The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots (19 page)

‘Not always.’ She frowned.

‘Have you two had a blue or something?’

‘Sort of.’ She hunched her shoulders miserably. What on earth was she going to do if she and Sharon never made up? She would give talking to her another shot. Sharon had to miss her.

Didn’t she?

‘What did you mean the other night when you said you thought I would be good for something?’

Crap. Now he’s perceptive.
She’d forgotten she’d said that in the heat of the moment. She couldn’t seem to get anything right. If Sharon knew she’d almost betrayed her confidence as well, she’d never swim out of these deep waters.

‘Lena, don’t go quiet on me.’

She cleared her throat. ‘Didn’t mean anything by it, Gav. Let’s just drop it.’

‘Yes you did.’ To her alarm the car seemed to slow down. ‘Is this why Sharon and you aren’t speaking – because of me?’

Lena looked heavenwards. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken, excitement in his tone. ‘Makes sense. I mean no wonder you went so mental after I kissed you, given she saw it and everything.’

‘Concentrate on the road, Gavin,’ Lena instructed, desperate to distract him. Much to her relief the car sped up again and he seemed to grip the steering wheel with more focus. Lena relaxed in her seat, feeling like she’d dodged a bullet.

‘She likes me, doesn’t she?’

And then copped a hand grenade.

‘You wish,’ she threw at him, glancing at his face only to discover he was grinning like Pooh Bear with his paw in a honey pot.

‘I mean, she’s not a bad-looking chick, is she? I kind of like the whole red hair thing she’s got going on.’

It was clear he just wanted some female attention. Didn’t matter who it was. ‘With that attitude, you’ll get nowhere with her,’ Lena said before she could stop herself.

His eyes sparkled with triumph as he briefly took his eyes off the road to look at her. ‘So she
does
like me.’

‘If she did,’ Lena retorted, ‘she’s definitely wised up since then.’

‘Well, maybe I’ll ask her out.’

Lena’s heart sank but she tried to make out that it made no difference to her. ‘Whatever.’

In the end, Gavin’s attitude and his upcoming courtship of Sharon were the least of her worries. When she got to the office and tried to contact Mike on his radio, he simply wouldn’t pick up. He was definitely out there. She knew he could hear her. He was just deliberately not responding. She figured it must be his new tactic. After all, she’d given him a free week to come up with something different. She really should have expected it.

In any event, she was just getting ready to launch herself into figuring out a way to install the trusses when something unexpected happened.

The men decided to go on strike.

It was money issues of course – the whole ‘we’re not getting paid enough for working twelve-hour shifts, not seeing our families and living in a box’ beef.

Carl’s reaction was ‘What the fuck?’

Harry, Lena noticed, got the brunt of the yelling. Carl wanted reports from him immediately that would predict how far behind they’d get if the men stayed on strike for three days and then how far behind after a week. And after two weeks. Basically, it was all bad and the management team had to get
negotiating with the workers quickly. This was pretty difficult given all any of them could really get out of Carl was ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.’

Lena returned to camp that evening feeling gutted. How could she ever get ahead? It was simply useless. Far easier to win a starring role in a Hollywood blockbuster than get the jetty built.

She hadn’t seen Sharon all day either and looked out for her at dinner, but her friend wasn’t in the mess hall when she arrived. Harry was though. She took a seat beside him and they were able to catch up. She also gave him Sarah Michaels’s number.

Harry finished up after twenty minutes and left. Lena was just about to do the same when Sharon walked into the room. Their eyes met briefly and for a second it looked like the redhead was about to come over. But then she turned away and strode towards the buffet. Lena let out a breath. That short contact had given her hope. Sharon looked both sad and weary. Her lively eyes had definitely lost their sparkle. Could it be that she was just as miserable?

Lena watched her put a pitiful portion of shepherd’s pie on a plate before going in search of somewhere to sit. In a daring move, she hailed her. Sharon looked up in surprise, mixed with uncertainty. After a slight hesitation she slid into a seat at Lena’s otherwise empty table. ‘Hi,’ she offered tentatively.

‘Hi.’ Sharon licked her lips. ‘So how was your R and R?’

‘Fine. How was yours?’

‘Good.’

An uncomfortable silence followed; it was about a minute before Lena gathered her courage and spoke. ‘Sharon, I hate this. How can we make it right?’

Sharon put her fork down. ‘Lena, I feel terrible.’ She looked up, her expression an exercise in guilt. ‘When I came back from R and R, it was all around camp about you dumping Gavin at Crossing Pool and then Radar told me everyone knew now it was all a scam anyway and you were never together –’

‘Sharon –’

‘No, I treated you appallingly. When I think about how I left you all alone at Point Samson to get home on your own, I just want to slap myself. Can you ever forgive me?’

‘Can
I
forgive
you
?’ Lena was incredulous. ‘What about me? I was such an idiot! I had no business trying to fix you up with Gavin. I’m the most naive woman on the planet when it comes to men. And I proved it too by totally messing up and hurting you in the process.’

Sharon’s bottom lip wobbled. ‘No, no, I’m the one who should be apologising.’

‘Too late, because I’m sorry first.’

‘But it’s my fault all this happened,’ Sharon protested. ‘If I hadn’t asked you to help me get to Gavin –’

‘No, it was my idea to set you two up in the first place.’

As they both realised what they were doing, twin grins stretched across their faces. And suddenly Sharon laughed. ‘Okay.’ She picked up her fork again. ‘You’re right. It’s totally your fault.’

‘What?!’

Sharon’s lips twitched. ‘For being such a caring, wonderful person and wanting to help people all the time.’

Lena breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I wouldn’t go that far. But, Sharon, I really am sorry.’

‘So am I.’

‘Can we please make a pact?’

‘What sort of pact?’ Sharon cocked her head to one side.

‘Never meddle in each other’s love-lives.’

‘Done.’

They both reached across the table and shook on it. Their camaraderie thus restored, Sharon immediately launched into a catalogue of her most pressing complaints. There was a scaffolder who was making unwanted overtures, the airconditioner in her donga kept cutting in and out and the kitchen had served nothing but mince- and potato-based
dishes since Lena left. Lena sympathised and threw her own gripe about Mike out there for debate, but already her future was feeling much brighter.

The next day Lena went into work as usual but had to knock off after half a day due to the fact that Barnes Inc had no men on the job. The strike was still in force and it was left up to Carl to do the hard-nosed negotiating.

Lena borrowed a company ute. It was one of the few times they were readily available. She and Sharon took off for the afternoon on their own little adventure. They’d heard good things about the Point Samson yacht club, and so decided to go there for a late lunch and a look-see.

Lena wasn’t impressed. Despite the fact that it was called a yacht club there were no boats, no green grass and no landscaping. Rather, it was a tin shed with an old mast erected in the ground beside it.

‘This is what the locals have been raving about?’ She looked incredulously at Sharon, who was shielding her eyes against the sun to take in the view.

‘There’s gotta be a catch,’ the redhead muttered in response.

And there was.

The food! Lena nearly died when she tasted it. They didn’t cook seafood this good in heaven. She feasted on giant prawns, top-shelf fish and bugs. Having never eaten a bug before, she was rather fascinated by the things and also a little afraid of them. They were a cross between a crab and a crayfish but basically looked like giant red cockroaches. After hesitating for half an hour, she eventually tucked in and found the flesh delicious.

‘So,’ Sharon said as she tore off a piece of her own sea urchin, ‘you never said what you got up to on your R and R.’

Lena shrugged. ‘Not much, really.’ She grimaced. ‘To be honest, I spent a lot of my time trying not to think about what was going on back here.’

Sharon grinned. ‘You’ve got the Pilbara under your skin.’

I’ve got more than the Pilbara under my skin
, Lena thought sheepishly as she reflected on her meeting with Dan’s lawyer. Out loud she said, ‘It’s like I want to be here and I don’t. I can’t seem to make up my mind.’ She paused. ‘What brought you to the Pilbara, Sharon?’

‘Are you kidding me?’ Sharon’s eyes widened. ‘I’m a bus driver. I get paid three times as much being out here than I do in Perth. I don’t have a family or a boyfriend. So it’s easy. This is the third outback project like this I’ve worked on. They’re almost addictive after a while.’

Lena nodded as she de-shelled a prawn. ‘I guess.’

‘You guess what?’ Sharon looked at her carefully. ‘If you’re not here for the money, then what are you here for?’

Lena averted her eyes. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to confide in Sharon so soon after their reconciliation.

Sharon let loose a low whistle. ‘Well, well, well. I don’t know how we all missed
that
.’ She laughed. ‘Radar will be delighted.’

‘Delighted about what?’

‘Bulldog’s not the only one with a secret.’

Lena gasped. ‘Sharon, please don’t put Radar on my back.’

Her friend’s eyes reflected her concern. ‘Of course not, I was just teasing. What’s the matter? I’m not going to tell anyone.’

She hesitated and Sharon immediately put up a hand for silence. ‘Look, don’t worry. I shouldn’t have pressed you. You don’t have to tell me about it if it makes you uncomfortable.’

Surprisingly it was this statement that made Lena want to tell her. ‘Well, the thing is . . .’ she licked her lips ‘. . . my engineering degree is kind of illegitimate.’

Sharon choked on her crab. ‘It’s what?!’

‘Not to the university,’ Lena made haste to explain. ‘They think it’s all hunky-dory but in reality . . .’

She explained her affair with Kevin and how her presumptuous ex had thought fit to fix her marks for her.

‘So what did he teach you?’

‘Two core subjects.’

‘Over how many years?’

‘Two. It’s basically almost half my degree.’

Sharon paused, then asked, ‘Did he say by how much he changed your marks?’

Lena shook her head. ‘He didn’t give me any details and, to be honest, at the time I was too distressed to ask.’

‘Well, don’t you think you should have at some point?’ Sharon frowned. ‘For all you know it could have been one subject one time. It’s ludicrous to waste all this angst over nothing.’

Lena wrung her hands. ‘I don’t want to see or speak to him again.’

Sharon sighed. ‘Lena, that’s not going to solve anything.’

‘That’s what my friend Robyn thinks but, you know, I
am
doing something about this. I’m out here proving myself and my degree.’

‘You’re –’ Sharon broke off. ‘So this,’ she waved her fork in a circle, ‘being here, taking all the crap that you do, is about proving you can do your job.’

Lena lifted her chin. ‘Yes.’

‘Not that I don’t enjoy having you around,’ Sharon said, laughing, ‘but personally, I think it would be much easier to report that professor of yours to the university and get him kicked to the kerb.’

‘And risk losing my degree? I don’t think so.’

Sharon frowned thoughtfully. ‘Fair enough: you don’t want to do that. Though anybody with half a brain can see that you make a good engineer.’

Lena perked up at her words, her back straightening in her chair. ‘You really think so?’

‘Of course. You’ve come up with some great ideas, you know how to handle the boys, and Carl thought enough of you to give you the huge responsibility of widening the jetty.’

Lena’s heart sank again. ‘Well, I haven’t done it yet, have I? There are still heaps of steps to go. God knows what half of them should even be! We’re also still so far behind in terms of the schedule.’

‘Well, I think you’re way too hard on yourself,’ Sharon said firmly.

Lena responded with a weak smile. The thing was, she knew Sharon meant well and her support was definitely a help. But like Robyn, she wasn’t an engineer. She didn’t really know what Lena was supposed to have achieved by now. People like Bulldog were critical of her methods and Carl’s attitude to her, as much as she liked him, was mostly impatient. She hadn’t proven she deserved her degree yet.

Not by a long shot.

Sharon shrugged. ‘Well, even if you don’t believe me, I’m here for you.’

‘Thank you,’ Lena said. ‘Actually, I have another confession to make.’

‘What’s that?’ Sharon looked up.

Lena winced. ‘I kind of almost told Gavin that I thought you two would be good together that night at Point Samson. He figured it out and now he’s got it in his head that you like him. I tried to dissuade him the other day but . . .’ She paused. ‘Has he said anything to you?’

Sharon coloured up like a tomato but shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Well, maybe he’ll wimp out.’

Sharon bit her lip. ‘What should I do?’

‘Do you still like him?’ Lena held her breath.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then do nothing,’ Lena advised. It was certainly going to be her policy from now on. She knew to suggest anything else could only lead to trouble. ‘Wait and see.’

‘Okay.’

‘In the meantime,’ Lena lifted her empty plate, ‘let’s have seconds.’

Sharon nodded enthusiastically. ‘You’re on.’

Monday morning Barnes Inc managed to cut a deal with the unions and the strike ended. Lena launched herself back into work with a vengeance. The skid had slipped back to five per cent behind and starting truss installation was becoming urgent. Therein lay Lena’s next problem.

The crane on the skid could only lift five tonnes and the trusses weighed eight tonnes each. Finding a bigger crane was definitely her next task. However, she decided to deal with the communication problem between day shift and night shift first. She figured she could speed things up at least another two per cent if people had their facts straight.

With this in mind she hit the jetty to have a chat to a few site supervisors. Mike was singularly unhelpful which came as no surprise. So she caught the bus to the end of the wharf to see what was going on there. Unexpectedly, Gavin’s men were also less than friendly.

‘It’s their fault not ours,’ was the general consensus.

They were full of protests but not much in the way of solutions. Apparently, just the day before, day shift had installed and painted a beam that night shift had NDT-tested and found
faulty. So in the end, night shift had to uninstall the beam, strip the paint off (a painful task) and have it sent back to the yard to be repaired. The site supervisor in charge of the whole scenario had been so enraged by the incident he’d gone ballistic and erected the mascot Lena found in front of the wharf office. It was a scarecrow of sorts made out of two brooms. It had a hard hat, dust mask, and safety glasses for a head and face. An orange reflector vest was stuffed full of rags for a body with safety gloves tied to the ends of the broomstick for hands. A large white sign had been erected beside it, on which the supervisor had written in black Texta:
Communications Coordinator, special skills: Deaf, Dumb and Blind.

While his meltdown was pretty funny, he had hit the nail right on the head – the project needed someone who actually had the role of gathering and transmitting information from one shift to the other. She couldn’t believe no one had realised this yet. At the moment, there was no such person or persons and everybody was delegating that job to everybody else.

She got out her clipboard and revisited all the supervisors she had just spoken to, this time telling them that Barnes Inc was thinking about getting communications coordinators. She asked them what sort of information they would need to have relayed. This time they were much more helpful. By the end of an hour, she had at least thirty items on her list without even going back to Mike.

Lena was just about to go wait for the bus when she saw Dan striding across the deck. It was the first time she’d seen him since returning from R and R and, as their eyes met, her feet stalled and her heart rate automatically rose.

He was not so incapacitated and came forwards to join her.

‘Welcome back.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Did you have a nice break?’

She was unused to small talk with Bulldog of all people, but cleared her throat and stated confidently, ‘Yes I did.’

A gentle breeze brought his aftershave to her as they stood there sizing each other up. What was on his mind, she had no idea, but there seemed to be something because he wasn’t moving on. She had a lot of questions too. Ever since her meeting with Sarah Michaels, she had wanted to know everything. What it was he had witnessed, why he’d chosen Sarah to represent him, why his brother was dead, why had he told his lawyer Mark had died and the most curious of all, why did she remind him of Mark?

‘Listen,’ he cut into her thoughts, ‘I heard about what happened with you and Gavin at Crossing Pool and it got me thinking.’

Of all the things she had expected him to say, this was not one of them.

‘About what?’

He paused, his expression serious, pensive even. ‘If someone on site seeks to take advantage of you like that, you should report it. If not to me, then to Carl.’

A wry smile curled her lips. ‘Are you talking about sexual harassment?’ Trust Dan to turn an apology for misjudging her into professional advice.

He nodded.

Involuntarily, she laughed. ‘Dan, if I reported every guy who tried to take advantage of me like that, I’d be here till the cows come home.’ With a casual shrug, she turned away. ‘But thanks for the thought.’

Before she could start walking, he put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Wait.’

‘What for?’ She tried to pull away.

But he steered her towards the office donga. Once inside, he tossed his clipboard and hard hat down on the trestle table and turned to face her.

‘Lena,’ he put his fist into his palm, ‘this is not something to joke about. I’m serious.’

‘I know you are,’ she responded with a sigh. ‘You just need to trust me. Let me handle things my way.’

His mouth twisted sceptically. ‘And how’s that been working out for you so far?’

‘Well, actually.’ She lifted her chin.

He shook his head. ‘I know you don’t want to rock the boat but there is no shame in asking for backup.’

‘Dan, I’m fine.’

‘For the moment.’ His eyes sparkled dangerously as he straightened. His gaze strayed to the window as he sucked in a breath between his teeth. ‘But life sometimes has a way of getting out of hand. Don’t try and take it all on by yourself. Things can go wrong in an instant and you’ll never get the time back.’

He looked down then, as though trying to banish an uncomfortable thought. He wasn’t just thinking about her unwelcome advances any more.

‘Dan, what is it?’

Silence.

She took a risk. ‘Is this about your brother?’

His gaze snapped up to hers, his face white like she’d just slapped him. ‘What do you know about my brother?’ ‘You said I remind you of him.’

‘I wouldn’t get too pleased about that.’ His left hand went into his hair. ‘He was reckless, stubborn and completely unreasonable. I could never get through to him.’

‘Oh.’ She nodded, a little disappointed but not surprised that his reason was critical rather than complimentary. ‘You must still miss him, though.’

‘I must still . . . what?’ He looked up sharply.

Oh crap.

‘I just meant . . . I mean . . . you know, since . . .’ She trailed off.

‘Since he died,’ he finished for her, his eyes narrowing like twin lasers. She swallowed hard as he advanced towards her. ‘Who told you that?’

‘I-I can’t remember.’

‘Bullshit.’

It was the first time she’d ever heard Dan swear. And unlike Carl’s frequent expletives, this single word gave her goose bumps, and not in a good way. He was always so businesslike, so professional. She must have really shaken him up.

‘There are rumours flying around site all the time.’ She made haste to save the situation. ‘Can you blame me if I can’t remember who says what?’

‘This bloody team has an unnatural obsession with my personal life,’ Dan growled bitterly. ‘Why can’t they leave well alone?’

‘Maybe they care.’

‘Maybe they just want something to gossip about.’ His eyes raked her body in a way that made her feel like he’d just ripped off the top layer of her skin. ‘Although, I hardly think chatting about a graduate who died at work would make very good light entertainment.’

She covered her gasp with her hand. ‘He – he died at work?’

‘Oswalds needed some machinery inspected at a lumber mill and Mark was sent there. Let’s just say an accident occurred.’ He squeezed out the final sentence between his teeth and she felt the second layer of her skin burn away and sweat break out on her brow, particularly because she thought she finally understood something dreadful.

‘Oswalds: wasn’t that the company you used to work for?’

‘Yes,’ he hissed, picking up his hard hat and putting it roughly back on his head. But there wasn’t just anger in his voice any more and, as she looked into his face, which suddenly wore the expression of someone who had been to hell and back many times over, she knew exactly what he was going to say next before he said it. ‘I was his manager.’

She pressed her hand to her chest to ease the sudden ache behind her sternum. Fragments of conversation came back to her, scene slices from her memory piecing together to make perfect horrible sense.

Mike telling her smugly on the skid, ‘You may not be so lucky getting Bulldog to agree to this idea. Is it safe?’

Her asking Dan about his family in the laundry. ‘Why wouldn’t they need you?’

Sarah Michaels across the desk from her. ‘Then I’m also sorry for your loss.’

Dan on the drive home from Point Samson. ‘Oswalds, the company I used to work for, is being sued. I’m a witness.’

A witness.

A witness.

Her eyes rose to meet his; she knew they were full of tears, but she didn’t care.

His clipboard scraped the table as he scooped it up, his lips pulled back over his teeth in a snarl. ‘So now you know it all.’

And then with a slam of the donga door, he left. Lena collapsed into the chair behind her, put her head down on the table and shut her eyes in a futile attempt to block everything she had just learned.

It took her a long time to focus that afternoon. In fact, after Lena got back to the office, Dan’s story played on her mind so much that she was desperate to fill in the gaps. She googled his brother’s name and ended up finding the whole story on the Worksafe Australia website. The accident was dated almost two years ago.

Mark Hullog, mechanical engineer age 25, died at MacArthur Lumber Mill during an inspection in October this year. Workers had complained that the feeder was constantly jamming and wanted to know how it could be fixed. Oswalds Proprietary Limited was commissioned by MacArthur Lumber to investigate the situation and provide a solution. Mark Hullog, who had been working for Oswalds for 14 months, went with his manager to MacArthur Lumber to inspect the log feeder and crusher unit. Mark Hullog went into the unit
via a spring-loaded door and became trapped. He was pushed through the crusher and killed instantly.

Lena’s hand trembled over the mouse as she read the last line. To say it was a horrible way to die was a gross understatement. And to think that Dan had been there while it had happened.

She couldn’t imagine it.

She didn’t
want
to imagine it.

Being present while someone you loved died violently, powerless to stop it . . . He must blame himself. He must. She blinked rapidly to stop the tears: she couldn’t cry here. Not when someone could see her and start asking questions.

No wonder Dan had come up to the Pilbara. If it was her, she would run too. She would run as far as she could.

Lena got up and went to the kitchen to get herself a much-needed glass of water. The cool liquid soothed her throat but did nothing for the ache in her heart. What was worse than all the rest was that Oswalds wasn’t letting Dan heal. They had him bloody representing their side of the story in the courts. She shook her head. And then suddenly something occurred to her.

Who was suing Oswalds for Mark Hullog’s death? It wasn’t Dan – he was a witness – so it must be Mark’s family. Was Mark married? Did he have children?

She returned to her desk, her fingers shaking as she googled key words from the Worksafe article. It wasn’t long before some old newspaper stories came up.

Lumber mill accident destroys family . . . A brother’s alleged dereliction of duty . . . Parents refuse to acknowledge surviving son . . . Deceased leaves behind pregnant wife.

Lena choked and clicked the browser off. That was more than enough.

She didn’t want to find out any more. What she already knew sat heavily in the pit of her stomach, her insides churning around it like a broken dishwasher.

Since the moment she’d met Dan she’d always thought of him as fearless and unbreakable. The way he looked at her, she’d thought she’d never get the better of him. Never break through that heavy armour he wore. No one could touch him. Now she knew that he was already broken, already hurting. That hard facade was just the dressing over a deep wound he was still recovering from.

Lena had heard of that feeling called an epiphany. A moment when you realise that everything you knew, never was. All your problems and understandings pale in significance beside a truth that comes startlingly to light. In that quiet afternoon, alone at her desk, a glass of water in her hand . . .

Lena had an epiphany.