Um, through this door?’ Michelle was still standing directly in her way.
‘Yes, of course,’ Michelle said, turning her back on Rose and striding away down the hall.
Rose followed her inside. Looking around, she could see this house wasn’t as far along as the Muellers’. The floors and ceilings were mostly done, though a lot of light fittings hadn’t been installed; bare wires were sticking through the plaster. The walls were either plasterboard or bare frames; there was a lot of space for cupboards here, if that was what Dave and Michelle wanted.