No Job for a Girl

by Meredith Appleyard

  ‘Not you specifically, Leah. Camps like this are not places for women.’

  ‘Except if you’re a cook or a cleaner.’

  He let out a frustrated breath. He wouldn’t have that argument again. It was one he couldn’t win, even though tonight’s incident only validated his point of view.

  ‘Cameron Crawley will see the incident report in due course. Nothing I can do about that.’

  ‘What incident report?’ Leah’s eyes widened.

  Alex didn’t speak, kept his expression blank.

  ‘Of course, the incident report,’ she said, arms folded tightly.

  The urn boiled. Alex poured water onto the teabags. He handed one to her.

  ‘Thanks.’ She dunked the bag a few times and stirred in two sachets of sugar.

  Alex added a shot of cold water to his drink and stood there, sipping quietly. When he was down to the last mouthful he said, ‘Any ideas who might have done this?’

  ‘What?’ She looked up, eyes unfocused. Her cup was still full.

  ‘Any ideas who the perpetrator was?’

  ‘No. I’ve been racking my brains. The only person I came up with was Frank Ballard.’

  ‘Yeah, unfortunately Frank does spring to mind. But, you know what? I really can’t see it. He’s all mouth. He’d be too lazy to go to this much trouble.’

  ‘Mmm, perhaps.’ She took a tentative sip of the tea.

  ‘Doesn’t solve what we’re going to do about it.’

  ‘No.’

  Alex tossed his cup into the bin. ‘Do an incident report first thing in the morning. I’m wondering if we need to report it to the Coober Pedy police. It was malicious. It could escalate.’

  ‘It happened after hours; no one was hurt.’

  ‘What are you saying, Leah?’

  ‘Oh, bloody hell, I don’t know. Ignore me.’

  She tipped the tea into the sink with such force it splashed back onto her hand. She cursed, dropping the cup, and gripped the edge of the sink. Her shoulders were rigid.

  Ignoring the steady voice of caution, Alex reached for her. It was what he’d wanted to do since seeing her distress out at the clothesline. As if the situation weren’t complicated enough.

  He put his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened. He increased the pressure, gently turning her to face him, and gathered her against him. Finally, with a sigh she sank into him and pressed her face into the curve where his neck met his shoulder. Her arms slipped around his waist, pushing underneath his jacket. He b­uried his face in her hair and a fantasy became a reality. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the feel of her, the way she fit so snugly, so p­erfectly against him.

  ‘Leah, I need to let you go now,’ he said several minutes later, his words at odds with the desire darkening his gaze, the hard ridge pressed against her belly.

  ‘Oh. Right. Sorry.’ She wriggled against him in an effort to push herself away.

  He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, then took a firm step back. She blinked. Her eyes were wide. She moved away, not quite out of his reach.

  He touched her cheek. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Fine. Fine. I’m fine.’

  He studied her for a moment. He didn’t believe a word of it, but kept his mouth firmly shut.

  ‘What shall we do about these?’ he said instead, pointing to the shirts on the cupboard.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t think about it anymore tonight.’ She smoothed her hair and looked down at the clothes she had on. ‘I’ll have to wear these clothes tomorrow. I’ll probably start to smell.’

  ‘Oh, I dunno. You smell pretty good to me,’ he said and her eyes lifted up to his.

  ‘Are you flirting with me?’

  He arched one eyebrow. ‘I would have thought it was blatantly obvious I want to do more than flirt with you.’

  ‘Like you said the other night, Alex, some things you don’t do, no matter how badly you want to.’

  ‘I did say that, didn’t I?’ he said, his voice rough with regret.

  Her smile didn’t make it past her lips. ‘I’d better go. I feel wrecked. We can decide what to do about the shirts in the morning.’ She opened the cupboard under the sink, tore a garbage bag off the roll and shoved the ruined clothing into it. As she closed the bag the acrid smell of diesel oil puffed into her face.

  ‘I’ll take them and lock them in the filing cabinet.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Leah, if someone is out to get you, what’s going to stop them getting rid of the evidence? They’ve scared you, upset you. And they might consider you’ll go to the police.’

  ‘Oh.’ She swallowed. ‘Have you ever had to deal with something like this before?’

  ‘No. There’s been the odd personality clash, the occasional practical joke that got out of hand. Once, someone put a live crow in the cook’s bedroom. Made a hell of a mess. The cook quit. He was a miserable sod and a lousy cook and I reckon they hoped he’d leave. Never did find out who did it.’

  She handed him the bag of shirts. ‘I suppose I should tell Paul, but he’ll worry if he thinks I’m not safe.’

  ‘The incident report will go to him, and I know he reads everything.’ He took the bag, his eyes never leaving her face.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But maybe, if I wait the full twenty-four hours before I send the report in, we’ll have discovered who did it and it’ll turn out to be nothing. I don’t want to worry him if I don’t have to.’

  ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘Twenty-four hours. Not a minute longer.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Be extra careful, Leah. If anyone other than Ben calls you out in the night, get me and I’ll come with you to the first-aid room. No unnecessary risks until we get to the bottom of this.’ He held up the plastic bag. ‘This was malicious.’

  ‘All right.’

  Alex unlocked their office and locked the bag in the filing cabinet. ‘I’ll walk you to your room,’ he said and relocked the door. ‘Ring stores in the morning and get new shirts sent up. I’ll sign the purchase requisition.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, her shoulders sagging. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She p­receded him out the back door, waiting while he checked to see it was locked.

  ‘There’s nothing to be sorry about. I might not have wanted a woman here, but you are here, and we’ll deal with this. And we’ll make sure nothing else happens.’

  He walked with her to their rooms, keeping his hands jammed in his pockets. When she was safely at her door, he said, ‘You’re all right now?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I think I’ll go back to the bar, have another beer,’ he said and headed off into the night. If he’d given himself another minute with her he would have ended up following her into her room.

  Can’t happen, he reminded himself.

  Another plane trip, another two days away from home. Paul stared out the tiny window. The endless nothingness, the blinding salt pans and winding dry water courses conjured none of the awe and anticipation they had once upon a time. He’d loved the outback, craved the wide open spaces and the challenge of another project.

  Now, angry resentment curled his fingers into a fist he’d like to pound into the back of the seat in front of him. It sat like a bitter ball in his gut. The job was taking him away from where he really needed to be – at home with his wife.

  Eve hadn’t got the job. Her interview had been at ten the day before. They’d met for lunch afterwards, and she’d been so upbeat.

  ‘I was brilliant,’ she’d said. ‘How could they not give it to me?’

  But they hadn’t. The CEO, the same person who’d arranged the interview, rang her later in the afternoon, full of apology. Paul was still reeling from what had happened: the husband of the woman going on maternity leave had lost his job, so she would go back to work two months after the baby was born. The organisation no longer had a twelve-month vacancy they wanted to fill.

  ‘And I wasted all that money on a new suit.’ Eve had tried to be glib, but
he could see she was devastated.

  ‘And you looked a million dollars in it.’ He’d put out his arms to hug her, but she’d nimbly moved away.

  After she’d wobbled off to bed, he’d sat up into the early hours going through their finances to see if the plan slowly forming in his mind was possible. He hadn’t mentioned anything to Eve yet, and wouldn’t until it was a fait accompli.

  That morning when he’d left she’d made no moves to get out of bed to see him off like she normally did. He’d perched on the bed beside her, smoothed the hair from her forehead.

  ‘What are your plans for today, sweetheart?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Put on a load of washing . . . pick up a few groceries . . .’

  ‘You know I’d cancel this whole damned trip if I could.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she’d mumbled. ‘It’s good one of us has a job.’

  ‘Eve —’ He didn’t go any further. Reiterating that only one of them needed to work would upset her. He’d dropped a kiss onto her brow. ‘I’ll phone you, after the meeting.’

  She hadn’t answered; she rolled over, turned her back to him.

  Eve sinking back to where she’d been before the job offer, losing her zest for life and turning further in on herself, was a frig­htening prospect. He felt powerless. At least on weekends, when he was there and they did things together, she was brighter, more like her old self. But then Monday morning came around rapidly and he was leaving her again for another ten-hour day at the office, or a day at Nickel Bluff, or two days in the field, driving from one end of the project to the other.

  Encouraging her to get out and about, volunteer for something, have coffee with her friends, do all the things she’d have given her right arm to do when she was working a fifty-plus-hour week, had always fallen on deaf ears.

  ‘My friends are all still working, or looking after elderly parents, or babysitting their grandkids,’ she’d said. ‘They don’t have time for coffee morning and long lunches. And anyway, there’s only so much coffee you can drink.’

  Paul sighed. The man across the narrow aisle coughed. Their knees were almost touching. Paul glanced in his direction. He looked familiar. But then everyone in the plane looked familiar. From where he sat, halfway down the cabin, he could see the back of the pilot’s head, and the expanse of blinding sky through the windscreen. He closed his eyes and leaned his head on the headrest. The engines of the Piper Chieftain droned on.

  After a morning of meetings at Roxby Downs, Paul signed out a company vehicle and hit the road, heading north. His plan was to swing by the Camp Two site and then push on to Camp One to spend Thursday night. Friday morning he’d drive to Nickel Bluff for the weekly management meeting and fly home in the afternoon. Perhaps he’d get an opportunity to talk to Leah about Eve.

  Rain was forecast, the clouds low in the sky. By the time he reached the Camp Two site, a fine drizzle blurred the landscape. An hour or two of steady rain would turn the ground into a sticky, mucky mess. The construction of the second camp had already fallen behind schedule and rain would slow down the work even more.

  Paul had heard from Alex, and then again at last week’s management meeting, all the reasons and excuses for the construction of the camp being behind schedule. There’d been an accident with one of the accommodation blocks; the septic system had been cracked when it’d arrived and they’d had to order another one; the plumbers had left because they couldn’t finish the job and they hadn’t come back. The list went on and on. All the reasons were valid and understandable, given the remote location and the logistics of getting twenty accommodation blocks, and everything that went with them, on site.

  But try telling that to the company who’d contracted them to build the transmission line. A week of problems could seriously slow down a project, costing everyone involved. If he and Alex couldn’t demonstrate how they were going to make up for lost time, this week’s management meeting could be a fiery one.

  He pulled up alongside two other 4WD utes. One had a c­overed tradesman’s trailer hitched behind it, the sides lifted to display an array of pipe fittings and tools. It looked like the plumbers were back, thank goodness. He fumbled around in his pocket for a couple of antacids and swallowed them before climbing out to do his job.

  Leah hadn’t been convinced it was the right thing to do when Alex decided to tell everyone in the camp about the incident with her shirts.

  ‘Ruby might let something slip, and it’ll be better if they’re given the facts up front. Leave no room for gossip and speculation,’ he said at the quickly convened meeting early the morning after the incident.

  Ben had scratched his beard and replied, ‘There’ll be gossip and speculation, regardless of the facts.’

  Alex flashed him a look, and later at the pre start went ahead and gave a succinct overview. There’d been some nervous glances and shifting of feet, several surprised and – more surprisingly – angry faces in the audience. Leah had paid particular attention to Frank, but his expression remained impassive. Dee, standing beside him, had looked concerned.

  After the meeting, Tony sought Leah out and said, ‘I find who did this thing, I’ll knock their effing block off, and then some.’

  When questioned about where the waste oil might have come from, Trev had scratched his head, saying that to his knowledge there wasn’t any lying around the camp. The Coober Pedy police hadn’t shown much interest either. So far no one had owned up, or dobbed anyone else in.

  ‘I’ve got a feeling we’ll never know who did it,’ Ben said after Wednesday’s evening debrief. Leah had no choice but to complete the incident report, albeit briefly and send it off after dinner that night.

  As Alex read her report the next morning, she saw him raise his eyebrows, but he said nothing. Leah didn’t know whether to be d­isappointed the culprit hadn’t been identified, or relieved to put it all behind her and get on with it.

  Later that morning, Leah was in the office checking her email when the Coober Pedy Medical Centre rang back to confirm an appointment for Stacey. She went in search of the girl to pass on the details and found her folding towels in the linen store.

  ‘You look tired. Are you sleeping okay? How’s the nausea in the mornings?’

  Stacey shrugged her bony shoulders, avoided making eye c­ontact and mutely turned back to her work.

  ‘Right. The doctor’s appointment time and date are written here,’ Leah said briskly. She slipped the note under the inventory sheets fastened to a clipboard.

  Stacey didn’t murmur a word, just kept folding and stacking, her stance rigid.

  ‘Have you got any questions?’ Leah said, making an effort to conceal her exasperation. ‘No? I’ve cleared it with Ben. Trev has to get some tyres fixed and pick up supplies and you can travel in with him.’

  Stacey remained silent: no thank you, no acknowledgment that she’d heard and understood.

  Leah puffed out a frustrated sigh. ‘Okay. I’ll see you later, then,’ she said to the girl’s back.

  After the one-sided conversation, Leah checked the first-aid room. Then she dipped the tanks, and completed and emailed the daily reports.

  This time of day the camp was deserted, the admin block empty, and the safety vehicle on its lonesome in the car park. Forcing herself away from her desk and the inevitable email from the Head of Safety, Security & Environment, Leah set off for bore number two and the cement batching plant, where there was signage and safety fencing to check, and she was curious to see the cement batching plant.

  Each day blended into the next. The weather cleared, the sky endlessly blue, day in and day out. Four new shirts arrived and Leah was relieved not to have to wash her one remaining shirt every day. Unfortunately, they were no closer to uncovering who’d vandalised her clothes in the first place.

  And there had been nothing from Crawley about the incident. No email. No phone call. Leah had expected to hear from him, and when she didn’t, she slowly let herself begin to relax. Until she saw
the internal memo – he was on annual leave. She’d only been granted a reprieve, not remission of her probation.

  Alex was busier than ever and Leah rarely saw him after the pre start and before the daily debrief. There was never time to talk about anything other than work, which was probably for the best.

  Paul had stayed overnight at the camp, and Leah had travelled with him to the management meeting in Nickel Bluff on Friday morning. He knew about the incident with her shirts.

  ‘It would have been better if I’d heard it directly from you, not read about it in a report days after it happened,’ he’d said.

  ‘It shook me up, but I’m all right now.’

  Leah had admitted to no one that she was more concerned what Crawley would do when he read the incident report. He had the power to have her fast-tracked out of the place so fast she’d have whiplash.

  From the passenger seat Paul said, ‘Has anyone harassed you?’

  Frank had definitely overstepped the mark with his snide and sleazy comments. But Leah knew if she made a complaint, it’d be another black mark against her ‘suitability’ for the job. Add it to the incident with the shirts . . . The situation infuriated and sickened her.

  But she hadn’t verbalised any of this to Paul. ‘I know what blokes can be like when they get together over a few beers,’ she’d said. ‘It’s never fazed me before. I’m careful.’

  ‘But do you feel safe working here?’

  ‘Try working Saturday night in A&E at the Royal Adelaide!’

  Paul had sighed, mumbled something about never being able to forgive himself if anything happened to her, and let the subject drop.

  Happy for a change of subject, Leah had asked him about Eve.

  ‘She’s a bit down,’ he’d said. ‘I think . . . hope . . . it’s just her getting a feel for retirement. She wasn’t ready for it, and I’m never there.’

  ‘Maybe she should get another job. She’s always worked. My guess is she isn’t sure how to not work, how to reinvent herself as a retired woman.’