The Girl in the Yellow Vest (23 page)

‘It’s not all I want,’ she shot at him. ‘I just wish you realised that being project manager isn’t just about giving orders.’ She gestured at his oven. ‘It’ll be ready in forty minutes, damn you!’

On these words, she headed back to his foyer, swiping his dinner tray off the table as she went. The slam of the front door left him bereft. She was like a mini-cyclone. Whirring in, uncovering his soul and then leaving it naked and vulnerable surrounded by the debris of his shattered life. He looked down, realising his fingers were trembling. He slowly flexed his hands and headed outside. Augustus was sleeping. He decided to bring the cage inside anyway. He’d never admit it but he found the sight of the turkey strangely comforting. Perhaps he saw in the creature proof of his own humanity. If he were really that heartless wouldn’t he have let it die? He placed the cage on the counter and turned on the television. He began watching the news but not really listening. The smell of that cooking cake was filling his lungs and making his eyes water, burning a hole right through his heart.

It didn’t smell exactly like Kathryn’s. It was different. Not as heavy. But nice. And when he pulled it out of the oven it sprang back immediately to his touch. He tipped it out onto a plate to allow it to cool. Kathryn had always used a rack but unfortunately the units weren’t equipped with them. By this time, Augustus was stirring. The bird raised its head curiously to see what was going on.

‘Do you think I should ice it?’ he mused. Even he could whip up some icing, surely? There were instructions for a simple glaze written on the back of the icing sugar packet. When he was done, he stood back to admire his creation. It looked nothing like Kathryn’s rich and perfect creations. For starters the glaze was a translucent white. It dripped down the sides of a cake that was rather rough and crumbling around the edges. It wasn’t the work of a chef but it looked nice, homely . . . comforting.

And yet, he couldn’t eat it.

The walls of the unit seemed to loom menacingly around him.

Alone, in this dimly lit room, he realised why he had feared baking so much. Not because of the process but because of this moment when he discovered there was no one to share it with. He stood looking at the cake for a long time, wondering what to do with it.

Augustus squawked.

‘What do you reckon?’ he looked inquiringly at the bird.

Augustus gobbled. His head moving up and down.

He sighed. ‘I think you might be right.’

Life seemed to have taken a nosedive – personally and professionally. At some point, her glorious new Queensland adventure had lost its honeymoon glow.

First there were the confusing but non-committal phone calls and text messages with her ex. Initially, she had thought, it was nice to catch up and good to hear how their dog was doing because she had been missing him a lot too. But essentially nothing had changed. Trent was needy but not apologetic. In fact, he was more demanding than anything else. Twice he asked her, ‘Why did you leave before we had a chance to work through this?’

The query was baffling. After all, it had seemed pretty cut and dried to her when he’d asked her to move out. She said as much and he got defensive.

‘I needed some space to think, you know that.’

If that wasn’t a cop out, she didn’t know what was. All the same, she had to ask herself the question: if he wanted to get back together would she say yes? To be honest, at that point, the decision was no longer clear. They had a lot of history and her heart still ached at the loss of the future she’d thought they would have together. But she couldn’t decide what she missed more, him or the plans they’d made.

Unfortunately, in this instance, Will was not very helpful, though not through any fault of his own. She just didn’t feel she could talk to him about it. She had no desire to set him up as piggy in the middle, besides the fact that talking about her feelings with Will seemed to be getting harder and harder. She had no idea why. She’d always been able to tell him anything without feeling embarrassed.

The problem was that she needed advice. Bottling up her feelings wasn’t helping. So she turned to Charlotte, whose friendship was really starting to mean something to her. The resort manager often took her mother for a walk on the beach in the evening and on Thursday night Emily had joined them.

The red sun on the ocean at twilight was a wonderful backdrop to self-reflection. They walked very slowly and not very far because Mrs Templeton got tired easily.

‘So, let me get this straight,’ Charlotte said, picking up a seashell and passing it to her mother. ‘Trent is Will’s best mate.’

‘Yes,’ Emily nodded. ‘They’ve known each other since primary school. Will actually introduced us.’

‘Well, isn’t that a pretty pickle?’

‘Why?’

Charlotte laughed. ‘Honey, if you don’t know, I can’t tell you.’

‘Here.’ Virginia distracted her from Charlotte’s cryptic words by placing the seashell Charlotte had just given her into Emily’s hand. ‘For your collection.’

‘Thank you,’ Emily responded uncertainly.

‘You spend too much time at home.’ Virginia closed her fingers over the shell. ‘When I was your age, I met your father. You should go out, have some fun.’

Emily bit her lip, not knowing what to say. She looked over at Charlotte, who smiled sadly. It was clear Virginia thought she was Charlotte, at least a younger version of Charlotte.

‘What about that boy I see you with?’ Virginia pressed her hand eagerly. ‘He seems to like you.’

‘Er . . .’

‘Look,’ Charlotte pointed at the sky, ‘a sea eagle.’

Virginia looked up and they stopped walking to watch the majestic creature fly overhead. Emily stood back with Charlotte as Virginia walked forward to pick up more shells on the water’s edge.

‘Sorry about that,’ Charlotte whispered.

‘Don’t be silly. I understand.’

Charlotte took a deep breath. ‘So tell me, what is it that you like about Trent?’

‘Well, he’s handsome.’ Em shrugged. ‘And successful. Very successful. He’s really good at what he does. I mean, his boss reckons he practises like someone with twice his level of experience. I’m in awe at the way he handles himself as a lawyer.’

Charlotte’s mouth turned up wryly. ‘Key word here
lawyer
, not
boyfriend
.’

‘True.’ Emily bit her lip and fell into a thoughtful silence.

‘You know what I think?’ Charlotte broke it a few seconds later.

‘No, what?’

‘I think it’s a good thing you came to Queensland. Forget about Trent. Especially when you seem to be doing just fine without him. Do what you came here to do. Have a good time and invite me along.’

Emily laughed. ‘No problem. Have you come up with that hobby yet?’

Charlotte groaned. ‘I’ve been kind of distracted lately.’

‘Well, you
are
raising a teenager and caring for an invalid. You have an excuse. I really admire you for that, you know.’

Charlotte blushed. ‘Thanks, but it’s really not that big a deal.’

‘Of course it’s a big deal. Does Zara’s father ever help out?’

‘Nope. Never.’ Charlotte’s lips pulled into a hard line. ‘Not that I would want to him to.’

Emily eyed her carefully. ‘You don’t like him?’

‘That’s an understatement. But anyway,’ Charlotte gave a breathy sigh as she shifted the conversation away from the touchy subject, ‘about that hobby. I’m thinking something outdoorsy.’

‘Oh, I’m definitely in then.’ Emily nodded decisively. ‘But what?’

‘How about diving? I’ve always wanted to go, though I’ve been too scared to try it.’

Emily pressed her hand. ‘Let’s go this weekend. We have Sunday off. I’ll get Will to come too. We can go out to the reef, book a tour or something. Do some snorkelling.’

Charlotte’s face immediately brightened. ‘That’s a magnificent idea.’

It was certainly the only star on Em’s horizon.

At work that week, Caesar had decided to begin his own punishment regime for her and she had been exiled to the yard. She was aware that as far as engineers went, she wasn’t anywhere in Will’s league. But even she knew that engineers weren’t supposed to be standing outside spark-testing beams all day. That was a painter’s job.

Basically, all the steel beams were painted with a hardwearing coating specifically designed to have protective properties for a marine environment. The paint was grey, the same colour as the steel, so it was actually difficult to tell with the naked eye if a spot had been missed. It was important that the beams were painted thoroughly to stop the onset of rust. Prevention was better than cure.

What she had to do was run a brush hooked up to an electric battery over a recently painted beam. If there was a spark, it indicated that this area on the beam had not been coated. To be honest, she’d quite enjoyed doing the first beam and learning about the science behind the spark test from the quality manager. But thirty-six hours later, she was ready to rip her hair out.

She had lost count of the number of beams she had brushed. At first, she had thought the most sensible thing for her to do was just get through the job so that she could get back to her real work. After all, she couldn’t expect her new job to be all roses and peaches immediately. There were going to be bad days.

However, the painting team was down two guys and even with her help they weren’t catching up any time soon. She could be stuck with them for days, which didn’t bode well for her mental health – and, let’s face it, that was already on the back foot because of Trent.

The worst thing about the job was that all the steel was laid out in a yard that was nowhere near the office dongas. It was in an area beyond the coal hills at least a five-minute drive by ute away from the main office. There were other men working in this area, a few assembling steel trusses to be driven out to the wharf and a couple of carpenters cutting up formwork. There was one toilet for them all to use. A male toilet – very dirty and equipped with one urinal and one cubicle. At first, she thought she might just bite the bullet and use this, but it was rather embarrassing having to knock on the door and ask loudly if anyone was in there first. The men within earshot would laugh loudly and yell, ‘Quick, Roger, pop your dick away. She’s coming in!’

They’d say this or something similar whether ‘Roger’ was in there or not.

When she started driving back to the main office to go to the toilet, just for a bit of privacy, the painters scoffed at that too.

‘Too good for the loo, are you? But it’s all right for Tanya and Jill.’ Their sarcasm was potent.

The truth was finally out. Tanya and Jill were the two
female
painters who never showed up to work. Apparently, they had demanded their own toilet and their request had fallen on deaf ears. Specifically, on Caesar’s deaf ears.

In all honesty, she couldn’t blame them and thought it was just like Caesar not to take note of what was the heart of the problem but just give orders and expect them to be followed without question. She began to realise that if she wanted to do some real engineering she was going to have to get Tanya and Jill back at work. And to do that she needed a toilet.

Of all the things she hoped to achieve on this job, she never thought this would be one of them.

After nutting through her options, she decided to beg and plead with Caesar on their behalf. In fact, she had decided to do it that morning after Caesar’s first hour of silence. Unexpectedly, an earlier opportunity presented itself. He did something rather unusual. Instead of going straight to his office that morning, he went to the kitchen.

She happened to be already standing there placing twelve bananas on the counter top with a Post-it note beside them: ‘Please take one.’

They had been another present from Dipper. The loony had been leaving fruit on her desk every morning. Lost in her own annoyance at Dipper and thoughts on how to get him to stop leaving her fruit, she turned around and walked straight into Caesar.

‘Oh,’ she started, momentarily taken aback. ‘Good morning.’

‘We’ll see,’ he growled.

As she tried to think up a neutral reply to this remark he jumped in again.