by Annie Seaton
‘Apartment with a water view?’ Connor closed his laptop and took the keys with a smile.
‘Yeah, in your dreams. More like a box overlooking a puddle. Anyway, welcome to Matsu.’ Jennifer smoothed her hands down her work trousers and shot him a shy smile. ‘If you’re ever at a loose end and want a coffee, give me a call. I live down in the staff village too.’
‘Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.’
‘Oh, I almost forgot.’ She turned as she reached the door. ‘Adam said to walk down to the staff mess after you get settled in your accommodation and he’ll meet you for dinner. He always sits at the table beside the coffee machine. After six he said.’
It only took a few minutes for Connor to find the ute matching the key number, throw in his duffel bag and briefcase and head back along the road towards the airport. The turn-off to the staff village was halfway along to the left. He crested a small hill and parked the ute next to another twenty or so identical vehicles.
The prefabricated buildings were situated in six rows from the top of the hill down to a large grassy area that surrounded a small swimming pool and tennis court. In an-L shape at the end of the pool, a building with a flat roof butted onto the pool enclosure. Connor assumed it was the staff mess. Collecting his bag, he followed the signs until he reached the end of the second row from the bottom. Apartments ten to twenty were in that row. Five minutes later, he’d stowed his bag and checked out the single bedroom, tiny bathroom and double sofa and coffee table that made up the accommodation. On a small table beside the sofa was the electric kettle and two cups with some packets of coffee, sugar and three tea bags, and small containers of long life milk. He shrugged. It didn’t matter; he’d be spending all of his time out on the site.
The walls of the donga pressed in on him—the room was too small to be called an apartment—so he pushed open the door and stood on the tiny covered landing at the top of the three steps. The night was quiet, with only the muted roar of machinery coming from the west where the mine was situated about three kilometres away. A movement below caught his eye and he watched as a tall woman strode to the edge of the pool and stood on the diving block. Slim and lithe, she barely made a splash as she broke the water. He watched her swim a few laps before he closed the door and headed down towards the building at the bottom of the hill. When he reached the mess, he turned as he heard the occasional splash from the pool. The lone swimmer was still there, turning gracefully as she reached the end and flipped over to commence her next lap.
Once you were off shift, he guessed there wouldn’t be a lot to fill your time at Matsu mine. He’d go stir crazy if he had to work in a place like this all the time. He shrugged again and turned towards the building behind him.
Hennessey was waiting for him where Jennifer told Connor he would find him. He stood and held out his hand.
‘Connor. I’m Adam Hennessey. Welcome to Matsu. Sorry I wasn’t around to meet you before.’
Connor shook his hand; Hennessey had a firm grip and held his eye steadily. He sat back down and picked up the large mug on the table as Connor pulled out a chair. ‘I’m just having a coffee and then we’ll eat. No after work beer here, unfortunately,’ he said.
‘Goes with the territory,’ Connor said as he pulled out a chair. ‘No coffee for me. I’ll grab a juice in a while.’
Hennessey grimaced and held his mug up. ‘It’s about the only thing keeping me going at the moment. We’ve been busy here over the past month. Bloody breakdowns across the site almost every day. Luckily I only have to worry about the security equipment. The mechanical engineers have had to address so many breakdowns, they’ve flown in another couple of engineers from Perth.’ He drained his coffee and put the mug on the table. ‘Things usually run like clockwork here.’
Connor’s nod was noncommittal. They chatted for a while and Connor listened as Adam dominated the conversation. Happily, he was a talker and it seemed he liked to talk about himself. Within minutes, Connor had heard about his wife and three children back in Brisbane, where he’d worked before and how happy he’d been to pick up the job here at Matsu.
‘How long have you worked here?’
‘This is my third year in the job,’ Adam said. ‘I usually love every minute of it, but the past couple of months have been particularly busy and I’ve put in longer hours than I like to.’
The door opened with a soft slide and a buzz ran through Connor when a tall blonde woman walked into the dining room.
Dru Porter. He recognised her immediately from the staff photo on the file John Robinson had given him. And, he now realised, she was the woman he’d seen dive into the pool. He stared at her for a moment and turned at Adam’s chuckle. He was looking at Connor with a smile on his face.
‘Good looker,’ Connor commented with a grin. He inclined his head over towards the counter where she stood reading the board. Dru Porter had to be over six feet tall. Her long blonde hair was damp and hung to her waist, brushing the top of her knee-length khaki cargo pants. Her calves were toned and when she lifted her arm to point to the board, the muscles flexed in the top of her arm.
A strong, fit and—he thought reluctantly—very attractive woman.
‘Don’t waste your time.’ Hennessey stared across the room with him.
‘Oh?’ His comment surprised Connor. For a moment, the jovial demeanour had slipped and there had been a slight tinge of hostility in Hennessey’s tone.
‘She’s not into men. Some of the staff say she thinks she’s too good for the rest of us. A few of the blokes have tried their luck but she always lives up to her nickname.’ He shook his head. ‘Or so the site gossip goes. Not that I know personally.’ Hennessey lifted his left hand and his gold wedding band flashed. ‘Like I said, I’ve got the noose around my neck.’ This time he laughed. ‘But I wouldn’t have it any other way.’
Connor nodded and looked away from Dru. ‘What’s the nickname?’
‘The ice queen.’
Connor turned back to the counter as Hennessey’s phone buzzed on the table.
He watched Dru Porter chat to the kitchen hand while Adam took the call. Moments later he hung up.
‘Damn, we’ve had a video freeze up in the processing plant. A quick feed and it’s back to work for me.’
‘Jennifer said you had a problem with a camera earlier today?’ Connor probed. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Mate, if I knew the answer to that I wouldn’t be working the long hours I have been. Cheap Chinese shit. You’d think a company making mega dollars could spend some of it on decent gear, wouldn’t you?’
‘You would.’ Connor nodded and tried to sound sympathetic. ‘And boy, that could impact on my job too. If there’s second rate equipment on site.’
Adam looked at him curiously. ‘With all the recent breakdowns I guess that’s why we’re having a safety audit.’
‘Yep, safety. That’s my brief,’ Connor replied.
Chapter 5
Having showered after her swim, Dru stood at the blackboard in the staff mess hall reading the pearls of wisdom that someone had put up above the day’s menu.
‘Every now and then, go away have a little relaxation, for when you come back to work, your judgement will be surer. Go some distance away and then the work appears smaller . . .’
‘Soup or pasta bake, love?’ Jeff, the chef, held the ladle over the hot food in the bain-marie.
‘Leonardo da Vinci?’ She pointed to the loopy chalk writing on the board.
‘Huh?’ He screwed his face up before he glanced up at the board and read the credit beneath the quote. ‘Oh, apparently it is. That’s one of Julie’s quotes. She was raving on before about restoring harmony or some such thing when she wrote it up this morning.’
‘Good advice for a two-week on, two-week off workforce though. Serve the others while I decide.’
Dru looked at the hot food laid out in front of her. It smelled appetising but her stomach was still roiling with worry. Should she listen t
o Megan and go back to Dubai on her two week break next month? How could Megan and Sam possibly stay by her side the whole time? It was their wedding, for goodness sake. Maybe she could fly in one day, and fly out the next? Megan was a good friend, but to do a twenty-eight hour return trip like that in a couple of days was stretching it. Jeff interrupted her thoughts.
‘What’ll it be?’
She slid her tray along towards the refrigerated area at the end of the counter. ‘Got any salad left?’
Jeff pulled open one of the fridge doors that ran the length of the stainless steel bench. ‘You’ll need more than salad in your stomach if you’re joining up with that lot over there tonight.’ He nodded towards the small group of men sitting at the table in the far corner of the large eating area. ‘Can’t tempt you with the pasta bake?’
‘No thanks . . . and why more than salad?’
‘Poker night, isn’t it?’ He winked as he handed over the salad. ‘To soak up the alcohol.’
Dru shot him a puzzled smile. ‘Alcohol-free worksite, Jeff. Salad will be plenty to go with my coffee.’
‘Sure it will, love.’ He winked again as he turned back to the kitchen. ‘I’ll give you a yell if I see the new bloke heading across to you.’
‘New bloke?’
‘The work safety guy. That’s him over behind the coffee station with Adam. Not a good first impression if he springs you drinking. Not to mention the cigar fumes if those blokes light up. I’ve already spoken to that bloody Rocky. They’ll be escorted off site before you can snap your fingers.’
Dru threw a quick glance across the room. During her site induction, Adam Hennessey had tried his best to entice her to join the social activities down at the mess. There was always something being organised—‘Corporate Wellness’ was the catch cry. In the time she’d been at Matsu, organised activities had ranged from walking and jogging groups, a baseball team and a touch football team. For the more sedentary workers, there was yoga, darts and pool competitions and cooking classes.
In nine months, the only team she’d joined was Rocky’s poker game and that wasn’t one of the formally organised activities. She preferred to work out alone, and her daily swim kept her fit, as did the kilometres she walked around the site each shift.
Dru placed her bowl of salad on the tray, then added a bread roll and crossed to the coffee machine. She’d be no good in tonight’s game without a good kick of caffeine. Jeff was wrong about the alcohol; the poker games might sometimes be loud and raucous but they weren’t fuelled by alcohol. A group of hard-working men—and one woman—letting off some steam didn’t need alcohol to relax them. Besides, getting caught with alcohol on the mine site—whether it was in the working areas or in the staff mess, or even in the privacy of the staff accommodation—meant instant dismissal.
Hitting a double shot of espresso to fill her cup, Dru took a sip and waited for the buzz to flood her system.
‘Hey, Dru!’ Adam called across to her from the table closest to the coffee machine.
A ripple of unease ran through her when she turned. The new guy was staring at her intently. She straightened her shoulders and stared back as his eyes held her gaze without wavering. The guy’s expression was hard to read and she lifted her chin as her own eyes travelled slowly over him—more for her own confidence than any interest.
What was it with these guys who had to prove themselves? Another one who objected to a woman in what many men considered should be an all-male worksite. In the couple of years since she’d graduated, Dru had come across sexism in the workplace on more occasions than she could count, although Matsu was nothing like what she’d experienced in Dubai.
She was not going to be the first to look away. His mid-brown hair was sun-tipped and neatly cut, and the short back and sides framed an angular, chiselled face. The short-sleeved collared shirt and navy tie stood out like a sore thumb in the mess where the workers usually wore hi-vis tinged with a layer of red dust. As she continued to stare, his lips lifted in an appreciative smile but it didn’t reach his eyes. It wasn’t helping her equilibrium one little bit that his eyes reminded her of Zayed’s. A different colour but the same intensity, the same look that said ‘I know what you are thinking.’
How dare he? Well, by the look on her face, he’d know that she was thinking he was crossing the line with his stare and his smart-arse smile. She stood there until it became too uncomfortable to take it any longer. Her heart was pounding and her temper fired. How could she let one simple look get her into this state?
Finally she was the first to look away. Gripping her tray tightly, she took the few steps to the table and ignored the rude newcomer. ‘Hello, Adam.’
‘I thought you were off to Darwin. Wasn’t your two week roster up today?’ Adam’s grin was welcoming. He was a stocky man with fair-skinned ruddy cheeks, and even though he always had a friendly greeting for her, she’d tried not to get involved in conversations. ‘I thought I’d missed you.’
‘I’m staying on.’ Dru balanced the tray as she stood there avoiding looking at the new guy. ‘We’ve got some new procedures coming online this week and I wanted to be here to supervise.’
‘No wonder I can’t keep up with who’s around. Rosters are non-existent here.’ Adam stood and shook his head, his grin getting wider. ‘Anyway, I wanted to ask a favour.’ He reached over and took the tray. ‘Here, let me take this for you. You’re heading across to the poker game, I guess?’ He gestured with his head across the room.
‘Yes, I am. Thank you.’ Dru frowned when he turned back to the table.
‘Sorry mate, how rude of me. You don’t know Dru yet, do you?’ Adam looked from one to the other. ‘Of course you don’t! You only arrived today and you’ve been locked up doing your induction.’ Adam balanced the tray on one hand as he turned back to her. ‘Dru Porter, meet Connor Kirk.’
Dru nodded silently as he pushed his chair back and stood.
‘Hello, Dru. Pleased to meet you.’
‘And you. Welcome to Matsu.’ She turned back to Adam. ‘Why did you want to see me? Is there a problem with my section?’ There’d been a few meetings recently. ‘Another meeting I need to know about?’
‘No, nothing like that. All good.’ He grinned at her and his eyes crinkled. ‘I have a personal favour to ask.’
‘Personal?’ Dru wondered what he could mean.
Adam followed her as she headed to the table where the poker boys were waiting for her. She glanced back. Connor had sat down and was looking at his phone. Since Dubai, her comfort zone meeting new people had hit rock bottom and he’d made her feel very uncomfortable.
‘What I wanted to ask you—’ Adam’s phone beeped and he put the tray down on the table and turned away. ‘Excuse me.’
Dru waited while he took the call.
‘I’m on my way.’ Adam disconnected and shoved the phone into his shirt pocket. ‘Sorry, Dru. I have to run. Good to know you’re around for the rest of the week. I’ll catch you later.’
‘Okay. I’m leaving next Friday.’
‘I’ll call by and see you before then.’ Adam nodded at the others. ‘Enjoy your game. Playing for cattle stations again?’ His laugh boomed around the room and Dru was aware of the new guy’s interest as he watched them.
‘Yep, high stakes game tonight.’ Rocky Cardella waved the cards in his hand as he grinned. ‘Don’t think coffee’s going to give the queen the edge tonight, Adam.’ Rocky nudged the guy sitting on his left as Adam hurried away. ‘Thinks she’s the queen of the card table, doesn’t she, mate.’
Dru pulled out a chair. ‘Hey, guys. Good to see you all too.’ She sat down and reached for her coffee as she looked around at the motley crew. Rocky’s dark curly hair was sticking out in tufts as always, and his T-shirt was stained where he’d spilled something down the front. A pile of gambling chips lay in the centre of the table. Gary was tapping his fingers on the table as he waited for the game to begin. Dave and Liam were both glued to their phones but there was
no sign of Paul, the most serious member of the group who made sure no one cheated.
‘And yep, I’ll keep my crown, until—what was it you yelled through my door before, Rocky? That’s right, I’ll be keeping it until someone whips my butt.’ She forced herself to smile as she lifted her damp hair from her neck, letting the cool air circulate on her overheated skin. Normally she braided her waist-length hair because it was so hot in the desert heat but she’d washed it in the shower after her swim and was letting it dry. She’d plait it later, before her shift tonight. Reaching into her pocket for her lucky shade, she pulled it on over her loose hair, more at ease now that she was with people she knew. Her heart rate had settled down and she took a deep breath.
Dad had taught her to play poker and she’d taken his lucky shade and put it in with her school things when the house had been packed up soon after he’d died. Dad had spent a lot of time with Dru and her sisters when they’d been growing up on the farm. He’d taught them to drive an old bush bomb in the flat paddocks by the river in their early teens, and he’d taught them all to drive the tractor. Ellie had been his apprentice farmer, Emma had loved being in the kitchen with Mum, and Dru had been his card-playing mate at night.
Dru’s poker nights with Dad had been hers alone. Lifting her cup, she closed her eyes and let the precious memories steal over her as she sipped the steaming coffee.
‘Finished your maths homework, love?’ Same question each time, and she’d nod and pick up the cards and head for their card table outside. Nights like that Dru had felt special, even though they all knew Ellie was Dad’s favourite. Funny, she could still picture Emma sitting in the swing chair reading, but Ellie didn’t figure much in her memories. Maybe because they’d had such a difficult relationship since Dad had died.
Dad had been the master of the poker face and he’d taught her well out on the enclosed verandah where they’d played cards most nights. In the wet season, the rain had drummed on the tin roof and made it a cosy place to spend time with Dad.