This statement took less than a second to suck all the joy out of Lena’s smile.
‘What did you say?’
‘I have no idea if we have a vacuum,’ Gavin continued, unperturbed. ‘But I’m pretty sure there’s a few brooms out there too. Geez, it would be so good to have this place clean.’ He winked at Lena. ‘Like I said before. You’re a godsend.’
After that disaster of a first day, all Lena wanted was a cup of tea and a quiet evening alone. She needed a chance to regroup, maybe call Robyn, have a whinge. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen. Firstly, there was no mobile reception in the camp. And secondly, she had a dinner date with three hundred and fifty men who hadn’t seen a new female on site in months. It was going to be hard to keep a low profile. Being a female on site was almost like being a celebrity. Everybody knew her even though she didn’t know them. She’d been there just over two hours but word had spread like a cold on an aeroplane. By the time she walked into the mess, there were guys greeting her by name.
The mess reminded her of school camps. Trestle tables and plastic chairs were set up in neat rows across most of the room. The food was served buffet style, presided over by two male chefs.
As soon as she spotted Gavin, she made a beeline for him. Despite their earlier misunderstanding, he was the only person in the room she recognised. The sleazy grins being thrown at her from other tables were making her nervous. Better the devil she knew.
‘I have to admit,’ Gavin said as she sat down beside him, ‘after my mistake this afternoon, I thought I’d be the last person you’d want to sit next to.’
Some of the tension eased out of her body under his apologetic smile. He was, after all, still both good-looking and friendly.
‘That’s all right,’ she sighed.
‘Can we start over?’ He held out his hand.
‘Sure.’ Lena nodded, taking it. She needed a friend on site and if he was offering, she wasn’t about to turn him down. She really missed Robyn and it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet.
‘Hey, Gav,’ one of the other boys at their table interrupted, ‘you going to hog her or what?’ He – in fact most of them – winked at her.
Gavin grinned at the expectant faces. ‘Guys, this is Lena. Lena, these are the barge boys.’
The barge boys were friendly, abrasive and completely sexist. If Lena had been at a party in the city, she might have enjoyed the attention. But she had to work with these people and spent the next couple of hours constantly drawing the line. If only they didn’t keep stepping over it.
The experience certainly played a part in Lena’s decision to dress down the next day. She didn’t want to be constantly playing second fiddle to her sex. She wanted to be taken seriously as an engineer – gender irrelevant. The uniform shirt Mike gave her was a size small but hung loosely from her and she bunched it up so as not to over-accentuate her waist. Not that much waist was afforded by her oldest, droopiest pair of cargos. They’d do her until she could get some unflattering army pants of her own. She tied her hair back in an extra boring ponytail – too low to be bouncy, too high to be sophisticated. Then she doubled it over so her curls were hidden.
She refrained from make-up, which cost her a pang. But serious times called for a serious face, so she confined herself to lip balm and a SPF 15+ moisturiser. When she was done, she stood back from her mirror and smiled: plain, frumpy and utterly unworthy of a second glance.
Lena was so caught up in her drastic physical transformation that she missed her ride with the management team to site. Gavin told her they left every morning in a ute convoy at quarter to six. She’d have to catch one of the bus runs with the labourers – they started at six-fifteen and nearly everyone would be out by half past.
She regretted her slowness the second she saw the bus.
It was like high school all over again. They were hanging out the windows yelling expletives at each other, sitting by the wheels eating their breakfast or leaning on the back door having their last cigarette before the day began. When they saw her approaching the vehicle, their focus turned.
‘Oh ho ho, Lena is coming with us.’
The men leaning on the bus straightened, the smokers dropped their cigarettes and stomped them out. Then they all scrambled to get on the bus before she did.
Her heart sank. Plain Jane hadn’t worked. As she got closer, she wondered if it had made any difference at all. They were all speaking about her like she wasn’t even there.
‘She’s not gunna sit next to you. You smell like a pig’s arse.’
‘You think you’re any better, mate? They can smell your pits in the back row.’
Lena cringed as she put her foot on the step at the front of the vehicle. The driver grinned down at her.
‘G’day, g’day, g’day. Haven’t we got a special guest this morning?’
‘Hi,’ she said quietly. ‘Have you got room?’
‘Have we got room, boys?’
There was a chorus of ‘Bloody oath. Yes!’ and she heard the chaotic shuffling of bodies, pushing and shoving, and groans, followed by more expletives.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ the driver said. ‘Get on.’
Lena hauled herself up the step and stood at the top of the bus aisle.
Just remember, you’re doing this for your career.
She surveyed the situation. Technically, the bus was full. The seats that were available had been squeezed vacant by men who had pushed their mates onto the floor or up against the windows.
A man with a thick Scottish accent was yelling at the guy beside him. ‘Get up. Can’t you see the lass needs a seat? Over here, me darlin’. Plenty of room.’
Lena desperately wanted to crawl into herself. She took two steps forwards and sank quietly into the nearest seat, avoiding eye contact with the leering guy beside her. The driver started the engine just as a latecomer hopped onto the bus. Once more the bus fell into pandemonium. The men started stamping their feet and yelling abuse at him.
‘Fuck off, yer bastard! Can’t you see there’s no room! Get off!’
Immediately the seats that had been created for Lena filled as squashed bodies expanded.
‘Fuck yers!’ the latecomer cried out, giving everyone the finger before turning away and jumping off the bus to wait for the next run. The men all laughed at him and the guy sitting next to Lena nudged her in the ribs.
‘Don’t worry, love, I’ll look after ya.’
She smiled weakly and he grinned till she thought his teeth might pop out and smack her in the face.
Lena swore on her favourite handbag she’d never be late for the management ute convoy again.
On her sixth day on site, Lena realised her life had finally come down to two options:
1. Take it.
2. Leave it.
‘What’s wrong this time?’ Robyn demanded, when she made yet another emergency call to Perth from her dusty cubicle.
‘No one here will listen to me. My opinion is worth less than the new cleaner’s – and she just pushes red sand from one side of the office to the other.’
‘Maybe she should be using a vacuum instead of a broom.’
‘Robyn, focus.’
‘Okay.’ Her best friend’s voice was sulky. ‘But I really don’t know what you expect me to say that I haven’t said already.’
Lena sighed. She couldn’t exactly blame Robyn for being irritable. It was her third phone call to her in as many hours – only one down from her daily average. She knew she was being annoying but couldn’t seem to stop herself. Every time she heard Robyn’s voice, it was like getting a little slice of Perth back. It was balm to a battered soul.
She was just so homesick.
Homesick and angry.
Carl’s data entry job was anaesthetising her brain –
which wasn’t the only thing that needed a work-out. Her legs and arms ached from sitting in the same creaky chair for twelve hours straight, day in, day out. Robyn had told her to complain but who would listen? Carl was always out. Gavin was unreliable. And The Tone was everywhere.
Lena knew she was considered the dud they had all been lumped with. Foremen, painters, welders, boilermakers, scaffolders. It didn’t matter who they were. They didn’t trust her. She was like the child no one wanted to babysit.
A nuisance.
The two women in the office, whom she thought she could befriend, were polite but uninterested. They were both hired locally, didn’t live in the camp and already had their family and friendship networks firmly established.
Talking to Robyn was like coming up for air.
‘Robyn, I need you.’
‘You don’t need me,’ Robyn said. ‘You need to make a decision. Either take the punishment or come home.’
‘You know I can’t come home.’
‘Why the hell not? It’ll be much easier –’
‘I don’t want to take the easy road this time,’ Lena snapped. She gripped the phone cord tightly as she saw Kevin sitting across from her, his black brows drawn together in confusion. ‘But I thought this was what you wanted me to do.’
‘Lena? Lena? Are you still there?’
Lena blinked. ‘Sorry, Robyn.’
‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest anything. I only meant –’
Lena bit her lip. ‘I know what you meant. But I can’t come home because if I fail on the Pilbara it will mean Kevin was right.’
‘You can’t fail if you haven’t had a chance to do anything.’ Her friend breathed in sharply then added, ‘Listen, if you’re going to be stubborn about it then you might as well go all the way.’
Lena sat up hopefully. ‘All the way. What do you mean?’
‘I mean, rebel.’
Lena frowned. ‘What?’
‘Rebel,’ Robyn repeated. ‘Or come home. One or the other: just don’t ring me again until you’ve made a choice.’
‘But –’
There was some rustling of paper. ‘I’ve gotta go, honey. The boss wants me and she doesn’t look happy.’
Lena listened to the dial tone for a full ten beeps before slowly replacing the receiver.
Rebel.
How did she do that? Go on strike? Take a long lunch break? She snorted. That would probably be more torturous for her than anyone else. She generally ate lunch at her desk – there was no cafe just down the street or lunch bar across the road. The benches outside weren’t inviting either. The most comfortable option was to stay inside where the air was cool and the dust and flies didn’t blow into her food.
If she stole a ute and drove off down the beach, that might create a bit more of a stir. Not because she was missing, but because the car was. Carl and Gavin were always dashing off after some crisis – having a vehicle at the ready was essential to their daily routine.
But not her.
Why did they even bother to hire me?
Her hands curled into fists. It didn’t matter what their reasons were: it was her own agenda that counted. She had come to the Pilbara to see some real work and so far all she’d got was the four walls of a dirty office and hourly doses of sexual harassment.
She wanted to see the project. The real project.
The jetty.
She had heard some of the men calling it the wharf because it was so big – stretching over two and a half kilometres out to sea. It supported a conveyor belt that carried iron ore from land to the gigantic ships that were docked at the end of it. Barnes Inc was there both to extend and widen the wharf.
Her fingers drummed restlessly on the desktop, her mouth twisting as she chewed her dilemma. Maybe I’ll just go out by myself. Who’s going to stop me?
Before she could change her mind she stood up, walked to the kitchen and slipped out the back door when she was sure no one was looking. She grabbed a hard hat, reflector vest and safety glasses from an open steel container doubling as a supply room behind the office donga and then looked for transport. She knew there would be a bus waiting outside because she saw it there all the time. Every hour it left the site office to run errands and men down to the end of the jetty. She walked over to the stationary vehicle, determined to catch a ride.
She was prepared to meet with some resistance and was surprised to see a female driver with an inviting smile seated behind the wheel.
‘Well, hello there.’
Lena’s mouth dropped open. ‘Er . . . hi.’
The woman had short red hair and looked to be about thirty years old. Her eyes danced as though she knew in part what Lena might be thinking.
‘What?’ Her lips quirked. ‘You got a problem with a female driver?’
Lena put her foot on the step and her hands on the railing. ‘Not if you don’t have a problem with a female engineer.’
The bus driver jerked her head up with a grin. ‘All right, get on.’
Lena could tell already they were going to be great friends. ‘My name’s Lena,’ she offered as she boarded the bus.
‘I know. I’ve heard about you. Word travels fast.’
Lena rolled her eyes. ‘Tell me about it.’
The woman held out her hand. ‘I’m Sharon. I’m the sanest person you’re going to meet today. Are you ready for this?’
Lena took her hand and grinned. ‘I’ve been ready for six days. Let me have it.’
‘The Engineer has spoken.’ Sharon gave her a cocky salute as Lena found a seat behind her on the otherwise empty bus.
‘Not many people going out at the moment,’ Lena commented.
‘They’re already there,’ Sharon said over her shoulder. ‘Big day today: the first pile is going in. Just watch yourself. Everyone’s a little overexcited.’
‘Thanks for the tip.’ They fell into silence as they drove until Lena caught her first glimpse of the wharf.
‘Oh my,’ she breathed.
It was, in a word, magnificent. Lena knew how long it was, but nothing prepared her for the awesome power of it. She felt like a pharaoh looking at the pyramids. A rush rippled through her body.
From the shore, she couldn’t see the end of it. It just went on and on and on until it faded into the horizon. Due to the fact that it was standing at least five storeys above the ground, they had to drive up a steep embankment to get to the start of it. The deck sat on huge white cylindrical piles, set in diagonal pairs roughly every thirty metres.
The crisscrosses of the piles grew smaller and smaller to her eyes as the jetty weaved out like a giant centipede. She heard the hum of the conveyor before she saw it. It was moving almost as fast as the bus, pile after pile of iron ore, red and moist, on its black weathered length. Everything else – the road, the steel frames supporting the conveyor – was stained red. Iron ore had got into every nook and cranny.
This is why I became an engineer.
For this feeling.
The thrill reminded her of her first days at university, the newness of the material, the joy of first discovery, that itching to know more. It was a sensation that predated the mess that Kevin had made of her career and her confidence.
I want to get back to this.
Just this.
Lena heard Sharon laugh. It was only then that she realised she had her nose pressed up against the glass.
‘Would you like a tissue for your drool?’ Sharon asked.
Lena blushed and wiped her smudge off the window with her overlong sleeve. ‘I’ve just never seen anything like it. At least not up this close.’
‘Don’t worry, it gets me almost every day too.’
It took them at least ten minutes to get to the end of the wharf. Eno
ugh time for Lena to take in the sights, smells and sounds. The road on which the bus travelled was narrow. On their left there was about half a metre between them and a sheer drop straight into the ocean. On the right-hand side was the same gap between them and the moving conveyor. There were no guardrails, so Sharon definitely needed to focus. Lena panicked when she saw a car heading off the wharf, coming straight for them, until the redhead pulled them over into a turning bay. These were little areas where the jetty widened momentarily so that two cars could park on the side of the road while another passed.
‘People going off have right of way,’ Sharon explained, ‘though generally whoever is nearest to the bay parks and lets the other pass.’
Chaos reigned at the end of the wharf. Every available space was packed with men, equipment or amenities. There was barely enough room for five cars to park. The bus turned into the last remaining space.
‘I wait here for fifteen minutes,’ Sharon said. ‘After that, you won’t see me for a ride back till next hour.’
‘Okay.’ Lena nodded. ‘I think it’ll take me till then anyway.’
She knew fifteen minutes wouldn’t be long enough to explore. Small as it was, there was too much going on at the end of the jetty.
A temporary office had been set up next to the cars – another crusty white donga that looked like it had been just dropped there on the roadway. Next to it was a similarly temporary toilet block. Beyond that, the wharf ended. Someone had erected a guardrail along the very end – about time, thought Lena – and there were a bunch of guys standing there looking out over the water at some pretty impressive business.
Out on the ocean sat a barge about the size of a suburban house block. Only it wasn’t floating on the water. This thing had put down three large steel legs and was currently standing elevated over the waves like something out of War of the Worlds.
There was a control room on one side of the barge. On the other side, it had a giant clamp which held a long cylindrical pile, so that one end just dipped into the water. A crane situated on the barge deck was placing another cylinder over the pile like an enormous sleeve. Lena saw that this sleeve was supposed to somehow drive the pile into the ocean bed. The challenge the crane driver faced now though was getting the sleeve on the pile – it wasn’t a straight lift and drop because the pile was on an angle.
The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots Page 3