The men at the end of the jetty were signalling the men on the three-legged barge with hand signs and radios. Lena was suddenly very conscious of the fact that she had no reason to be there. She hung back trying to remain unnoticed. But this was hard to do considering she was the only woman within a five-kilometre radius.
‘Hey there, missy – you lost?’
She turned her head to a mischievous-looking man standing on her right. He was short, blond and well burnt by the sun. He tipped his hard hat. ‘How’d a nice girl like you end up in a dump like this?’
She laughed. ‘Same reason you’re here.’
‘Ah,’ he sighed. ‘The money is like a drug. The more you get the more you want.’ He stuck out his hand. It was as red as the clothes he wore so she grasped it only briefly.
‘The name’s Leg.’
‘Leg?’ Lena repeated. ‘As opposed to arm?’
‘That’s right.’
‘How’d you get a name like that?’
‘My name’s Bob Legg, you see. So the boys just call me Leg.’
‘Oh.’
A second man joined them. He looked like a monkey with skin as brown as his hair, big cocoa eyes and an agitated swagger. She noticed the harness he was wearing and realised that he was a rigger . . . swagger thus explained. ‘People call this guy Radar.’ Leg indicated his friend with his thumb.
‘G’day, mate,’ said Radar.
‘So is your last name Radar then?’ Lena asked the monkey as he shook her hand with gusto.
‘Nah.’
Leg grinned. ‘Radar got his name from being the site gossip. There isn’t anything this guy doesn’t know. Picks it up on his radar, so to speak.’
Immediately Radar fired his first questions. ‘So you single then? Boyfriend? Married?’
Leg nudged him disapprovingly and Lena laughed. ‘Doesn’t waste any time, does he?’ Leg groaned.
‘No,’ she agreed.
‘So you didn’t answer my questions then.’ Radar was nothing if not persistent.
‘I’m not available,’ Lena returned in a tone that she hoped sounded like irrefutable fact. She was now glad that she’d run into the Cape Lambert gossip. Best the men knew exactly where she stood right from the start. ‘I’m here to get some good experience in the field, nothing more.’
‘And I’m sure you will.’ Radar winked at her in a way that made her certain they weren’t talking about the same sort of experience.
Leg clocked him on the back of the head. ‘Be nice. Can’t you see she’s a lady? Sorry, mate: Radar will have it all over camp that you’re single by nightfall and not in the way you’re hoping.’
Lena sighed. ‘Maybe I better go then, before he gets anything else out of me.’
‘Go where?’ He pounced as she turned away.
Lena turned back slowly. ‘I’m just taking a look around. I’m the new site engineer, you know.’
Leg stepped back in hammed-up reverence. ‘Ooooh, an engineer. I make my humble apologies. I didn’t mean to question your divine mightiness.’
Despite herself, Lena chuckled.
‘Madame Engineer.’ Radar sketched her a mock bow. ‘And what do you know about jetties?’
The truth was nothing, of course. Even if she didn’t question the legitimacy of her own degree, she would still be a graduate engineer. And that generally meant two things. Zero experience and a lot to learn.
She knew that.
They knew that.
But she sure as hell wasn’t going to admit it point blank and walk right into the trap they had obviously set for her. So she said with perhaps more confidence than she felt, ‘Enough to be here. I’ve actually just come out for a look, to see what you guys were up to –’
‘And perhaps give us a few pointers.’ Leg raised his eyebrows mockingly then looked at Radar, who was chuckling and tapping his nose. Lena was hard pressed not to bang their cheeky heads together. But she held her ground.
‘I can hardly give you any pointers until I’ve seen what you’re up to.’
Fortunately, they relented and led Lena to the temporary-looking guardrail at the very end of the existing jetty.
‘Today,’ Leg explained, ‘once we get the hammer on, we’re going to drive a pile.’
Ah. The sleeve had to be the hammer, as Lena had thought. Excitement curled in her belly as she realised she was going to see it in action. She had made the right decision. The Pilbara could give her back all that she had lost.
Energy.
Confidence. Innocence.
She heard footsteps behind her as a new masculine voice joined them at the rail.
‘So what’s the update?’
Leg and Radar glanced over her shoulder at the newcomer and she saw their grins fade. Curious, she spun around.
The first thing she noticed about the new guy was that he wasn’t wearing a Barnes Inc uniform. The second was that he was drop-dead gorgeous, tall and broad shouldered. His features looked like someone talented had taken a hammer and chisel and carved them out of his face. As he turned his dark head and met her eyes she realised that, three hundred and fifty workers or not, he knew she was brand spanking new.
And for reasons past understanding, he wasn’t pleased about it.
‘Who are you?’ His magnetic gaze cut through the air between them, making her insides fizz like Coca-Cola.
‘I’m . . . I’m Lena.’
His impassive expression swept her body from head to foot before turning to Leg and Radar who were shuffling on their feet behind her. They stopped moving the second his gaze touched them.
‘What is she doing on the wharf?’
Lena’s euphoric mood faltered. ‘Er . . . excuse me,’ she said. ‘I can speak for myself.’
But he continued to talk to Leg, who was being anything but helpful. ‘You can’t just bring your admin staff out here for a stickybeak; it’s too dangerous if they haven’t had the safety induction. Besides,’ he added with a glare at Lena, ‘it’s not a damned tourist spot.’
All her joy disappeared. ‘How dare you make assumptions about me?’
He raised one black brow. ‘Have you had a safety induction?’
She blushed. ‘No, but –’
‘Then I suggest you go wait for the bus. You shouldn’t be here.’
‘But I –’ Lena began, but was cut off by the loudest BANG! she’d ever heard in her life. The wharf trembled slightly under her feet and she heard the crash of a wave hitting the piles beneath the deck. As she swayed unsteadily the stranger reached out and caught her by the shoulders. Another loud BANG erupted from the piling barge. She put her hands over her ears.
‘Geez,’ she muttered.
‘You silly girl.’ He released her shoulders and retrieved a small plastic packet from his pocket. He held it in front of her face and Lena realised they were foam earplugs. As she removed her hands from her ears to take them, another BANG crashed over her head. Hastily, she ripped open the packet and shoved the plugs into her ears. She looked around and noticed for the first time that everyone had them in.
BANG!
Lena could still hear the hammer loud and clear. The ear-plugs just took the edge off.
Now that her comfort had been somewhat improved, curiosity took over. She stared up at the hammer. It was obvious how it worked: a heavy weight moved up and down inside the sleeve. As she looked over the railing at the base of the pile, she could see fish rising out of the water. They were floating on their bellies around the pile base, stunned by the vibration.
Her fascination was no camouflage, however. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to find Mr Tall, Dark and Obnoxious still glaring at her. And someone else had joined him.
It was Carl Curtis. Her boss had picked this of all moments to
finally make himself available. Shame impaled her as Carl crooked his finger. He walked her back to the bus; Sharon was about to leave. Blood pulsed behind her eyes.
So much for her rebellion.
So much for earning respect.
All she had done was show Leg, Radar and the smart aleck with the earplugs how to be humiliated in public.
‘I’ll see you back at the office.’ Carl dismissed her and then left. Lena’s fingers curled into fists as she stood there watching his retreating back, cursing him and the stranger who had led him to her. But she obeyed. After all, it was one thing to talk back to some random, but she couldn’t very well tell her boss to go to hell. No matter how much she wanted to.
‘That was quick,’ Sharon commented as she got on the bus. ‘I thought you were going to stay the full hour.’
‘So did I.’ Lena grimaced. ‘Something came up.’ Like it always did just when she thought she was getting ahead. It took all her willpower not to just scream. She quickly turned away to contemplate the view out the window.
‘Hey,’ she heard Sharon say, ‘if they’re giving you a hard time –’
‘No, no.’ She deliberately kept her voice even and expressionless. ‘I’m okay, Sharon, really.’
Convincing herself of that took the rest of the drive back to the office. Not that she achieved much work when she got there. She was too busy counting the minutes till Carl returned to yell at her.
She knew the second he walked in the door because she felt a gust of hot wind on the back of her neck, shortly followed by a loud door slam and the stomping of boots.
‘Todd, my office. Now!’
Everyone in the room heard. All eyes followed her progress to his door. Of course they pretended not to notice, shuffling their papers loudly as she passed their desks, feigning absorption in whatever task they were doing.
Yeah right. They were enjoying her humiliation – had probably been waiting for it.
Once standing in front of Carl’s desk, she was transported back in time to her high school principal’s office. Only, instead of detention, she was facing outright expulsion. Rationally it shouldn’t have been a bad thing. She should be happy that she was about to be ejected from the place she thought represented hell on earth. But going home would be failing. And if there was one thing she couldn’t do, it was fail.
Carl’s first words startled her back to the present. ‘What the fuck were you doing out there?’ He was standing behind his desk with his hands on his hips.
She racked her brain for an excuse and decided she might as well give him the truth. After all, what privileges did she have to lose? ‘I needed a breather.’
‘What the fuck?’
He took off his helmet and flung it on his desk. There was a giant band mark across his sweaty forehead from the plastic strap inside the hard hat. The comical crease distracted her for a second and she found herself biting back a laugh.
‘You think this is funny?’ he demanded.
Lena sucked in her cheeks. ‘No.’
‘Don’t you know you’re not allowed out on the wharf without a fuckin’ safety induction?’
Something broke in Lena’s brain. He’d left her sitting in his fuckin’ office for six days straight doing a job a monkey could probably do blindfolded. She crossed her arms. ‘No, Carl, I didn’t know that. Why should I? You never bothered to tell me. No one has.’
‘Don’t try and pin this shit on me.’ He pointed a finger at her. ‘You shouldn’t have been out there and you fuckin’ know it.’
She gaped at him, her indignation growing like a hot air balloon being filled. ‘With all due respect, Carl,’ she said, ‘yes, I should. I was sent here from Perth to be a site engineer. And instead I’ve been nothing but a prisoner in this office for the last six days. If I needed an induction, you should have given me one on my first day. So yes, I blame you.’
‘Prisoner, my arse.’ Carl rolled his eyes. ‘There’s no need to be so fuckin’ melodramatic.’ He pulled back his chair and threw himself down on it. The action caused a number of loose papers to fly up and then settle again.
Lena put her hands on the edge of his desk and leaned forwards. ‘I can’t do this any more, Carl. I can’t stay in here, day in, day out and play with your database. It’s a waste of my . . .’ she faltered, ‘degree.’
Carl didn’t appear to notice the strange inflection in her voice. His eyes flicked to hers. ‘No shit. So why didn’t you tell me this before you went fuckin’ walkabout?’
‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days; you’re never here.’ She threw up her hands as her courage returned. ‘Besides, it’s common sense. What does an engineer from Perth come here to do?’
He snorted. ‘You forget that you’re also young, female and fuckin’ inexperienced.’
‘Believe me,’ she said through her teeth, ‘I’m never allowed to forget it.’
At that point she spun on her heel and headed for the door. There was no way she was having an emotional breakdown right in front of him. Clearly she was going to get nowhere with him anyway. She might as well go back to her donga and pack instead of wasting more time. If she was going to be sent back to Perth, she’d much prefer just to get on with it.
‘Hold it, Todd.’ Carl’s voice rang out sharply from behind her. ‘We’re not finished yet.’
Lena stopped walking but didn’t turn around.
‘You want me to admit I fucked up. Fine. I fucked up. I should have sent you for a safety induction.’
She turned back slowly. His surrender was so unexpected that she didn’t trust it and scanned his eyes for mockery.
‘Sit down and we’ll figure out what to do with you.’
Lena still didn’t believe it and continued to stand there speechless. Men never admitted they were wrong – at least not in her experience. Things couldn’t be that different on the Pilbara, surely.
Carl grinned. ‘For fuck’s sake, Todd, sit down. You’re giving me a crick in my neck.’
A little devil prompted her to test the limits of his benevolence. ‘Do you always swear so much?’
‘What the fuck are you talking about? I never swear.’ Carl looked down and became absorbed in his right thumbnail.
She laughed, partly in amusement but mostly in relief, and ventured back to his desk.
His eyes snapped up from his hands to her. ‘If you were hoping for some bullshit apology about my French, you’re barking up the wrong tree. A man doesn’t change, and especially not for some female with an identity crisis.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Pardon granted,’ he grunted. ‘Now, for fuck’s sake, sit down.’
Grinning, Lena plonked herself in the chair opposite his. ‘Okay, I’m listening.’
‘Did you see much out there today?’
‘Not really,’ she began. ‘I saw them banging the first pile in but you told me to go away before they’d finished.’
‘We drive piles, Todd, we don’t bang them in.’
Heat scorched her skin. ‘Right. Yeah. Of course.’
His lip twitched suspiciously before he continued. ‘At this stage, we’ve got the piling sorted. Gavin’s looking after that and that’s not where I need an engineer.’
He folded his arms on the desktop. ‘I need you to widen the jetty for the second conveyor.’
‘What?’ Her mouth dried. Lena had been expecting responsibility but not this much.
‘Not running scared, are you, Todd?’
‘No.’ She shook her head immediately, though her palms had begun to sweat.
He spun on his chair and stabbed a finger at October on the calendar behind him. ‘You have five months. Don’t disappoint me.’
She felt adrenaline pump from her heart to her temple. Had she just dug her own g
rave and jumped into it?
‘However,’ Carl added severely, ‘you will not be setting foot on the wharf again until you’ve had a fuckin’ safety induction. The amount of fuckin’ excuses I had to pull out of my arse this morning because that dickhead saw you fuckin’ around was un-befuckin-lievable.’
Lena was momentarily diverted. ‘Excuses?’ she retorted. ‘To who? Not that jerk I met on the wharf. He wasn’t even in uniform.’
‘That’s because,’ Carl told her with awful patience, ‘he’s the bloody client.’
‘I’m not a gynaecologist, but if you have a need, I can take a look at it for you.’ The guy who had spoken raised his stubby in a silent toast. His friend leaned forwards with a slow cringe-worthy wink.
‘That goes double for me.’
Lena shuddered, turned away and kept walking. Raucous laughter followed her down the gravelled path.
The worst part about camp, she decided, was evening drinks. Six o’clock, when everyone went back to their dongas to chew the fat and drink a carton. They congregated in groups of five or six, sitting on the concrete steps in front of their tin rooms-for-one. Usually boots and pants were substituted for shorts and thongs. Lena could have joined any number of these groups if she wanted to. Invitations flew out across the yard, loudly and daily. But she didn’t like the way some of the guys got when they were drunk. Brave was one way to describe it. Sleazy was probably more accurate. Besides, Lena wasn’t big on beer. She thought there was a reason they called it piss. In her opinion it tasted worse than awful. Even when Party-Girl had been her middle name, she hadn’t managed to acquire the taste. Kevin had come along in her third year and also had a preference for wine. She’d thought it was another great thing they had in common. Looking back now, she realised how desperate she’d been to justify their relationship. It was a beverage, for goodness sake, not a sign of compatibility.
The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots Page 4