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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