The Girl in the Hard Hat (5 page)

No matter how bad the camp was, it would be fantastic to get out of here.

Wendy got her first taste of her new accommodation the following morning. The Cape Lambert Work Camp was located on the outskirts of the small town of Wickham – a maze of dongas sitting on unkempt weed-ridden dirt. The central brick building, which housed the reception, a gym and the mess hall, had seen better days. It was past eight am when Wendy arrived, so the place was like an eerie ghost town of aluminium bedrooms-for-one. The only sounds were the clicking of insects and the scrape of her boots on red pebbles.

A bell attached to the door rang as she walked into reception and a woman in her late forties, with her feet on the desk, looked up from her nail file. She had knotty hair and a rather unfortunate face that settled into a resigned expression around her dry cracking lips.

‘Oh great! Another one.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘There’s no sense in apologising. You can’t help what you are.’

‘My
name
is Wendy Hopkins. And I’m here to organise a donga for myself. I just started with Barnes Inc.’

‘So you’re the TCN spy everybody’s been talking about. Don’t look like you’ve got much gut in you, do ya?’

By now Wendy was finding it impossible to ignore the fact that this woman was being a bitch simply for being a bitch’s sake. ‘I’m not a spy.’

The woman grinned, exposing her bad teeth. ‘He said, she said. It’s all about credibility, isn’t it?’ She went back to filing her nails, the scratchy sound grating on Wendy’s last nerve. ‘The name’s Ethel, by the way, girlie.’

Girlie?

It was clear this woman was the resident bully. Wendy put her hands on her hips. She’d had enough stress, rude remarks and wisecracks the last couple of days to last her a lifetime. She was over it. ‘Just so you know,
Ethel
, I’ve been around the block a few times and I don’t take shit from anyone. So get your feet off the desk, put that nail file away and get me a bloody donga now!’

Ethel narrowed her eyes. Her mouth curled in a manner that let Wendy know she’d gone too far.

She waited.

With painstaking slowness, Ethel put the nail file down, took her feet off the desk and turned to the pigeon holes behind her. She pulled some forms from the boxes and a set of beaten-up looking keys that for some reason were set apart from a pile of others.

She turned around and slapped all this on the counter. ‘I got the penthouse just for you, honey.’

Her grin was positively evil. But Wendy shrugged, refusing to buy into such tactics. She grabbed a pen and quickly began filling in her emergency forms. She skipped the television form and took the maps.

‘Enjoy.’ Ethel’s smoker’s cackle sounded in her ears as she swiped the keys off the countertop and left.

She went back to her car first and grabbed the large duffle bag that contained her life. The key was marked B39 and the donga was easy enough to find with the aid of her map. Unfortunately it also kind of stood out from the ones around it.

There was a sign hanging from the door knob.
Out of service
.

Next to the door, the flyscreen from the window had obviously popped out, because it was under it, leaning against the wall. It had a couple of giant holes in it too. So a fat lot of good it would do if it was in anyway.

For a split second Wendy thought that Ethel must have made a mistake and then realisation dawned on her. Okay, so the woman was more than a bitch. She was the devil incarnate.

But there was no way in hell she was going back to reception with her tail between her legs to beg for a different room. It couldn’t be that bad, could it?

It could.

The door creaked open and she saw an unmade bed with ripped sheets. The donga clearly hadn’t been cleaned since the last occupant had left it. It smelled like feet and stale beer – a dreadful combination. The fridge was open but luckily switched off. There were empty cans spilling out of it and a rather suspicious looking puddle on the floor. She noticed, after further inspection, that there were some glass pieces in the puddle and looked up. The light bulb was not only blown, it was smashed. The leg of her desk was broken and the door of her wardrobe was hanging by one hinge. If she didn’t know any better she’d say a brawl had taken place in there. She left her bags outside and went in to switch on the air conditioner.

Yep. Broken.

Great.

She was on the verge of swallowing her pride and returning to Ethel when she heard someone humming outside. Marching out of the donga she spied a trolley laden with fresh linen and some other cleaning products on the gravel across the way. A donga door a little way down from hers was open. It seemed housekeeping was currently moving through these parts.

She crossed the gravel path and poked her head into the aluminium box. A small woman in her thirties with a net over her blonde hair was busy making up a bed.

‘Hey,’ Wendy said. ‘I’ve just moved into the donga that’s out of service. I was wondering if I could borrow your Spray n’ Wipe.’

The woman straightened. ‘What? It hasn’t been refurbished yet.’

Wendy’s mouth twisted. ‘I think Ethel’s refurbishing it with me.’

The woman grinned. ‘Pissed her off, did you?’

Wendy chuckled. ‘Must have.’

‘Come on then.’ The housekeeper came out of the donga. ‘I’ll help you. I’m sure we can do more than Spray n’ Wipe.’

She pushed her trolley over to Wendy’s donga and together they cleaned out the bar fridge, closed the door and switched it on, wiped up the spill and a few other stains on the floor and replaced the bedding with good clean linen.

As they completed the job together, Wendy found out the woman’s name was Alison. She was a recent Wickham local who had taken this part-time job as a means to earn extra money.

‘So what about the light bulb, the wardrobe and the desk?’ Alison asked when they were done.

‘I won’t use the desk. I’ll just keep my clothes in my bag – I don’t have much with me – and if I close the wardrobe door it’ll be out of the way. And I can pick up a light bulb in town on my way home.’

Alison nodded. ‘Sounds like a plan. You won’t get far without air conditioning though.’

‘We’ll see.’ Wendy was prepared to do without it as long as she could, just to prevent giving Ethel the satisfaction.

With her accommodation finally sorted, it was time to attend her safety induction in town. Actually, past time. She was twenty minutes late due to the donga debacle but the presenter let her sneak in without a word.

The safety induction was organised and run by the owners of the wharf. Anyone who wanted to work on their site had to attend this five-hour session explaining policy, protocol and what to do in an emergency. Wendy listened very carefully and even jotted down notes. She noticed that nobody else did and had that feeling she hadn’t experienced since high school. Amongst the popular kids, the sports stars and the musicians, she was definitely
the nerd
.

During morning tea one of the guys, a scaffolder for Barnes Inc, said to her, ‘Don’t worry so much, honey, there’s no test at the end.’

She raised her eyebrows at him but said nothing. Maybe the truth was that the problems with safety on this site started on day one.

The group was made up of new starters for TCN, Barnes Inc and some other minor subcontractors. But she was definitely the only female in the room.

By three o’clock she was gutted. Her colleagues weren’t much better. She knew they had no intention of going to Cape Lambert to finish off the rest of their working day.
Especially
when they invited her to join them for a round of drinks outside one of the boilermaker’s dongas.

‘Er . . . no thanks. I think I might go in to work.’

They all exchanged a look.

Geez. No points for work ethic around here either.

In the end her trip into Cape Lambert was a mistake. Neil was very disappointed to see her. ‘I thought you had the induction today.’

‘Yes, but it finished at three.’

‘Well, I didn’t expect you to come in. I don’t have anything for you to do.’

She was beginning to get rather cross with him, considering she could see for herself that the man was more overloaded than a freight train en route to Queensland. ‘I find that very difficult to believe.’ She looked pointedly at the piles of memos on his desk.

‘I can’t just hand you that stuff raw,’ he protested. ‘You need to have some background knowledge of this job before you wade in. You’ll just get lost in it without my guidance . . . and frankly, I don’t have the time.’

She pounced on this. ‘Well, if I need some background knowledge why don’t I catch the bus out onto the wharf? Have a look around myself, so to speak.’

‘You’re not going on that wharf on your own,’ he snapped at her a little too quickly.

‘Why? I’ve had the safety induction. I’ll be perfectly fine.’

‘There’s too much for you to do here.’

‘You just said there was nothing for me to do here!’

‘Nothing on this desk.’ He pointed at his own. ‘But you’ve still got a heap to get through on yours.’

She looked over at her desk. That giant safety manual he’d given her yesterday was sitting there but next to it was now another file of similar shape and proportions. On its spine, in dark black ink, was written
Volume 2
.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

‘When you’ve read all that,’ he waved his pointer finger at her, ‘then we’ll talk.’

As he walked away, she suddenly wished she’d killed the last few hours of her day in Wickham searching for her father instead. There was a steel mill on the outskirts of town.

Wickham had a health centre too. She could have checked that out. Ask if anyone had come in with an injury to his right foot more than thirty years ago. Not that she knew if their records went back that far, or if they’d pass out personal details to a stranger. It was definitely a long shot at best. But it was why she had come back to Karratha and this part of the Pilbara in particular: to discover any clues she may have missed before.

Her father’s injury was the one unique and solid fact she had. And if it meant researching the rise and fall of every steel mill in the area, she’d do it.

Though obviously not today.

She dragged her feet back to her desk and slumped in her chair, looking at the files with such resentment that a low laugh next to her made her jump.

It was Chub.

‘Do they offend you in some way?’ he enquired and then held out an open jar of jelly beans to her. ‘Here, have one. It’ll take the edge off. Always does for me.’

She grinned and stuck her hand in the jar.

‘Okay, when I said one, I didn’t literally mean one. You can have five or six or fifteen,’ he amended generously. ‘Whatever it takes to lift your mood.’

‘Thanks, but one’s fine.’ She popped the purple bean in her mouth and chewed. The intensely sweet blueberry flavour gave her an instant sugar jolt. ‘I just don’t get him. Why does he have such a huge problem with me?’

‘It’s not you. It’s him.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘He doesn’t have a problem with you, he just has a problem period.’ He was about to put the lid back on his jar when he shook his head. ‘Aw, screw it.’ He tipped out a handful, tossed them back and then set the jar down. ‘You should do what I do,’ he said with a mouth full of sugar.

‘What’s that?’

‘Don’t talk to him.’

She laughed. ‘I can’t do that, he’s my boss.’

‘Well, I didn’t say it was going to be easy.’ He sighed. ‘Nothing here is easy.’

She smiled sadly. ‘Nothing worth it ever is.’

‘Well, aren’t you a philosophical little mate? I just hope they don’t crush your spirit.’

She lifted her chin. ‘They’ll find that very difficult, cobber.’

He grinned at her and she grinned back. She could tell he got a real kick out of the word ‘cobber’ springing off her lips. Not just because it was a word usually employed by older men amongst their cronies but because she hadn’t called him Chub.

Nor would she ever.

From that day forwards, it was always ‘little mate’ and ‘Cobber’ between them. And in the hard times ahead, it was one of the few comforts she had.

When work ended at six that evening, it was still light. She had picked up and installed the new light bulb but there was still time to kill. So she decided to go for a jog up Water Tank Hill. It was the lookout point for Wickham. The gym was her other option to burn off frustration but she desperately wanted to be alone. In her experience, gyms on jobs like this also functioned as pick-up joints. Given there were only five women in this camp, her odds of being approached were pretty loaded. Besides, the lookout wasn’t that far from the camp and it would provide an excellent view of the town at sunset.

Back at her donga, she changed into a pair of black bike pants and a loose pink T-shirt, tied her hair in a ponytail and stuck some earphones in her ears. All she wanted to do was zone out.

As she jogged through the main car park to get to the road, a man who had been leaning against his ute straightened and she noticed with a flush that he was
very
good looking. Sandy brown hair, soulful brown eyes and a healthy tan. He brought the same sort of visual pop to her eyeballs that Brad Pitt brought to the big screen. She ignored that familiar
zing
that had got her into trouble so many times before and kept running. Apart from the fact that she had serious desertion issues and a truckload of emotional baggage she was trying to figure out what to do with, she just didn’t have time for romance.

Her last boyfriend had certainly made that clear when he’d dumped her for ignoring him. ‘I don’t know, Wendy. For the last two months you’ve been pretty preoccupied with your family. I’m starting to feel like a third wheel.’

If she were honest, Nathan had only ever been a holiday fling. All the same, his rejection had hurt. There was no sense in going through that again. She had already made the decision that any time off she had here was going to be spent looking for her father.

Maybe it was because of the music in her ears or her preoccupation with her own thoughts but she didn’t notice that the man from the car park had started following her until she was about halfway to the lookout.