No Job for a Girl Read online

  Feeling like an intruder, Leah heaved the suitcase down the step, cursing when it rammed hard against her shins. She reached in and turned off the light, pulling the door closed and leaving the key in the lock as instructed.

  Later, lying in bed after a hot shower, exhausted but wide-eyed, Leah tried to remember if there’d been any other photos on the desk. A woman, maybe, the twin’s mother, Alex’s wife? Of course he’d be married and his wife would be gorgeous. She closed her eyes, l­istening for the vague rumble of the generator and the occasional distant burst of laughter from the wet mess, finally dropping off to sleep when she heard the door next to hers click shut.

  At five thirty the following morning Leah walked across the compound to the mess. Although her steelcapped boots were months old they still felt stiff and clumsy; they pinched at her toes and no amount of wear would break them in. Stars twinkled overhead. A lighter band of sky on the horizon pre-empted the sunrise. The air was cold, and sweet with dew. She stopped, sucked in several slow, deep breaths, smiling in the pre-dawn light.

  ‘Morning, Leah,’ came a sleep-roughened voice from behind her. She turned to find Jason Roberts, also heading for the mess.

  ‘I could murder a coffee, or two,’ he said, yawning and tucking in his shirt. ‘One too many beers and not enough sleep.’

  ‘Let’s hope you don’t have to blow in the bag at the pre start.’

  Jason grinned, elbowing her as they walked along side by side. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Always am.’

  Leah’s eyes turned heavenward and she quickened her step to make sure she reached the door of the mess ahead of Jason. Otherwise he’d most likely do the gentlemanly thing and open it for her. While working at the wind farm, another male-dominated workplace, she’d learned to avoid situations that provoked special treatment because of her gender. To some men these courtesies came naturally, to others not, and the rest were embarrassed because they were never sure what they should do.

  The atmosphere inside was warm, thick with the smell of cooked bacon, fried eggs, coffee and toast. Leah’s mouth watered. She picked up a plate, filled it and popped two slices of bread into the industrial-sized toaster next to the bain-marie.

  ‘I’ll have a couple of pieces,’ Jason said, coming up alongside her. He held his hand out for her plate. ‘I’ll get the cutlery and find us a seat.’

  Leah glanced around the crowded dining room. ‘Okay,’ she said.

  The food was good and there was plenty of it. There wasn’t much talking going on, heads bent over laden plates and mugs of steaming coffee. A kitchen hand was busy refilling the stainless steel trays of bacon, eggs and beans.

  Ben had explained to her the day before that there were five camp staff at any one time: the cook, maintenance man, camp manager and two campies, as they were known. The campies were the cleaners and laundry hands, and they helped out in the kitchen, t­aking it in turns to do breakfasts.

  ‘Morning, gorgeous,’ Frank Ballard said and slid into the recently vacated seat opposite Leah, grinning widely.

  Leah gritted her teeth. ‘Good morning, Frank.’

  Jason laughed around a mouthful of toast. ‘Jeez, Frank, there for a second I thought you were talking to me.’

  Leah concentrated on spreading peanut butter onto the second slice of toast.

  ‘I’m gonna pack my lunch,’ Jason said, stacking his dirty crockery. ‘You know you need to do that, Leah, if you’re going to be out on the line during the day.’

  ‘Yeah, Ben told me yesterday. I’m going out there this morning, but my plan is to be back before lunchtime.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Jason picked up his dirty plates. ‘I’ll catch you later, gorgeous,’ he said and winked at Frank, bumping him on the shoulder.

  ‘You wish,’ Frank said, a sour expression marring his handsome face. Jason laughed and went to the servery where loaves of bread, tubs of butter and sandwich fillings were laid out for workers to make their lunches. A huge roll of cling wrap and a stack of paper bags sat at one end, and fresh fruit was piled into large plastic bowls.

  ‘Sleep well?’ Frank enquired.

  ‘Mmm, I did, thanks. The rooms are very comfortable.’

  Frank raised his eyebrows and started in on his bacon and eggs. When Leah had finished her toast she stacked her plates and stood up.

  ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Why don’t you come to the bar tonight? I’ll buy you a drink.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘that’s kind of you. But if today is anything like yesterday, I’ll need another early night.’

  Some of the warmth leached out of Frank’s expression. ‘Maybe another time,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe.’

  She picked up her dirty dishes and dumped them on the trolley. A quick scan of the mess told her Alex wasn’t there. Either he’d slept in, didn’t eat breakfast, or he was at the office already. She’d put money on the latter.

  ‘Have you unlocked the bowser yet?’ Ben called as she headed towards the door. ‘Blokes will want to be fuelling up.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ she said, waving her bunch of keys in his direction. The night before, on her way to dinner, a torch wedged in her armpit, she’d stumbled around the fuel cell in the dark working out where everything was. She didn’t want to look like she didn’t have a clue on her first morning.

  There were four vehicles already lined up and she gave the drivers a wave as she went to unlock the gate. Gloves, she thought, as she inexpertly dealt with the bulky padlock, I need to find a pair of work gloves or my hands will look as bad as Phil Landry’s.

  When she let herself in the back door of the office, Phil was at the urn making a coffee, wet hair plastered to his skull, reeking of supermarket aftershave.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, his voice rough from his first cigarettes of the day.

  ‘Morning, Phil.’

  ‘The cleaner always turns the urn on first thing if you want coffee.’

  At the sound of Leah’s voice, Dee appeared in the doorway of the contractor’s office. Phil opened the bar fridge under the bench.

  ‘There’s no milk,’ he grumbled and Leah went to the grey cupboard against the opposite wall and passed him a carton of long-life milk. Dee glared at her from the doorway.

  ‘Good morning, Dee,’ Leah beamed back at her. ‘I missed you at dinner last night, and breakfast this morning.’

  Dee glanced at Phil and blushed, then disappeared into the office behind her. Phil coughed, over-stirring his coffee until it spilled onto the sink.

  Alex raised his eyebrows when she walked into their office. ‘Don’t tell me you’re upsetting Dee this early in the day?’

  ‘Who, moi?’

  Alex’s gaze dropped back to his computer screen but Leah could see his lips twitching. She plonked herself down in the chair, turned on the computer and began printing off the paperwork she’d need for the inspection of Ballard Earthmoving’s excavator. For some ridiculous reason, being able to make Alex laugh made her want to smile.

  Every morning, come rain or shine, a pre-start meeting was held at six thirty. When the weather was fine everyone congregated around the chairs and tables outside the wet mess, otherwise they met inside. It was here workers were briefed on anything relevant that had ha­ppened the day before and the activities planned for that day.

  As safety advisor, Leah would need to be up to date on which contractors were on site, what the road and weather conditions were, the forecast for that day, and any traffic management issues, like the movement of water carriers, prime movers hauling steel to build the transmission towers, or any heavy plant moving along the single-lane roads. Although it was winter, the desert was dry and dusty and the sun glare made driving conditions hazardous.

  ‘I’ll take the meeting this morning if you like, seeing it’s your first official day on the job,’ Alex said to Leah as they passed the camp office on the way to the wet mess. As site supervisor he chaired the pre start, but it was the safety advisor’s rol
e to open the meeting and provide most of the content. ‘You can take the lead tomorrow.’

  ‘Thanks. In view of yesterday’s accident, I can give a quick spiel on slips, trips and falls, if you like,’ she said, meeting his quick sideways glance.

  ‘Okay, if you’ve got something prepared. And remind the blokes there’s no smoking within 6 metres of any camp buildings. Some of the smokers seem to forget that, especially outside the bar. Have you got today’s permits?’

  ‘Yep,’ she said, as they made their way through the already crowded tables and chairs in front of the wet mess.

  Alex didn’t waste any time. He called the meeting to order and Leah passed around the attendance sheet. When Alex told them she’d come to replace Steve Simons, one of the men called out, ‘Bloody good thing too. She’s a lot better looking,’ and everyone laughed. Everyone except Alex.

  ‘Thanks for that, Bob,’ Alex said, ‘but I expect you all to give Leah the respect she’s due while she’s working here. And if I hear of anyone taking liberties they’ll answer to me. Any troublemakers will be out of here faster than they can blink.’

  Leah’s glare was hot enough to singe the side of Alex’s face but he didn’t even glance in her direction. And her skin crawled when she heard Frank Ballard say to the man next to him, ‘That’s because the prick wants to take liberties with her himself.’

  She stepped forward, cleared her throat and said in a voice sure to carry to the back, ‘Thanks for the intro, Alex. And all I’ll say about my gender is, remember this, male or female, it’s me who’ll patch you up in the unlikely event you injure yourself or get sick. And it’s me who decides who blows into the bag. So don’t piss me off.’

  That got a round of applause and a smile tugged at the corners of Alex’s mouth when Ruby yelled from the steps in front of the mess, ‘Go Blondie! You tell ’em, luv. And tell ’em not to forget who feeds ’em, and not to piss me off either!’

  The remainder of the meeting went without a hitch. Leah del­ivered her five minutes on slips, trips and falls and the crowd dispersed to go about their day’s work.

  But the moment Alex strolled into their office behind her, Leah rounded on him. ‘Although I appreciate the sentiment of what you said when you introduced me, I don’t need you or anyone else looking out for me. In case you hadn’t noticed, I can take care of myself.’ Leah had been taking care of herself since her mother died when she was fifteen, and for long before that, truth be known.

  Alex’s expression hardened. He closed the door and she almost flinched under his cool regard.

  ‘Let’s get this out in the open now. If I had my way, women like you wouldn’t be in places like this. There are already enough issues to deal with. I’ve made my feelings about this quite clear to Paul Prentice. I know what some of these men are capable of with a skinful of booze, and there is no way I want to be the one writing an incident report and contacting family because my female safety advisor has been sexually harassed, raped or assaulted.’

  Leah’s mouth opened but nothing came out, so she closed it, waited a moment and tried again. ‘What exactly do you mean by “women like me”? You don’t know anything about me. How am I any different from Ruby the cook, or Stacey the cleaner?’ She paused. ‘Or Dee Furniss?’

  Alex held up his hand. ‘Oh no, good try but I’m not buying into that argument. No way.’

  ‘And while we’re on the subject, what’s Paul Prentice got do with any of this?’

  Alex’s mouth thinned into a tight line. ‘I’ll only say this once, Leah. I don’t care how good you are at your job or what strings were pulled to get you here, any hint of trouble and I’ll be on that phone and, whether Paul likes it or not, you’ll be out of here so fast it’ll make your head spin.’

  This time she was genuinely speechless. Pull strings to get here? Paul said they were desperate, asked if she’d consider it. She had, finally deciding the experience would be fantastic. The wind-farm project had been winding down and she’d needed more experience, not unemployment. But had she wanted to leave her home empty, her dog with a neighbour for weeks on end, her friends high and dry? Had she wanted to be on probation for three months, when she’d already proved her capabilities? No, she hadn’t.

  Alex glared at her and she glared right back, but she didn’t even feel an iota of satisfaction when he was the first to look away. With an angry hiss she dropped her papers onto her desk and grabbed the accident report kit and keys to her vehicle.

  ‘I’m going out to finish yesterday’s accident investigation and the vehicle inspection. I’ll be back in time to do the safety induction for the new men coming in this morning.’

  Alex moved around his desk and sat down. ‘I hope you know where you’re going. Don’t forget to keep your UHF radio on and report in along the way.’

  ‘Yes, I do know where I’m going, thank you very much. I’m f­ollowing Jason Roberts out.’ She wrenched open the door and threw him a haughty look, then tripped over her own feet and almost went sprawling.

  ‘Bloody clodhoppers,’ she cursed, face hot with humiliation. She was convinced that it didn’t matter how long she wore them, she’d never get used to these steelcapped boots.

  The sky was clear, the early morning shadows long as the sun laboured above the horizon. Out in the open, a stiff southerly swirled dust. Leah shivered, wishing she’d grabbed the jacket left hanging on the back of her chair to put over the long-sleeved t-shirt, shirt and high-vis vest she already wore. But no way was she going back into that office while Alex was there.

  True to his word, Jason was waiting beside his vehicle in the almost-empty car park. The pre start over, everyone had headed out to where they were working for the day. Only the few camp staff remained.

  ‘Ready? Do you want to go back and get a jacket first? You might need it.’

  ‘No, I’m good. Thanks for waiting.’

  ‘I’ll open the gates, and you can close them. Keep back far enough so you’re not eating all my dust but, whatever you do, don’t forget to shut the gates or the station owners will be on to us, and then you’ll have the wrath of the boss to deal with.’

  ‘Okay. Message received loud and clear.’ Leah was still smarting from experiencing the wrath of the boss already that morning. She unlocked the 4WD and climbed in, pleased the vehicle was the same make and model as the one she’d driven at the wind farm.

  Leah concentrated on the road. She tried to remember everything she’d learned in the defensive-driving course she’d taken, radioed in when they travelled into each section and kept Jason’s vehicle in sight. Still Alex McKinley managed to dominate her thoughts.

  The man had a bug up his backside about something. A woman was more likely to be assaulted walking home on her own in the city than she was in a place like this. Steve had said the man was always fair, but the jury remained out on that one.

  Leah wondered whether Alex had been sent a copy of her c­ontract and, if he had, whether he’d bothered to look at it. Was he aware she was on probation? He had to be. As her immediate boss it was his feedback that’d make or break her. She groaned. She’d have to try harder around him, keep her mouth shut. Ignore the fact he was another sexist dinosaur. With Alex McKinley and Cameron Crawley against her, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

  It took the best part of an hour to drive out to where Ryan Greene’s injury had occurred. They’d headed due south from the camp, the opposite direction they’d driven in from Nickel Bluff the day before. The road was rocky and rough with the occasional drift of red sand. Then there’d been all the gates to close.

  The last few kilometres took them along a track off the main road, their final destination being the site where bore number two had been sunk and the portable cement-batching plant was being established. Thousands of cubic metres of cement went into the footings for the huge transmission towers, and to make that cement the contractor needed thousands of litres of water. Bore water was also used to wet down the roads as they were being built.
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  Leah parked her vehicle beside several other weary-looking utes. She put on her hard hat and walked across to where Jason stood near the edge of the newly excavated dam crater, hands on his hips.

  ‘They’re chucking out rocks big enough to puncture the lining,’ he said. ‘Sometimes, if it’s really rocky, they spread a load of sand before the lining goes in. Not that bad here so they haven’t bothered. The drilling contractor has sunk the bore and equipped it with the pump. As soon as the lining’s in and pegged down, we can fill it.’ Jason pointed to two men working on the other side of the dam. ‘Blokes are building a barbed wire fence around the dam to keep the cattle and the kangaroos out.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any cattle yet but I figured there was a reason for the fences and gates.’

  ‘They’re about. Down the track there are a few cattle grids. Makes a change from the gates.’

  ‘I’d better get on with it. I take it that’s the excavator Ryan was operating over there?’ Leah gestured towards the huge track-mounted machine only metres from the edge of the dam crater, and Jason nodded.

  ‘Has any one of these men got a ticket to operate it? I need to do an inspection after I’ve finished the accident investigation, and I’ll need someone to put it through its paces.’

  ‘Terry Burns does. I’ll send him across. He’s a grumpy bastard but a good operator.’

  ‘Thanks, Jason, I really appreciate your help.’

  ‘No worries. How long do you reckon you’ll be?’ He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘We could use an extra pair of hands to drag the liner in.’

  ‘Sure thing. I’ll be here about an hour. Give me a yell when you’re ready.’

  Leah took the digital camera from the accident-investigation kit and walked around the excavator snapping a series of photos, including any evidence of the alleged cause.