Nailed It!

by Mel Campbell

  So now, when the same youngish couple she’d seen twice before came into view again, still trudging along the side of the road, she couldn’t help herself: she pulled over just ahead of them and wound down her window as they hurried up to meet her.

  They seemed pathetically happy to see her, as if they really had been wandering out here for weeks. Their clothes could have been any colour under the thick layer of dust covering them, and they both wore glasses that clearly hadn’t been cleaned in a very long time.

  ‘Need any help?’ Rose said. ‘You two heading somewhere?’

  ‘We’re looking for The Mansions in the Sky set,’ the man said. ‘Do you have any idea where it is?’

  ‘Sure do,’ Rose said, ‘I’m working there.’

  ‘Oh wow,’ the woman said. ‘Do you know Len?’

  ‘Len said we should stop by,’ the man said.

  Rose frowned. ‘And you’ve been walking all this way?’

  ‘There’s not a lot of public transport in this part of the world,’ the woman said.

  ‘I guess I can give you a lift,’ Rose said unlocking the passenger door. ‘Hop in.’

  The couple bundled themselves into the ute in a cloud of dust. ‘Thanks so much,’ the man said as Rose started back down the road. ‘We were doing a lot of work with Len last season,’ he said. ‘He’s a really great guy.’

  ‘I’ve only met him a couple of times so far,’ Rose said.

  ‘He’s basically a communist,’ the woman said. ‘He’s really interesting.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Rose said. ‘I guess communists need home renovations too.’

  ‘It’s really interesting how Len got on the show,’ the man said. ‘He started out on television as a guest presenter on Green Strip.’

  ‘I haven’t heard of it,’ Rose said.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a late-night eco-lifestyle program. Popular with students and stoners. Len was the expert on communal living.’

  ‘He was meant to be talking about swingers and group sex,’ the woman said, ‘but he kept giving speeches on the importance of worker solidarity.’

  The man laughed. ‘Which you wouldn’t think would appeal to a late-night audience, but it turned out that while you can get porn for free online, old-style communist rabble-rousing is harder to come by. Audiences loved it. Len started getting a fanbase.’

  ‘The original idea for Mansions in the Sky,’ the woman added, ‘was that it would convert foreclosed and abandoned houses into homeless shelters, low-income social housing, and so on.’ She shook her dusty head sadly. ‘But it turned out that in prime time, people just wanted to see good-looking idiots hitting their thumbs with hammers and wasting money on solid silver towel racks.’

  ‘How do you know this stuff?’ Rose said. They’d just passed the PENIS sign, and she could see the first of the trucks that were parked outside the Mansions court.

  ‘We’re –’ the man started.

  ‘Historians,’ the woman said, cutting him off. ‘We’re doing a project on the history of Mansions. That’s why we’ve been talking to Len.’

  ‘There’s the set!’ the man said excitedly. ‘I can’t believe it!’

  ‘We’ve been out walking for so long,’ the woman said. ‘That’s what he means. It’s hard to believe we finally made it.’

  ‘Do you want me to take you up to the site office?’ Rose said as she turned the ute into the car park. ‘Len’s usually in production meetings this early in the day; you’ll have to sign in before they let you in there.’

  ‘Uh, no,’ the woman said. ‘You’ve done more than enough for us already. We’ll just –’

  ‘We’ll give Len a call and let him know we’re here,’ the man said. ‘We’ll take a look around while we wait.’

  ‘If you like,’ Rose said as she parked the ute. The two strangers were already opening the doors before the ute came to a halt, shouting their thanks as they headed towards the set at a rapid jog. Strange people, Rose thought, and then forgot about them entirely. She was back working at Dave and Michelle’s house today, and it was a constant struggle to think of anything else.

  Even though she wasn’t meant to be on camera today, she headed straight to make-up and hung around until Nita and Tania gave her the works. Today was a judging day; most of the cameras would be following the judges around, leaving the rest of the show to be covered by the bare minimum of crew. This was definitely not a day when a tradie could expect to be the focus of attention, and yet here she was in the make-up trailer getting the full treatment.

  ‘I’m still a bit nervous,’ she told Tania as she settled into the make-up chair. ‘I just feel better when you’ve made me camera-ready.’

  ‘Everyone gets nerves, darl,’ the make-up artist said. ‘But this is only for special occasions, okay? We can’t make a habit of it.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Rose said, closing her eyes. ‘I just want to look my best.’

  ‘We’re doing the bathrooms today,’ Michelle snapped. ‘Start upstairs, second door on the left.’

  ‘Good morning,’ Rose said cheerily as Michelle stepped aside to let her pass through the back door. ‘Is Dave up there already?’

  ‘Dave barely knows how to use a bathroom, let alone fix one,’ Michelle said. Something vulnerable briefly flickered across her face, and reflexively she glanced behind her, as if worried a camera might have caught her stray bitchiness. A second later, her arrogant mask was back in place. ‘He’s out getting supplies. You should be able to get some work done for once – he’ll be gone all morning.’

  ‘Oh,’ Rose said. If Michelle had been paying attention, she might have seen the tradie crumble in on herself just a little, her shoulders slumping, the light fading in her eyes. But Michelle was now looking at her phone, and by the time she looked back up, Rose was heading for the stairs.

  The bathroom cabinets and shelving were pretty basic stuff. The only challenge would be in fitting the cupboard doors, as the upstairs bathroom curved around the stairwell and the cupboard was set in a cramped corner where the hinges wouldn’t be easy to get to. But it was good to have a problem to take her mind off Dave, and if the morning didn’t exactly fly by, at least she didn’t spend all of it staring out the bathroom’s tiny window, wondering when Dave would come back.

  I’d have been pretty shit as a war bride, Rose thought. Those chicks back in World War II had to wait years for their men to come home, and here she was, struggling to handle a single morning. But at least they got to build bombers while they waited. Installing bathroom shelves was not quite the same as getting to blow up bad guys.

  Downstairs she could hear Michelle talking on the phone. She wasn’t shouting, so she probably wasn’t talking to Dave. Maybe I could drop a bomb on her, Rose thought.

  Another half hour later, the cupboard shelves were ready for Dave and Michelle to install on camera. From what she’d overheard in the make-up chair, the judges were going to do the rounds today to check out everyone’s bathrooms in a ‘before’ state, then come back tomorrow to judge everyone on how the finished work panned out.

  This week there wouldn’t be much need for Rose, or any of the other tradies, to appear on camera. But next week the blue sky phase of the show was ending. The storylines would start to focus on the quality of the workmanship in the renovations, which meant the crew would be filming more scenes with the tradies hard at work in the background. Now, as she marked out where the cabinets would fit under the yet-to-be-installed sink, Rose realised the constant presence of the crew would seriously impede her opportunities for one-on-one time with Dave. If she was going to make a move on him, today was going to have to be the day.

  But was she going to make a move?

  As Rose crawled around on the floor in the airless upstairs bathroom, her overdone make-up caked in sawdust, her previously blow-waved hair now pulled back sharply in a ponytail, the
idea of getting up to anything with Dave – or anyone – seemed to belong firmly in the too-hard basket. The grit under her hands and knees reminded her constantly that she was on a building site. Romance belonged to another, very distant world.

  And what was she basing her feelings on, anyway? Dave had always been sweet and charming to her, which could mean he liked her … or it could just as easily mean he was a sweet and charming man to everyone he met. Well, obviously not to Michelle, but then being married to her could wear down a saint. Still, unless Rose could prove the way Dave treated her was different from the norm, his general sweetness wasn’t really enough to fuel the endless romantic fantasies that filled her head every waking minute of the –

  Enough. He was a nice guy. He was also a very attractive guy. Those eyes of his were amazing; she could spend days just looking into them. And she wasn’t even sure they were his best feature. How about the way his forearms looked in rolled-up shirtsleeves? Those muscles and tendons sliding smoothly under his golden skin as he dropped and fumbled things with his shapely hands? And he was interested in her work, and her, and –

  Enough! No matter his good qualities – and okay, sure, there were plenty of those – they weren’t enough for her to throw her life away. And the more she thought about it, the more a dalliance with Dave seemed like throwing her life away. She’d be bound to lose this job; they could hardly keep employing a tradie who was having an affair with a married contestant. She couldn’t go back to working for Old Steve, that was for sure, and unless she found a new, equally well-paid job extremely quickly, her family would fall apart. It wasn’t worth the risk. Dave wasn’t worth the risk.

  That felt better. It was the uncertainty that had been the worst part: the constant wondering about whether he did or did not like her, or whether they could or could not make it work. All sorted now: it was over. She would move on, finish up here today, spend the next six months in the shower washing all the caked-on gunk and goop off her face and out of her pores, and when the next season of Mansions in the Sky came around, they’d be falling over themselves to hire her because she had been the best, most professional tradie they’d –

  There was a knock at the door. Before she could get up off her knees, it opened. Dave stuck his head around the corner. When he saw her, a smile lit up his face so brightly she thought for a second she was going to cry. ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘I can’t stay – Michelle is sending me back out for more cushion covers.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  ‘But I was wondering if we could maybe do some more practice later tonight? I think I really learnt a lot from our last session.’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ she said. ‘That’d be great.’

  ‘Same time, same place?’

  She nodded. ‘Perfect.’

  He gave her a thumbs-up, which from anyone else on the planet would have seemed ridiculously corny to Rose, and then he was gone.

  She let out a moan, half of frustration, half of anger. This wasn’t ending things; this was the opposite of ending things! But there was excitement mixed in there too – a much purer and cleaner emotion than all the others swirling around inside her. She wanted to see him. She wanted to spend time with him. She wanted to see all of him, and spend all of her time with him and more, and everything, and she wanted him to be hers, free and clear.

  She just wasn’t sure how that was ever going to happen.

  The judges showed up around four. The contestants weren’t going to hear about how the judges had scored them until a big reveal at the end of the week, so a PA hurried Michelle out of the house before they arrived; Dave still wasn’t back from his cushion-hunting expedition.

  Nobody bothered to tell Rose whether she should leave or stay, so she figured she’d stick around and tidy up a few minor things out of sight until the end of the day. Anything to help Dave, a slightly mocking voice said inside her head, and she couldn’t deny the voice had a point. She wanted him to win; from here on out, she’d be playing favourites.

  Jane, the sensible judge, was the first one to come upstairs. ‘I’ll get out of your way,’ Rose said, collecting her tools from the bathroom.

  ‘No rush,’ Jane said, taking a quick look around. ‘I just wanted to get a bit of an idea before the camera crews arrive.’

  ‘I thought you did all your judging on-camera?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Jane laughed. ‘It usually takes two or three goes for the other two to get their bitchy comments bitchy enough. If I don’t take a look around before we start filming, I have no idea what to think. Performing and judging are two very different things for me.’

  ‘I hope you like what you see, then,’ Rose said, squeezing past her as she headed for the stairs.

  ‘The Strongs have generally been pretty good,’ Jane said. ‘The Muellers will still almost certainly win, but Michelle and Dave are way, way ahead of Gino and George. Have you worked with those young blokes?’

  Rose shook her head.

  ‘All they’re doing over there is tearing the place apart. Someone needs to remind them the point of the show is to fix up these dumps, not demolish them.’

  Rose laughed.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Jane said. ‘You’re the tradie who rescued that dog, aren’t you?’

  Rose nodded.

  ‘My wife’s a big fan of The Dock; she thought you were incredible. Have you been here since then?’

  ‘Yep. I’ve been doing a lot of prep work.’

  ‘That’s strange,’ Jane said. ‘Leary’s had all the other Ninja Tradies on actual construction. Have they been filming you at work?’

  Rose shook her head. ‘I haven’t been on camera since they sent me here from the Muellers’.’

  ‘That’s really strange. I would have thought the whole reason Leary hired you was to put you on camera. The show definitely needs the ratings boost this season.’

  ‘Just measuring shelves and cutting wood for me so far.’

  ‘Well, it’s definitely good work,’ Jane said. ‘It’s obvious you’ve really helped these two out. Obvious to me, at least – who knows what the other judges will say?’

  ‘I’ll have to go charm them,’ Rose said, heading for the door.

  ‘Good luck,’ Jane laughed. Rose closed the door behind her and started down the stairs.

  ‘I guess this is an improvement,’ a plummy female voice was saying. Rose halted on the landing. The stairs made a 180-degree turn at the halfway point; the landing was far enough down that she could hear the judges talking downstairs, but unless they stood right at the base of the stairs, they couldn’t see her.

  This was her chance to find out what they really thought of Dave and Michelle’s house. If she could hear what they didn’t like, she could tell Dave what he needed to do – and if they caught her, so what? She was a tradie; she was meant to be there. Just to be on the safe side, she took out a chisel and held it against the banister in a way that suggested to the untrained eye that she was doing something possibly useful with it.

  ‘Compared to some of these other dumps, sure,’ said the other, masculine voice. ‘But put it up against a place someone would actually pay money for and …’ They both laughed.

  ‘I guess some of this workmanship is solid,’ the male voice continued. ‘Not that anyone is going to give a shit – they’ve built their entire lounge room around that massive entertainment unit they’re going to install. Anyone not glued to the television is going to be bored as fuck in there.’

  ‘The style is so average all over,’ the woman said. ‘I’m falling asleep just looking at these walls.’ The was a slapping sound; Rose guessed the judge had hit one of the walls to underline her point. ‘Maybe if there was some spark, some conflict going on here? You just know that bitchy wife makes all the decisions and he doesn’t say a peep.’

  ‘You know she’s not really hi
s wife, right?’ the male voice chuckled. ‘Leary told me all about it. The poor chump.’

  ‘Nooo,’ the woman gasped. ‘What, they’re engaged, then?’

  ‘Not the way I heard it. It’s all for show.’

  There was a clattering sound. Rose looked down; the chisel she’d been holding had fallen from her hand.

  ‘You break any of that shit up there, Jane, you bought it,’ the deeper voice shouted. Rose bent down and picked the chisel up.

  ‘Just finishing up here,’ Rose called out loudly as she walked down the rest of the stairs. Pandora and Bob, the other two judges, were standing in the hallway. Bob looked her up and down, openly leering; Pandora literally looked down her nose at her.

  ‘Good luck with the judging,’ Rose said, not stopped as she turned and hurried towards the back door. She could hear them muttering as she left, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything now.

  To Rose, the run from the house to Truck Three felt like it took hours. When she got there, Dave was standing just inside the back of the truck, holding a power drill. She just knew that five seconds before she arrived he’d been pretending it was a gun, and she didn’t care.

  ‘Oh hey,’ he said as she leapt up into the truck. ‘I thought we could –’

  ‘Dave,’ she said, and there was something in her voice that cut him off. ‘Are you married?’

  ‘You’ve met Michelle, so, uh …’

  ‘Dave,’ she said firmly, taking a step forward. He took one back, moving further down into the truck. ‘Are you married?’

  ‘They wouldn’t have let us on the show if we weren’t, so obviously, um …’

  Another step forward, another step back.

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘Seriously, Rose, I don’t get where you’re going with this …’

  Dave had backed himself down the length of the truck. He was pressed against a stack of thick blankets that movers used to cushion the gear when the truck was in motion. Both walls of the truck were lined with racks holding tools and equipment. He had nowhere else to go.