The Girl in the Hard Hat (9 page)

‘Just one more thing before everyone goes.’

Everyone with the exception of Lena sighed. She stubbornly ignored it. ‘It has come to my attention that we do not have a CMT.’ Their faces were blank. ‘Cyclone Management Team,’ she clarified. ‘In the event of a cyclone, it’s these people who will give this site direction. Carl has suggested that the following personnel form this group in addition to himself. They are Gavin, Lance, Bill, Lena and myself.’

‘Who’s Bill?’ Fish demanded.

Wendy sighed. ‘It’s Chub.’

‘Oh.’ Everyone around the table murmured, understanding.

‘
Anyway
,’ Wendy pulled them back on point, ‘just giving you a heads up because I’ll be calling a meeting of these people next month.’

No one deigned to reply to this remark, which she figured showed perfectly their levels of enthusiasm. She let out a breath. ‘All right, that’s all. You can go.’

It was like the school bell just went. Their faces lit up as they pushed out their chairs and shoved on their hard hats, practically jumping over each other to get out the door.

One of the engineers, however, wasn’t so lucky making her quick escape.

Wendy waylaid Lena at the door, hoping to make a start on studying and coaching individuals immediately. Also, perhaps a fellow female might be able to give her some support. But Lena looked wary when she heard her request.

‘Do you mind if I tag along with you out to the wharf? I feel like I need to see a team in action before I can make any more judgements.’

‘Er, sure . . . when?’ She couldn’t miss the uncomfortable hesitation in Lena’s voice.

‘Right now.’

Again Lena seemed reluctant, looking away as though searching for an excuse. Wendy sighed inwardly. So the one person she thought might give her a chance was also going to let her down. It was going to be an uphill battle all the way. She opened her mouth to say, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ when Lena suddenly straightened her shoulders.

‘Of course.’

‘Really?’

‘Definitely.’ The honey blonde gave her a lovely smile. ‘Come with me.’

They grabbed their hard hats and boarded Sharon’s bus together. Sharon was happy to see them. ‘You ladies look like you’re up to no good.’

‘Don’t look at me,’ Lena joked back. ‘Wendy’s the one springing the surprise inspection.’

Sharon raised her eyebrows and Wendy wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, it’s not like that – just a friendly visit.’

‘Speaking of friendly visits,’ Sharon grinned at her in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Why haven’t we been seeing you at dinner?’

Wendy blushed. ‘Oh, I . . .’ she began and then was unable to finish. The can of worms labelled
I’m looking for my father
was one she didn’t want to open in public.

‘The boys say you’ve been taking off into Wickham every evening in that cute blue Nissan of yours,’ said Lena.

‘Have you got a fella who lives there?’ Sharon enquired.

‘If she did, I’m sure Radar would know about it,’ Lena scoffed. ‘He swears she’s single.’

Sharon rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, because Radar is the most reliable source on the wharf. He also thought that poor guy in Fish’s team had plastic surgery and Biro was cheating on his wife when his daughter picked him up from the airport.’

‘I am sitting right here, you know.’ Wendy laughed. ‘I can answer for myself.’

‘Oooh, please do.’ Lena rubbed her hands together. ‘I’d love to have one up on Radar.’

‘I’m afraid there’s no fella to speak of. I’m single and staying that way.’ For some reason, the image of a cheeky smile and a confident swagger intruded upon her vision. She gritted her teeth and pushed it away.

‘Damn.’ Lena pouted. ‘I was hoping for a juicy story.’

‘Speaking of juicy stories.’ Sharon threw Lena a look over her shoulder. ‘Who the hell is Annabel George?’

Lena looked cross. ‘A bloody pain in the arse, that’s what.’

Wendy glanced at her in surprise and also saw Sharon’s eyebrows rise in the rear-vision mirror again.

‘So the rumours are true,’ the bus driver murmured. ‘I honestly didn’t credit it when I heard a woman in four-inch red heels turned up on Saturday with a couple of lunchboxes full of muffins and biscuits for Bulldog.’

‘She made them herself,’ Lena revealed sourly.

‘Were they any good?’ Wendy enquired.

‘Absolutely bloody delicious.’

Sharon snorted. ‘Why is she baking for him?’

‘Dan says she’s just being nice. But I know what it means.’ Lena rolled her eyes. ‘She wants him back.’

‘Back?’ Sharon started. ‘Bulldog has an ex?’

Lena threw her hands in the air. ‘I thought I knew everything there was to know about Dan. But I completely forgot about his love-life. I mean, obviously he must have had one before me but I didn’t expect it to come boobs blazing back into his life out here. I mean this is Cape Lambert, for goodness’ sake.’

‘What does Dan say?’ Sharon asked.

‘That I have nothing to worry about and not much else. You know how forthcoming he is about his feelings.’

Wendy could definitely picture Dan as the strong, silent type. ‘Well, maybe you should just wait a bit. Maybe this woman will get sick of baking him treats and leave him alone.’

‘Amen to that,’ Lena nodded.

On this positive note, the bus came to a halt in front of the wharf boom gates so there was no opportunity for them to question her further. An inspector came on board to make sure everyone was wearing their PPE – the main items being hard hats, vests and boots. She and Lena passed the test and so did the two guys slumped in the back row. The inspector got off and the boom gates were raised.

The hum of the wharf conveyor penetrated Wendy’s ears, and then she saw it. Lumps of iron ore rolled beside the bus on a belt stained red with years of service. She could see two ships docked at the end waiting for this precious cargo. It was amazing that Australia made so much money from selling dirt.

The bus picked up speed again, though not much. The red-dusted road was narrow and had no guard rail. One false swerve and they’d be over the edge and into the ocean or – worse – in the conveyor. Wendy remembered that on her first bus ride out on Wednesday morning she’d clutched her seat in trepidation. Now at least she was able to sit there with some semblance of calm.

After five minutes of silence, Sharon braked near the centre of the jetty beside what was called the skid frames. The frames were two table-like steel structures that straddled the conveyor and basically provided a platform for the men to work on while ore could still move beneath.

‘I believe this is your stop,’ Sharon announced cheerfully.

‘Thanks.’ Lena stood up. ‘I’ll see you on your way back.’

The bus driver nodded as Lena and Wendy jumped down the steps and onto the road. Wendy shaded her eyes and looked up. She could see all the members of Lena’s team scurrying around on the top of the skids, taking orders from the skid supervisor, who turned out to be her Uncle Mike.

Her eyes widened when she saw him. ‘My uncle is your site supervisor?’

‘Yeah.’ Lena mirrored her surprise. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

The truth was they hadn’t spoken since that day in Karratha at her hotel. She hadn’t seen him at dinner either, even once. But she didn’t want to delve into her family issues again so she merely said, ‘No,’ and then looked at the other team members. ‘You’ll have to introduce me to everyone.’

‘Sure.’ They climbed the vertical ladder on the side of one of the skid frames. Their arrival drew immediate interest.

‘Well, well, well.’ A brown-haired, brown-eyed and brown-skinned man sauntered up to them. A flash of white teeth broke up the monotony of his features. ‘Aren’t we flushed with female company this morning?’

‘This is Radar.’ Lena rolled her eyes. ‘He’s been dying to meet you.’

‘Really?’ Wendy responded cautiously.

‘So how you finding it all?’ He grinned good-naturedly at her and spread his arms wide as though he were in fact the owner of the wharf and was presenting it to her for the very first time.

‘Really good actually,’ Wendy returned and decided that maybe that sounded too much like the fib it was and so retracted a little. ‘Of course, Ethel did give me that donga that’s supposed to be out of service. The lack of air conditioning is killing me but otherwise all fine.’

Radar gave a low whistle. ‘What did you do to piss her off?’

Wendy flicked him a secret smile. ‘When I find out, I’ll let you know.’

‘Oooh,’ he tipped his hat at her, ‘the crab is in the pot now, isn’t it? Got any other interesting titbits you want to tell me?’ He folded his arms and tapped a thoughtful finger to his chin. ‘I was shocked to hear that you and Mike are family. If you’ve got any dirt on him I’d love to hear it.’

Wendy glanced over at her uncle, who seemed to have noticed her presence for the first time. She tried to smile at him. But he threw her a ‘How dare you invade my territory’ glare before striding over to the far side of the platform, as though trying to put as much distance between them as possible.

‘Whoa, no love lost there,’ Radar observed keenly. ‘Anything going on?’

‘Tell him nothing,’ Lena warned as Wendy tore her gaze from Mike’s back. ‘He’s just trying to build your case file.’

‘My case file?’

Lena grinned. ‘Radar’s got a reputation to maintain as the pulse of Cape Lambert. Anything he can pick up on his radar, so to speak, is going to get circulated. That story about you and Ethel will be all over site in a couple of days.’

Wendy raised her eyebrows. ‘Thank you for telling me.’

‘Come on, Madame E,’ Radar rolled his shoulders forward petulantly, ‘don’t spook her. She was just about to tell me
everything
.’

‘Really?’ Wendy chuckled. ‘That good, are you?’

‘You know it.’ He flicked his chin at her before answering a call from one of the other men. ‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll be right over.’

‘Any problems today, Radar?’ Lena asked him.

‘Mike’s swallowed a spider. But apart from that, we’re looking good.’ He strolled off, trailing his harness behind him.

‘Is he always like that?’ Wendy asked.

‘Oh yes. Always. Radar is definitely a character but he’s a good rigger.’

‘Madame E?’ Wendy repeated the phrase that had intrigued her. ‘What’s that?’

‘My nickname,’ Lena grimaced. ‘The long version is Madame Engineer. If you’re lucky enough you’ll get a nickname too.’

‘I’m not sure I like the definition of lucky around here,’ Wendy observed dryly and Lena laughed before throwing her a sideways glance.

‘So what do you think of my skids?’

Wendy stepped back and looked around with interest. Bolted to the checker-plate deck of each skid was a five-tonne crane. At the moment, the cranes were working together to hold a pre-fabricated truss over the side of the wharf so that the men could weld it in place. The truss was one of the many building blocks being used to widen the wharf. She couldn’t see any immediate hazards in what they were doing. But she’d need to look over the method statement for this installation before jumping to any quick conclusions.

‘It looks like you’ve got a pretty tight operation going on here,’ she said instead.

‘Tight and fast,’ Lena nodded enthusiastically. ‘The client wants everything done yesterday.’

Working fast and working wise were two attitudes that often didn’t run parallel. Wendy stayed for a little while longer, confirming her suspicions that they were sometimes a little lax with safety protocols in order to keep things moving. They were only minor things though, so she decided not to say anything to Lena yet and maybe check out the other teams at the end of the wharf. Perhaps then she could issue a statement across the board so that Lena wouldn’t feel like she was being picked on.

She walked up to the engineer to take her leave. ‘I think I’m going to head up to the end of the wharf to check on Gavin, Fish and Craig.’

‘Yeah, sure, no worries,’ Lena replied easily enough and then asked unexpectedly, ‘Hey, has Gavin been hassling you?’

Wendy immediately felt her hairline stiffen. ‘W-why do you ask? Have you heard rumours?’

‘No,’ Lena denied. ‘It just seemed pretty tense between the two of you this morning, that’s all. I wondered if it was my imagination.’

‘Oh.’ Wendy licked her lips, searching for a half truth she could give by way of explanation. ‘Well, I was annoyed that he and the others were late. I thought it was pretty rude of them.’

‘Yes, it was.’ Lena nodded her agreement and allowed the subject to drop.

The walk up the remainder of the wharf was a pleasant one. The sound of waves and gulls provided relaxing mood music for a stroll in the sunshine. She smelled sea salt and wet earth – an interesting combination. The ocean views were gorgeous. White-tipped waves saluted her. She had a feeling it was the only mark of respect she was going to get around here for a long time.

As she got closer to the pile hammer, which unfortunately she could not see yet, it started driving another pile. She knew this because the deep, melodic and extremely loud thump of its operation exploded into her ear canals.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Like the rhythmic counting of an oversized tribal drum, it pounded her skull. Reaching into her pocket she quickly removed a couple of foam ear plugs and pushed them into her ears. They didn’t completely squeeze out the noise but certainly took the edge off.

Then the barge or SEP, Self Elevating Platform, came into view. It was a giant freestanding structure, separate from the wharf, and standing above the waves on three cylindrical legs. Wendy knew these legs could be jacked up at any time to turn the platform back into a barge. Then it could float away to set up and drive a pile somewhere else.

Wow!

Although she had seen the structure a couple of days earlier, she hadn’t seen it in action yet. The giant claw on board the barge was holding a pile in place, while the hammer, a humongous sleeve that fitted over the pile, dropped a weight on its head every five seconds.

She strode to the railing where Fish, Craig and Gavin were all leaning over the side looking at something below. She also glanced down to see what they were gazing at and had to smile.