by Mel Campbell
She was still trying to figure out if there was anything she could do with this information – she was pretty sure there wasn’t – when she rejoined Donald at the table. Lightning Rod had finally arrived, along with Josh, the dark-haired electrician who’d hung up the Sword of Damocles. That must have been everyone; Cody stood up directly in front of the food truck and banged a spoon against a metal cup until everyone fell silent and turned to her.
‘You’re all fired,’ she said loudly. ‘Effective immediately.’
The marquee exploded in an outraged hubbub.
‘This is bullshit!’ a tradie beside Rose shouted.
‘You can’t do this!’ another one yelled.
‘You suck!’ said a third.
‘You’re all independent contractors,’ Leary said, stepping forward to stand beside Cody. ‘Your work here is conditional on there being work for you to do. We’d please like you all to leave in an orderly fashion.’
‘We haven’t even started connecting the plumbing!’ Donald shouted.
‘If and when we need professional tradesmen again, your names will be at the top of our list,’ Cody said, raising her voice to be heard over the racket. ‘But for the foreseeable future, Mansions in the Sky can no longer afford a professional workforce.’
‘Please leave via Corona Court,’ Leary said loudly. ‘Don’t force us to have to call security.’
Grumbling and fuming, the tradies shuffled down the path from the food truck to the court. Rose was at the back of the mob; as the tradies at the front reached the court, she heard their grumbles turn into surprised conversation. And then she heard other voices.
When she reached the court, all the contestants were gathered there. They must have been able to hear Cody and Leary firing everyone, as they were clearly agitated. Rose looked for Dave; he was at the back of the group, looking down at the ground. Everyone else was glaring at the tradies. Rose had no idea what the contestants had been told to get them standing as a group waiting for the tradies to come out, but nobody looked happy about it.
‘Go on, get out of here!’ George shouted.
‘I can’t believe you’d do that!’ Karen Mueller yelled.
Rose was still looking at Dave, who couldn’t meet her eye. Behind him was a camera crew filming, guided by Steph the colour producer. Wait a minute, Rose thought, is this another setup?
‘You guys are bastards,’ Mick said. ‘Asking for more money when we’re repairing these houses for the homeless.’
Leary was moving through the tradies, urging them to keep walking. ‘It’s all for the show,’ he was saying quietly, ‘we needed authentic reactions. You’ll receive updates once you leave the set. It’s for the show, keep moving.’ The tradies were still grumbling, but they followed Leary’s instructions, still moving forward as the contestants kept shouting at them.
Leary reached Rose. He looked at her, but didn’t say anything. ‘This isn’t really an act, is it?’ she said. ‘I really am fired.’
He shrugged. ‘We’re cutting back.’
‘This is because I wouldn’t go along with your scheme, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You just wanted an excuse to fire me, and this whole thing is a setup.’
Josh overheard this. ‘No shit it’s a setup – how long have you been working in reality television?’
Rose turned to him. ‘Leary’s only doing this because he wants to get rid of me.’
‘Oh that’s fucking great,’ Josh said. He tapped Lightning Rod on the shoulder. ‘Looks like we’re getting fired because Little Miss Short-Shorts over here messed up.’
‘Fucking great,’ Lightning Rod said. He glared at Rose. ‘You just cost us our jobs.’
‘Some of you will be hired back,’ Leary said, ‘subject to requirements. Now if you’ll just keep moving toward the car park, Cody will let you know about those requirements.’
Rose broke away from the pack and hurried over to Dave. He saw her coming, but refused to face her. He turned and took a few steps back towards his house.
‘Dave,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Look at me. What’s wrong?’
His face was set, and she could see a muscle in his jaw working. ‘Why would you try to wreck the show? You know how much it means to me to be on here.’
‘I don’t want to wreck Mansions,’ Rose said. ‘It’s not like that at all.’
‘Then why are they firing you?’
‘It’s part of the show, that’s all. They’ll try anything for ratings.’
At last he met her eyes. ‘So you’ll be back?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Rose looked over at Michelle. ‘I think they want me out of here.’
‘Oh. Oh, that sucks.’
‘I’ll be okay.’
‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s not all bad news. It’s not like we could get up to much with all the cameras. And it’s only five more weeks.’ He smiled. ‘Will you wait for me?’
‘Of course,’ she said with a grin. ‘You promise me you’ll be careful.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’m really getting the hang of it here.’
A chill ran down Rose’s spine.
‘Seriously, really be careful,’ she said. ‘Just stick to the basics.’
‘Totally. I’m fine with the basics by now.’
‘Just please, be careful. I’m not going to be here to –’
He frowned. ‘To watch over me? I’m not a little kid.’
‘I know,’ she said.
He gave her a sad look. ‘You still don’t think I can handle myself?’
Rose took a second too long to reply. ‘Of course you –’
‘What kind of relationship have we got if you’re babying me all the time? We’ve got to be equals.’
‘We are equals,’ Rose said in a soothing voice. ‘We totally are. But this is my trade, and I’ve been doing it for years. I just know more about workplace safety than you. That’s not babying you.’
He didn’t seem to have heard her. ‘I’m not the kid who poisoned those people,’ he said. ‘I’m not the kid who thought he could do it all himself. I’ve come a long way since then.’
‘I know you have,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want to see you throw all that progress away.’
‘Maybe spending some time apart will be a good thing,’ Dave said, his hands clenched. ‘Maybe I need this time to show you that I can do this on my own.’
‘Dave …’ Rose said, tears welling in her eyes.
‘You’d better go,’ he said flatly. He turned his head. Rose took a step towards him, then stopped.
Behind Dave, Michelle was grinning. She lifted a hand and made a little ‘bye-bye’ wave. For an instant, rage flushed through Rose and she wanted to hit Michelle with a hammer, but the camera crews were still filming – if there was the slightest chance that she’d misread the situation, she had to keep her cool. That way they might let her back on the set – they might let her get back to Dave …
The other tradies were gone. Rose turned her back on Dave and followed them towards the car park. The other contestants had finished shouting, but they glared angrily at her as she passed. Whatever Leary had told them, it had really whipped them into a frenzy; presumably that was an important skill when you were a reality show producer.
He was the last person she had to pass before she left. She couldn’t look at him. If she saw his smug face she was going to slap him, and that wouldn’t achieve anything. Well, apart from making her feel a whole lot better. So she kept her hands clenched by her sides as she passed him, and she didn’t react when he leant in close to her and whispered, ‘Your usefulness has come to an end.’
At the car park Cody couldn’t look her in the eye; Daryl shook her hand and wished her all the best. It wasn’t until she was sitting in her ute that she realised why Leary’s parting shot had sounded so familiar: Mi
chelle had said something almost identical to her the previous day. The penny finally dropped. Whatever Leary’s plan was, Michelle was in it up to her neck.
Then Rose felt the letter in her back pocket, the letter she’d spent all night writing, which now Dave was never going to read.
She managed to hold back the tears until she was driving out of the car park.
Rose hit the nail on the head. She didn’t even stop to think; her hands moved automatically to set up and hammer in the next nail, and the next, until the cabinet she was working on had another shelf in place. Another three shelves to go, and then she’d start on the next cabinet. And then the one after that. And four more after that.
‘Nice job,’ said Old Steve, walking by with a plank under his arm, carrying it to join the rest in a stack against the side of his work shed. ‘You keep going like that and you’ll have my job in a decade.’
‘Only a decade?’ Rose said, not looking up from her work. Old Steve laughed.
Rose finished off another shelf, and took a moment to admire her handiwork. It was all coming together nicely. This morning there’d just been empty space; now there were rows and rows of shelves firmly fitted in solid brackets just waiting to be used. She liked making things; it took her mind off everything else.
When she’d returned home after being fired, she’d managed to hold herself together in front of her parents. It was never going to be a long-term job, she told them, and while another five weeks’ work would have been nice, the show was shedding sponsors and layoffs were inevitable. She’d find another job soon, she told them – in fact, she’d give Old Steve a call that afternoon. Then she went into her room, called up Nicola, and had a good cry as she told her everything.
‘He’s a jerk,’ Nicola said when Rose was finished.
‘He is a jerk,’ Rose sniffled. ‘I can’t believe we left it like that.’
‘Did you break up?’
‘I don’t know, I really don’t. I can’t see him for the next five weeks, so who knows how things will be by then.’
‘You can’t sneak onto the site and try to talk to him?’
‘Maybe I could have a couple weeks ago, but now those stupid fans have ruined everything. They said they’re going to hire back some of the tradies they fired, but I can tell I’m not going to be one of them. And the ones they will hire all hate me, so they’re not going to help. I just have to wait it out.’ She wiped away a tear. ‘It sucks.’
‘Are you still going to watch the show?’
‘No,’ Rose said defiantly. Then she hesitated. ‘Yes. I don’t know. I miss him but I’m mad at him.’
‘Maybe watching him make a dick of himself will make you feel better.’
‘And maybe it’ll make me panic. I don’t know. They’re not going to start showing the episodes after they fired me for a little while yet.’
‘They’ve messed up their timeline a bit,’ Nicola said. ‘That clip of you saving Dave is going to be in tonight’s episode when usually it wouldn’t be until next week – they’ve brought it forward. If their big ratings plan is to have the contestants do everything themselves, they might want to try to jump ahead and start using more recent footage.’
‘I guess,’ Rose said. ‘I hope he’s okay.’ She groaned. ‘But I’m not even going to know if he’s okay, because everything on those shows is fake.’
‘I tell you what,’ Nicola said, ‘I’ll watch the episodes and let you know if there’s anything you need to see.’
‘You’d do that for me?’
‘Babe, I love you. I’ll happily watch home renovation television for you until you feel up to it.’
‘I think I do need a break,’ Rose said. ‘Just to get my head straight.’
There was a banging on her door. ‘Are you nearly done?’ Renton yelled through the door. ‘This is interrupting my download of Last Train to Busan 2.’
‘I’d better go,’ Rose said. ‘I have to call Old Steve and get my old job back.’
‘Good luck,’ Nicola said. ‘Love you.’
‘You’re the best,’ Rose said, shutting her laptop and taking out her phone.
Old Steve answered the phone on the third ring. ‘How’s my favourite TV star?’ he said cheerily.
‘Could be better,’ she said. ‘I was wondering if I could … have my old job back?’
Old Steve let out a lengthy cough, and when he spoke again his voice was now frail and wheezing. ‘I think I can fit you back in,’ he rasped. ‘When can you start?’
‘The sooner the better. This afternoon?’
‘I’ll text you the address,’ he said, adding another quick cough before he hung up.
That was three days ago. She knew working for Old Steve was a step backwards, but if nothing else she needed the money; the pay for her week on The Dock had come through, but the Mansions money would still be a week or so away. Even put together, it still wasn’t enough to provide much in the way of savings after she paid her bills and expenses.
More importantly, work was a distraction, and distractions were exactly what she needed right now. She’d managed to keep herself from watching any of Mansions since she talked to Nicola, and Nicola had kept her updates to the bare minimum: Dave hadn’t killed himself; Dave looked sad all the time; the show had shown the footage where all the tradies walked out. As long as Dave was okay, that was all she needed to know. She wasn’t sure how seeing him on television would make her feel, and part of her was worried all she’d feel was anger.
Otherwise, she read. While she was busy being a television star The Earl in the Spider’s Web had been released and she was hungrily devouring that. And in a surprising twist, Renton – who’d actually been almost nice to her in the wake of all that’d happened – had left a battered paperback on her bed. The Consumption Trilogy: Book One of Four.
‘It’s about a love beyond love,’ he said, a little sheepishly. ‘My girlfriend said you might like it.’
‘You have a girlfriend?’ Rose said, trying not to sound too astonished.
‘Just online,’ Renton said. ‘She posts a lot to my site. We started taking our conversations somewhere more private and … you know how it is.’
‘No, and I don’t want to know. I guess I’m happy for you and …?’
‘Her handle is LoveSim3000, but I just call her … Sim.’
‘Well, I hope you and Sim have better luck than I’m having,’ she said, picking up the book. ‘Tell her I said thanks.’
The book was now in the cabin of her ute; she’d found it compulsive reading, even if the story of an immortal teen hanging out at a high school, doomed never to have sex, was fairly silly. And reading it during lunch meant she could avoid thinking of Dave without having to listen to Old Steve’s tales of repairing Lincoln’s log cabin … or whatever it was he was rambling on about.
‘Come on,’ he said, tapping her on the shoulder. She looked up from the cabinet she was working on. ‘Time to visit Gruntings. We’ve got to get some more chisels.’
‘Let me guess – to file down into screwdrivers?’
‘You’ll have my job in a decade.’
Old Steve let her drive. When she started her ute the Mansions theme song blared from the speakers; she’d managed to track down and download the original song they used as the theme. It was no wonder the version they used on the show cut off after the first verse; the hip-hop track’s second verse was a little less appropriate for a home renovation show:
Got my hoes, got my bitches
See my homies in the ditches
Pourin’ out a forty
For another dead shorty
Gonna see them when I die
Mansions in the Sky
‘Who’s this by?’ Old Steve said, the beats all but drowning him out.
‘Lil Perp,’ Rose shouted.
‘Not bad,’ Old Stev
e said. ‘I’m down with the music of today’s youth.’
‘It was the theme song to that show I was on,’ Rose yelled.
‘Must have cost them a fortune in licensing fees,’ Old Steve said. ‘Lil Perp’s a big name in hip-hop. He just put out a mixtape with Yung Crunk.’
‘Did you make that up?’
‘Hell no. Lil Perp’s got his own energy drink, Perp Burp.’ Old Steve looked out his window. ‘Gets me through life on these mean streets.’
It was a quiet time at Gruntings and they only had to park ten minutes’ walk from the main entrance. All the way there, Old Steve rambled on about the time he’d built a bandstand for either Glenn Miller, Steve Miller or a hip-hop act named Meek Mill. Rose nodded away and threw in the occasional ‘uh huh’. It’s like the last three weeks never happened, she thought. Maybe being on television was nothing but a sweet, sweet dream.
‘Rose,’ a vaguely familiar voice called out as they walked through the massive entranceway into Gruntings. ‘Is that you?’
Rose turned, half expecting it to be some dusty fan. Instead she saw Moss the Boss, pushing a shopping trolley full of electrical cables and plywood sheeting.
‘Hey,’ she shouted excitedly. ‘Moss the Boss! Or is it, um, just Moss? I’m realising I don’t know if Moss is your first or last name …’
He laughed as Rose hugged him tightly. ‘Moss is my surname. My first name’s Coz.’
Rose paused. ‘Coz Moss …’
‘It was my destiny,’ he said serenely. ‘My mum was psychic too, and she was certain this would be my name. When my dad asked her why, she said, “Just Coz.”’
‘I see,’ Rose said. ‘Anyway, how are you? What’s going on?’
‘I’m good,’ he said. ‘I heard about what happened at Mansions.’
‘Well, it happened to you first,’ she said. ‘Are you still going back to film your inserts?’
‘Yeah, but that’s it,’ he said. ‘They hired back three or four of the tradies, plus Lightning Rod – I assume they realised no one would believe they’d let the contestants do all their own wiring – but otherwise the contestants are all doing it DIY.’