The Girl in the Hard Hat (8 page)

‘Hi-iiii.’ She drew out the word in a sing-songy gush to the receptionist, who lifted her eyes from her computer screen only to have her jaw drop in astonishment at the sight before her.

‘Er . . . Hi.’

‘I’m Annabel George. I’m sorry I don’t have an appointment. It was kind of a spontaneous decision to come down when I found out from my friend Alison, who just took a job at the camp, that
Daniel Hullog
was project manager here.’

To Gavin’s amusement, Lena, who was still resting lazily on her file, jerked in her seat.

‘Is he available?’ Annabel asked. ‘I’d love to see how he’s been doing.’

‘Er . . .’ The receptionist was still too stunned to reply.

Conveniently, Bulldog walked into the lobby at that moment, looking brisk and ready for business. He was immediately bombarded by the floral-scented bouquet that was Ms George.

‘Daniel!’ She gasped at the sight of him, throwing her arms around his neck and pecking him on the cheek. ‘You haven’t changed at all!’

‘Annie?’ Bulldog pulled back from the hug to register her face.

‘The one and only.’ She touched his cheek with French-tipped fingernails. ‘Miss me?’

‘Who is that woman?’ Lena hissed at Gavin.

‘Damned if I know.’ He grinned and then added in a low voice, ‘But I’d like to find out if the whole Wendy thing goes cactus.’

‘Forget Wendy,’ Lena whispered forcefully. ‘You have my full permission to try your hand at Annabel George.’

They both returned their attention to the scene before them.

‘It’s been such a long time.’ Bulldog held Annabel at arm’s length, studying her face carefully. ‘How are you doing?’

‘How am I doing? Believe me, Daniel, a lot has changed since we were an item.’

‘An item?’ Lena squeaked. ‘Okay, that’s it.’ She stood up. ‘Hey, Dan.’ She walked over to the little reunion. ‘Who’s your friend?’

Annabel blinked twice at the sudden intrusion, turning to give Lena a particularly unwelcoming look.

It was the first time Gavin had ever seen Bulldog even vaguely embarrassed. The faintest of pink tinges crept up his neck as he raised one long finger to insert it into a collar that really didn’t look that tight.

Gavin smiled.

Poor bastard.

This was exactly the reason you didn’t let a woman under your skin. In your bed maybe, but that’s as far as it went. He, for one, had absolutely no intention of ever being in a scenario such as this one. It was imperative that he kept his hands clean.

‘Oh, Gav, you’re such a cynic,’ his sister had told him once. ‘You’ll only fall harder than all the rest when the time finally comes.’ The memory sobered him.

It had been years since he’d had a coffee with Kate, just to chew the fat and catch up. He had no idea when the next time would be. And, as things stood, he didn’t expect it to be any time soon. He refused to let the thought damage his mood. Things could be worse.

A lot worse.

‘Hi.’ Lena was holding out her hand to Annabel George. ‘I’m Lena, Dan’s girlfriend.’

‘Oh, Daniel,’ Annabel gushed, tapping the knuckles of her right hand against Bulldog’s chest, ‘she’s simply
gorgeous
. Those eyes, that hair, those . . .’ She paused, frowned and then tipped her head to one side for the moment before saying to Lena with exaggerated concern, ‘You do realise though, darling, that that shirt is too big for you. Tucked in like that, it does absolutely nothing for your hips. And ponytails, love, the higher the better. Middle range screams dumpy. You know, I could give you a few make-up tips if you like. Don’t be afraid of a little mascara. It’ll just bring out those eyes of yours.’ She patted Lena on the shoulder as one might tap a child affectionately. ‘Any time, darling. Any time.’

‘
Really?
’ Lena threw a look at Dan, whose expression pleaded mercy.

Gavin covered his mouth as he choked back a laugh. Bulldog with two women busting his chops. This was going to be more fun than the time Tobias’s topee had fallen onto the conveyor while he was in the man cage.

He stood up. ‘Er, Dan . . . would you like to do this meeting now or should we come back later?’

‘Yeah, Dan?’ Lena demanded. ‘Would you like us to come back later?’

‘No, no.’ Bulldog cleared his throat and turned to his visitor. ‘Annabel, can I call you this afternoon?’

‘Sure, honey.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll leave my number with your receptionist and go home to wait by the phone.’

If Wendy thought that having Neil fired would solve all her problems, she was dead wrong.

There was nothing like the rumour ‘The TCN spy has stuck it to one of our own’ to rile up the boys. There were only a handful of men who knew for certain that Neil was an alcoholic – those who had worked most closely with him and those who drank with him. These people, who no doubt were also the ones who had been protecting him in the first place, did nothing to squash the stories that he had been unfairly dismissed by an over-anxious female with a bee in her bonnet.

Short of putting out a memo that argued both her soundness of mind and her legitimate employment by Barnes Inc, she couldn’t see how she was supposed to change their opinions of her. Safety managers were never liked at the best of times but a new one who had just made a drastic change to the status quo was going to have a very tough time bringing people round.

The truth be told, she had put a couple of memos out there already just to test the waters. She had pinned them on the smoko donga notice boards. Nothing too demanding, just tentatively asking men to be tidier and more thoughtful with their equipment. The next day she had found them under the trestle tables turned into paper planes.

‘What am I going to do, Cobber?’ Wendy asked, unable to hide the bewilderment she felt. ‘Everybody hates me.’

‘Well, I have always believed in the old adage, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.’ He rubbed his own with a dreamy expression on his face. ‘Just a quick tip, get something with meat in it.’

‘Cobber, I’m serious.’

‘And I wasn’t?’ He raised his eyebrows as he turned towards her.

She sighed. He wasn’t going to be any help at all. But he surprised her.

‘Look, maybe you just need to give it a little time. You’ve just had Neil fired and taken his job. There’s bound to be a few noses out of joint for a couple weeks. Just do your job and do it well. They’ll come around.’

She decided that this was possibly the best plan she’d heard since she’d got there and did her best to dive right into it.

On Thursday morning, with Carl’s permission, she called a meeting of all the engineers. After cruising around the site on Wednesday, she had definitely noticed a number of areas that needed work in terms of safety. She wanted to discuss some new procedures with them. As leaders of each team, they needed to be on board with her ideas.

She set the meeting for seven am, hoping to catch them all before they got too engrossed in whatever task they had set for that day. There were about six engineers in all required to attend the meeting. It was apparent when the clock indicated they start that three of them were either late or had no intention of showing up. Lena, who was seated closest to Wendy at the long trestle table in the Barnes Inc meeting room, grimaced sympathetically.

‘I’m pretty sure they got the email.’

Wendy glanced at her watch, which now read ten past. ‘Do you think I should start?’

Lena shrugged. ‘I guess so. They’ve probably just got caught up with something.’

Or maybe I’m not worth their time.

This attitude seemed to be an issue of debate amongst the people who had shown up as well. She could tell that some of them were beginning to regret having left their posts. When she began explaining that she wanted every man on the job, not just the managers or the supervisors, but
every man
to stop what they were doing and take a JSA – short for Job Safety Analysis – there was almost an explosion of outrage.

‘Now hang on a minute there, missy,’ a burly man with a dirty safety vest on protested. ‘You can’t just dole out extra paperwork like lumps of cream on scones. We’ve got a job to do, which won’t get done if we’ve got all this crap on our plates as well.’

She was trying to explain that they could delegate some of this paperwork when the door burst open and three men, in full PPE, strode into the room talking loudly as though they were not half an hour late.

The first was a rather skinny, lanky-looking individual who obviously gave very little thought to his physical appearance. The second, a freckle-faced, ginger-haired man who seemed to be the youngest of the three. And the last . . .

The tips of Wendy’s ears grew hot and her throat went dry.

The last was the man who had followed her up Water Tank Hill and kissed her.

You’ve got to be kidding me!

She was glad she was sitting down because she was sure her knees would have visibly trembled at the sight of him. Thankfully, instead, she was able to clutch them firmly under the table to stop any embarrassing wobbling as she stared at the newcomers, momentarily bereft of speech.

They were not so incapacitated, rudely continuing their conversation as though the people seated at the table weren’t even there.

‘So I’m not sure which class I should go for,’ the ginger-haired young gun was saying. ‘Karate or judo. They’re holding night classes in the community hall in Wickham.’

‘I’d go karate,’ the skinny man announced. ‘Isn’t there more belts or something?’

‘I don’t know.’ The man who had kissed her looked across the room and met her eyes. A lazy smile tickled his lips as he addressed the room at large, ‘Anybody know anything about karate?’ He broke their gaze to remove his hard hat.

Wendy could feel her face filling with colour and hastily looked down.

Lena, obviously angry on her behalf, stood up. ‘Gavin, stop being a pig! Can’t you see we’re having a meeting here?’

He put his hat under his arm. ‘Sorry we’re late.’

The skinny guy with longish brown hair, currently tied in the knottiest ponytail Wendy had ever seen, finally turned around and scanned the group.

‘Where the hell is Neil?’

This one tactless statement was all it took for Wendy to get her game face back on. She stiffened. ‘I’m sorry to be the one to inform you but he was let go.’

‘Let go? When?’

‘Yesterday morning,’ she responded tightly.

‘Didn’t you know, Fish?’ Craig, the engineer for construction of the new berthing dolphins, addressed him from across the table. The berthing dolphins were located on the sides of the jetty and assisted in the ships docking. ‘Where’ve you been the last coupla days?’

‘Crabbing,’ said Fish and then he turned to the group at large. ‘I’ve got a new trick. What you do, right, is you cast a net first thing in the morning before work, put pierced cans of cat food in it and after work you’ll pick up a full net. I’ve done it the last three mornings with a few checks here and there at smoko and lunch. It works a real treat.’

‘Seriously.’ Gavin eyed him with some interest. ‘Maybe I’ll have to try that sometime.’

‘I’m telling you, mate, it’s –’

Fury swept through Wendy’s body. ‘If you don’t mind, I didn’t call a meeting here today to talk fishing.’

Fish closed his mouth for a moment and then asked sullenly, ‘So who are you?’

‘I’m Wendy Hopkins, the new safety manager. And you are?’

‘Lance.’ He shrugged. ‘The deck engineer. But everyone calls me Fish because –’

‘No need to explain, it’s perfectly obvious,’ she snapped. ‘And you?’ She turned to the ginger-haired gentleman, who was now starting to look rather self-conscious.

‘I’m Anton.’ He shuffled from foot to foot. ‘I do a lot of odd jobs where it’s needed.’

Before she could address the last man, he thrust his long tanned fingers into her field of vision.

‘I’m Gavin, the piling engineer.’

She took his hand and nodded curtly. Perhaps it was because he knew it would embarrass her or maybe he was just fundamentally a pig as Lena had described him. But he deliberately held onto her hand a few seconds longer than necessary, forcing her to twitch her fingers out of his grasp. She could feel herself colouring up like a beetroot and wished to God she had more self-restraint.

‘All right.’ She turned away without meeting his eyes. ‘Let’s get on with this. We have a lot to get through.’

She wasn’t lying about that.

At the same time she knew she’d lost them all after the words ‘Hazard Cards’ and ‘Incident Reporting’ came out of her mouth. It wasn’t that they didn’t know that they should be reporting possible areas of risk on the job or where the paperwork for that reporting was to be found. It was just that they seemed to only want to do it ‘when there was time’.

Wendy had to face it. On a job like this, there was never any of this ‘time’. Engineers didn’t just go back to work after a lunch hour and think, ‘Hey, I’ve got a spare few hours, I might analyse the safety of our methods.’ It was something they had to
make
time for. By the end of the meeting she knew she was banging her head against a brick wall. She hadn’t really persuaded them to change their habits at all. Perhaps she’d taken the wrong approach getting them all together like this, so that they could gang up on her. She resolved to raise the issue with them again individually in the coming weeks. Maybe she would have more progress that way.