Nailed It!

by Mel Campbell

  His expression seemed to close down. ‘I think you’re being a bit harsh.’

  ‘You’ve seen what she’s been like! She’s constantly putting you down. She even told me she didn’t care that we were sleeping together so long as I taught you enough to stop making her look bad!’

  ‘I’m making her look bad?’

  ‘Oh, sweetie.’ Rose took his face in her hands. ‘She’s the one making you look bad.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said firmly. ‘She didn’t manipulate me into this – she offered me a chance to do a hands-on thing, and get it right this time. The fact it was Michelle who offered? Well, I saw that as a sign. I had to face up to my past, stop avoiding my weaknesses.’

  Rose frowned at that, but Dave kept talking. ‘Listen, I knew it was going to be a struggle, that the show might try to make me look silly. But it was going to be worth it, because I’d finally be able to make things for myself. I’m glad I’m on the show with Michelle. This is good for me, and I’m not going to cut her loose.’

  ‘But two weeks ago on the abseiling challenge she literally cut you loose.’

  ‘It was only a three-metre drop,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Look, I totally respect that you’re loyal to your friends,’ Rose said. ‘I’d expect nothing less from my boyfriend.’

  He smiled at that, and Rose couldn’t help but kiss him. And kiss him again. And again. And then she was letting him unbuckle her tool belt, unbutton her fly. The toilet might have been disgusting, but it had been a whole two days since they’d last been this close, and who knew when they’d get the chance again?

  They got the chance five minutes later, when Dave showed some surprisingly impressive recovery skills.

  Dave may not have been to a beach in ten years, but he definitely knew how to make waves. Still trembling, Rose squeezed out from under Dave – who was still struggling to catch his breath – and tried to finger-comb her hair back into something resembling its previous state. Her legs felt like jelly. ‘And that is why we had to have the serious conversation first,’ she said, somewhat out of breath herself.

  ‘So this isn’t just workplace sexual harassment?’

  Rose slapped him playfully on the arm.

  ‘Seriously though, after today’s deep and meaningful chat, are we … you know?’

  Rose shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘A real couple?’

  ‘You idiot,’ she said, leaning over to kiss him passionately. ‘Does that answer your question?’

  ‘I was worried,’ he said. ‘In hindsight, talking up my fake wife to the woman I’m really with maybe wasn’t the brightest idea?’

  ‘Definitely not. Never do that again.’

  ‘I mean, I want you to know how important to me you are. I couldn’t make it through this show without having you near.’ He gave her that puppy-dog look she couldn’t resist. ‘You’re my rock, you know that?’

  ‘And you’re my …’ she paused. ‘Work bench?’

  ‘I’ll take it,’ he said, and pulled her to him.

  This time he remembered to keep his hands out of her hair.

  When Rose finally returned to the Ninja Tradie pen – after a pit stop at the make-up trailer – the results were already in. Donald was going to the winners, who unsurprisingly were the Muellers. Rod was off to help Dave and Michelle – she’d made good on her threat, Rose thought bitterly – and Rose would be spending the next week helping out Sahara and Mick. They had to go through four takes before she looked excited enough at this news to satisfy Lou.

  The rest of the day was spent listening to the Pereiras argue and squabble over exactly what they were going to get Rose to do. Rose had to take their orders, as they were the stars of the show, but unless they got her doing a lot of basic structural work, there wasn’t going to be much point having her there. Half the walls they wanted her to put shelves on wouldn’t hold the weight of an especially dramatic band poster; their house needed to get up to habitable standards, not a series of statement benches and countertops.

  Worse, the Pereiras were massive micro-managers. Michelle may have been a bitch, but even she knew enough to get out of the way when Rose was doing what she did best. And while Karen and Alex had watched her like hawks, there was a new, unpleasantly fretful quality to the way Sahara and Mick didn’t leave her alone for a second. One or the other was constantly looking over her shoulder, asking her if she was absolutely certain that was the right place to drill a hole or draw a line. She spent five hours in their house on her first day, and never even made it out of the open-plan entertaining area at the back of the house; driving home that evening, she shuddered to think what condition the rest of their place was in.

  The next day the chain-link fence around the car park was complete, and standing on the other side was a group of dusty-looking strangers who started waving and shouting the second she stepped out of her car. Rose didn’t know whether to ignore them or go and talk to them; they seemed to know who she was, but most of them were shouting something like ‘Dog Girl’ so she guessed they were big fans of her rescue on The Dock. She decided to just wave as she walked to the site office. The crowd roared, but she wasn’t sure if it was from excitement that she’d acknowledged them or anger that she hadn’t stopped to talk.

  ‘Are they going to be there all day?’ she asked Daryl, the security guard at the car park entrance. ‘They seem really fired up.’

  He nodded. ‘More of them every day, too. If the producers ever find out who tipped the fan club off about the location here, there’ll be hell to pay.’

  ‘Gotta go,’ Rose said, hurrying away.

  She took her time walking across the court to Sahara and Mick’s, watching Dave’s house the whole time. No sign of life there. Shit, Rose thought, we really should have worked out some way to signal each other. This was like having a high-school crush on a boy you didn’t share any classes with. But at least at high school you could wait for him in the yard, and text him, and get your friends to ask him if he liked you, and … okay, this was a lot worse than any high-school crush. It had only been a week and already she craved his touch, the feel of him. But it wasn’t just the physical stuff – though that was amazing. It was the way he was so considerate, helping her as she worked, noticing the way she did things and following suit, always trying to learn … and now she had to go back to work with people who treated her like she was little more than a screwdriver.

  When she’d left yesterday, she’d told the Pereiras that today she was going to start by checking out the rest of the house, no matter what Sahara and Mick thought about it. But now, as she walked up the front path, she realised that if she let them know how pissed off she was, she’d probably be playing right into the producers’ hands. The cameras had been on her nonstop yesterday, and while at Dave and Michelle’s most of the time she’d just been filmed in the background while they worked away, here there’d been plenty of close-ups of her, usually just after Sahara had asked her for the third or fourth time if she really needed to make quite so many lines on the wall to show where the shelves were going to go.

  Until this moment, she’d never really considered that the producers might want to present her in the same distorted way they presented the contestants. Were they going to use the footage to make it look like she was about to snap after some perfectly reasonable requests, or were they going to make Saraha and Mick look like fussy morons pushing a hard-working tradie to the limit?

  She stopped at the front step, her hand on the door knob. She had no idea what the producers had planned, and wouldn’t until the footage aired next week; until then, all she could do was keep her cool, act pleasant, and not give them anything to work with. She took a deep breath, pushed open the front door, and stepped inside.

  ‘Holy fuck,’ Rose shouted. ‘What the hell is that?’

  She was standing just inside the
front door, at the start of the wide hallway that led through the house. Ahead of her to one side was a staircase that led to the second floor; the ceiling here was two storeys high, and the light fixture – which was what Rose was pointing at – dangled down a good two metres from its fitting.

  ‘We call it the Sword of Damocles,’ Mick said proudly. He was standing by the staircase with a camera crew next to him; they’d captured Rose’s outburst and were clearly eager for more. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re totally … uh … yeah.’ Rose managed to get herself under control, but it wasn’t easy.

  The Sword wasn’t actually a sword. It was a hanging metallic chandelier: a cluster of five long, wide blades pointing directly downwards, surrounded by a miniature galaxy of dangling light bulbs, balls and chains. But it wasn’t the sight of it alone that had shocked Rose; she’d grown up being dragged to art galleries and sculpture parks, and had seen plenty of big, ugly ‘artistic statements’ in her time.

  No – what had filled her with panic was the fact that something so heavy was dangling from its fixture by one thin wire. If the ceilings were anything like the walls in this house, it wouldn’t take much more than a hefty man walking past to send it hurtling to the floor. And if the hefty man happened to be directly underneath the Sword, they wouldn’t need a plus-sized coffin for the funeral – he’d be carved into chunks they could bury in a shopping bag.

  This was definitely one of the fittings the main tradie crew would be removing when they arrived. There was simply no way even the drunkest, most incompetent building inspector would let something like this pass. No wonder Mick and Sahara had tried so hard to keep her away from this yesterday. And noticing Steph’s alert presence alongside the camera crew, Rose realised she was in another colour segment. The producers knew the chandelier was a death trap, and they’d brought Rose in here because they wanted her to look shocked. Mission accomplished.

  ‘Let’s take a look at the rest of the house,’ Rose said. And never come back here until that nightmare is removed, she thought. Rather than walking directly down the hall and into the path of the Sword of Damocles, she moved along the wall, trying not to make it too obvious there was no way she was setting foot under that menace.

  Things seemed to be going well until Saraha called out from the kitchen. ‘Mick,’ she shouted, ‘is Rose here yet? We need her to – ah,’ Sahara appeared at the far end of the hall, ‘there you are. You stay right there.’

  Rose couldn’t help herself; she looked up to make sure she wasn’t under the Sword. ‘That’s gold,’ she heard the cameraman mutter. Rose was still standing on the entry side of the hallway, and as Sahara strode towards her it was clear the interior designer was going to pass directly under the Sword. It was also clear that her tread on the house’s shaky floorboards was enough to make the chandelier sway on the thin wire holding it up. Rose guessed the Pereiras had simply never used their front door since they’d had the light fixture installed; if it was already swaying like this, slamming the front door would surely be enough to send it crashing down.

  ‘Those shelves you drew up yesterday, I’ve made a decision,’ Sahara said, stomping past the staircase. The camera crew had moved smoothly down the stairs to film her walking towards them; as she passed they stepped aside to keep her in frame while pulling back to get Rose in the shot. Rose looked up again; the ceiling around the Sword was cracking, the heavy light fixture now swinging and tinkling.

  ‘Stop right there,’ Rose said firmly. ‘I don’t think it’s safe –’

  There was a loud crack, followed by a tearing noise. Everyone looked up in time to see the Sword drop, the wire pulling free. Rose leapt back, pressing herself against the wall; Sahara just stared upwards, like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  With a metallic crash the Sword thudded into the floor at Sahara’s feet, gravity thrusting its blades deep into the boards. Sahara reeled back, coughing from the plaster dust thrown up by the impact. Suddenly she let out a shriek. The wire that had held the Sword aloft had whipped down along her arm, drawing blood that shone bright red against the plaster dust.

  ‘Oh shit, Sahara!’ Mick yelled. ‘Are you okay?’ But Rose was the first one to reach her.

  The cut was long but it wasn’t deep: a thin slash down the length of her forearm that stopped just before her wrist. Sahara stared at it, her eyes wide, not making a sound.

  ‘You’re incredibly lucky,’ Rose said, ‘it’s just a scratch.’

  Mick appeared at her side. ‘Babe? Babe? Are you okay, babe?’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Rose said. ‘The site nurse will fix her up in no time.’

  ‘I want an ambulance here,’ Mick said, turning to the camera crew. ‘You get an ambulance here, or we walk. I swear, we’ll quit right now.’

  Steph was already muttering into her headset. ‘Let’s get her to the nurse’s station,’ she said to Mick. ‘They can check her out there.’

  ‘An ambulance,’ he said. ‘I want professionals on the job.’

  Rose looked at Sahara. There was blood trickling down her arm but it was little more than a thread. Sahara wiped away a tear; otherwise she seemed okay for someone who’d just cheated death. Or perhaps she was still in shock.

  ‘Can I go to the nurse?’ she said.

  ‘We’re getting you to professionals,’ Mick said, taking her by her uninjured arm and leading her around the smashed light fitting towards the door. Sahara turned to Rose as she left, mouthing ‘thank you’. The camera crew followed them out.

  ‘Are you going to get her an ambulance?’ Rose said to Steph after the couple had left.

  ‘If he keeps kicking up a stink, we’ll have to.’ The producer rolled her eyes. ‘Leary will want to keep a lid on it, at least until they can cut a promo. But if Mick keeps complaining …’ She started towards the door. ‘At least you get the morning off,’ Steph said over her shoulder as she left.

  Without Mick and Sahara – or a camera crew – there wasn’t much point waiting around here. Rose followed Steph out into the court, then headed for the site office to find Moss the Boss and let him know what had happened. They’d filmed it all, so there wouldn’t be much debate about the sequence of events, but it couldn’t hurt to let someone in authority hear her side of the story in case Mick or Sahara started making some serious complaints.

  The nurse’s station was in a back room at the site office and from outside Rose could hear Mick yelling about wanting an ambulance, so she went in through the front door to avoid the drama. Cody’s office was empty; she must have been in the nurse’s station checking on Sahara. Rose could still hear Mick’s voice, but he sounded a lot calmer than he had earlier. Someone else said something that ended in ‘ambulance’, so presumably he’d gotten his own way.

  Walking back out the front door and onto Corona Court, Rose saw a handsome, dark-haired tradie hurrying towards the Muellers’. ‘Hey,’ Rose called, ‘do you know where Moss the Boss is?’

  ‘Not on site today,’ the tradie said, not slowing down. He was in his mid-twenties, and she realised she’d seen him around the court once or twice before. Josh, that was his name. He was one of the regular background tradies they used for the basic renovation work, and going by the wire strippers on his tool belt, he was an electrician.

  ‘Hey, hang on a second,’ Rose said, hurrying after him. ‘Why’s he not on site?’

  Josh stopped and turned to face her, an annoyed look on his perfect features. ‘He’s had his hours cut back. He’s only here now when they need to film inserts featuring him for the show, and that’s only maybe half a day a week. If you have any problems, take them to Cody direct.’

  She thought of Gino and George’s backyard, and all the holes they’d dug when they should have been working on the house. ‘So he’s been fired?’

  ‘Budget cuts,’ Josh said. ‘I guess they figure they don’t need a p
rofessional foreman on site any more.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Especially when we’ve got qualified staff like you handling all the heavy lifting. Didn’t I hear one of your contestants is being taken off to hospital?’

  Rose had a thought. ‘Weren’t you the sparkie who did the wiring over at Mick and Sahara’s place?’

  Josh flinched.

  ‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure I didn’t see a fan brace in the giant hole that fitting left in the ceiling,’ she continued. ‘Even Lightning Rod wouldn’t have agreed to wire it up like that. Maybe you’re the one with something to be worried about there.’

  ‘All that work was approved,’ Josh said.

  ‘Who by? I can’t imagine Moss the Boss would have signed off on something that dangerous.’

  ‘Leary himself came through after Mick and Sahara brought that light back from a shopping trip. He’s the one who approved the light fittings. Moss the Boss never even saw it.’

  ‘And I guess he never will now, hey.’

  ‘Look, he was already packing his bags when I got here this morning. He said they’d told him they didn’t have the budget to keep him on full-time now that the show has lost a sponsor and the ratings are bad.’ Josh waved an arm around the court. ‘This whole place is struggling. You know we’re actually using that Bad Bart’s gear they were stockpiling in the depot?’

  ‘I can’t believe –’ Rose said, then a loud yell came from behind her. She turned; a dusty-looking man was running towards them from the main road. Behind him a security guard was in hot pursuit, but the dusty man was fast; he nearly made it to the site office before he was grabbed and the pair tumbled to the ground.

  Rose and Josh watched as the couple rolled on the road briefly before the security guard managed to pin the man’s hands behind his back. The guard got to his feet, roughly pulling the man up with him.

  ‘Hey, I know you,’ the man shouted, looking directly at Rose. ‘You’re the Dog Girl! I met the Dog Girl!’ The guard dragged him away, not even acknowledging the two tradies.