RightSmart: The First Round

3

RightSmart: The First Round

    This was it: RightSmart. Smaller than Iain had imagined, but then Fridays Every Day, who’d referred him to the place, wasn’t big, either. Did they want department store chickens or Michelin men in Sydney? ’Cos he didn’t feel he had any other qualifications they might be looking for. Driving nicked and/or crashed and done-up cars over national borders with McMurtrey-inspired papers was out, ’cos Australia didn’t have any borders with other countries, did it? Um, driving potty old gents at slightly more than twenty-five miles an hour, say thirty, round and round whatever the Australian equivalent of the Loire Valley was? He didn’t think Australia had châteaux, but a chap in a pub had told him there was a Big Banana and a Big Pineapple, so, uh, driving potty old gents slowly between the two? Hang on: wasn’t there a Big Lobster, too? Round ’em in a circle, then!

    He gave his name to the charming young lady at the reception desk and was told to sit over there, so he sat and said to the chap on the next chair: “I say, is it true Australia’s got a Big Lobster?”

    “Ye-ah. Think so,” the chap replied dubiously. “Actually I think it might be a Big Rock Lobster. Dunno where it is, mind.” He brightened. “There’s definitely a Big Banana, though! Um, Coffs Harbour, I think.”

    “Is that far from Sydney?”

    So far the chap hadn’t said it but now he said it. “English, are ya, mate?” Not waiting for Iain’s feeble admission to this fault, he added: “It’d be about six hundred K—just under.”

    Right. Three hundred plus miles. Not the hop-on-a-bus sort of trip, then. Well, bother! So far Iain had seen an Opera House, a Harbour Bridge, an actual harbour—taking the advice of a chap in a pub and merely getting a ferry, not one of those bloody tourist boats, mate—several elegant early Victorian or perhaps slightly earlier stone buildings, and several definitely Victorian stone buildings. And a monorail. And lots of shiny downtown towers, ugh. He’d really like to see a Big Lobster or Banana or Pineapple, it’d be welcome light relief.

    “My Cousin Den, ’e reckons there’s a Big Potato, too,” the chap said thoughtfully. “Brown. Looks like a big turd. Mind you, ’e might of only said that to annoy the wife.”

    Er—yeah. The cousin’s or the chap’s? “That sounds like fun!” said Iain with a laugh. “How big, do you think?”

    The chap squinted at the ceiling, finally coming up with: “Twenny foot high, maybe? –Now, hang on,” he said slowly. “Didn’t there use to be a Big Prawn, too? I’m sure I’ve seen it on TV, I remember the whiskers. –Hey, Marlene!” he said loudly. “You ever heard of the Big Prawn?”

    Gosh, this was even better than Iain had imagined the result of his conversational gambit could possibly be! He looked at the decorative girl behind the reception desk with shining eyes.

    “Ye-ah... Didn’t they pull it down, though?” she replied dubiously.

    “What? Sacrilege!” protested Iain. “Whiskers an’ all?”

    “Yeah, it definitely had whiskers,” confirmed the chap.

    “Yeah, I think I’ve seen it on TV: was it on The Great Outdoors? Like, usually they go for really exotic locations, don’t they?” she said, addressing them both impartially. “Only sometimes they have a segment on ordinary tourist attractions.”

    “What, things you could actually afford to take the kids to?” asked the chap on an ironic note.

    Apparently not perceiving the note, she agreed: “Yeah, that’s right. I’ve seen a programme on Sea World, too.”

    “You’d have to be holding down three jobs, and the missus as well, to be able to afford to take the kids anywhere near that, mate!” the chap informed Iain with feeling. “Talk about a rip-off! Den and Marsha took their lot—well, it was before they had Courteney, there was just the two kids, then—and they said you hadda pay for everything! Pay to get in, and pay for every bloody ride, and pay through the nose for anything to eat!”

    “Can’t you get those admission tickets that give you so many rides, though?” offered Marlene.

    “Yeah, for a price!”

    “That’s right,” agreed the lady on the sofa against the wall at right angles to Iain’s and the chap’s chairs. “And they’re never the rides the kids wanna go on, of course. My neighbour’s kids’ dad took them there—getting maintenance out of ’im’s another thing, of course! Jenny reckoned he spent a fortune and little Kristel chucked up all over ’is car coming home, serve ’im right.”

    There was a slight pause in the conversation after this somewhat jaundiced speech.

    “Actually I think it might of been on Burke’s Backyard,” said the chap thoughtfully. “That was good, eh? Pity they took it off.”

    “It got a bit sameish in the end, though,” objected the lady on the sofa mildly.

    “Didn’t he have a big row with the studio?” said Marlene eagerly, leaning forward over her counter in her excitement.

    “Was that Seven or Nine?” asked the lady thoughtfully.

    There was a disconcerted silence.

    “Cripes, I can’t even remember, now!” confessed the chap. “Used to watch it all the time—well, so long as it didn’t clash with the footy, of course.”

    “What about the cricket?” asked Iain.

    “Nah, wrong night, mate. Well, might of been a bit of one-day stuff... Nah, wrong night, I’m pretty sure. Dee used to swear by ’im. –Mind you, didn’t stop the possums eating them purple daisies she bought on his say-so!” He collapsed in sniggers.

    “Purple? Not blue?” asked the lady on the sofa.

    “Well, might of been bluish-purple. Native daisies, they were. She went on about the environment, see, and then she rushed out and bought them. –They come in a purple pot, too: that’s right!” he recalled, snapping his fingers.

    “Aw, yeah, those!” she cried. “Mine died,” she admitted.

    “Yeah? Dee’s got eaten by a possum. See,” he said with relish to the company generally: “the first night, it come down and just ate the flower heads, delicate as nothink. She tried to claim it was snails, only the possum poo by the gate was kind of a dead giveaway. Next night, it ate the unopened buds and the small leaves. Night after that, the rest of the leaves. But ole Don was right, it was a native plant, all right. Native possum food!” He collapsed in splutters again, closely followed by the receptionist, the lady on the sofa, and Iain, who wasn’t confessing he wasn’t sure exactly what a possum was and had had a sort of feeling they were American, heretofore.

    The lady on the sofa, now clearly in a reminiscent vein, was just launching into remembrances of Don Burke’s jumpers—people used to knit them for him all over the country—when Marlene’s phone beeped at her and Marlene discovered that Jase was ready for Mr Ross, now: Interview Room 2, just down there, he couldn't miss it.

    Er—no, he couldn’t, given that the corridor was excruciatingly narrow and contained only three doors, one of which said “Interview Room 1”, the next “Interview Room 2” and the third, surprisingly, “Private”. Interview Room 2 was empty so possibly this Jase wasn’t ready for him, or possibly this was how they did it in Australia, or possibly it was some kind of obscure test, possibly of one’s paranoia, yes. If you ran screaming from the windowless room did this indicate you weren’t a suitable applicant for their jobs? As Iain wasn’t a suitable applicant anyway he just sat there stolidly.

    After quite some time a panting, dark-haired, chunky business-suited chap of forty or so came in. “Sorry,” he said, holding out his hand as Iain got up. “Phone call from a client. They want six reliable barcoders for a rush job in a new warehouse, some forklift experience highly desirable. That wouldn’t be you, would it?”

    “I’ve driven a fair variety of vehicles in my time, but not a forklift,” Iain admitted, shaking.

    “Blow. These days you have to be qualified,” he said, smiling at him. “Jase Durrant.”

    “Good to meet you, Jase,” allowed Iain. “I’m Iain Ross. When I rang they said you’d want this.” He had once owned a briefcase, back in the days when he’d been a hopeful subaltern, but it had long since gone the way of all flesh, so he was just carrying his CV, bare. Terry from Fridays Every Day had kindly given him a copy of their formatted one when he’d given him RightSmart’s details. So that was what it was.

    “Thanks. –Sit down, Iain,” said Jase, sitting down and opening the anonymous folder Terry had kindly put the CV in. “I see,” he said immediately. “Fridays Every Day gave you our name, did they?”

    “Yes. Do you get a lot of job applicants from them?” replied Iain feebly.

    “Fair number. They tend,” he said, looking up with a grin, “to be girls on working holidays. Likewise the ones we refer to Fridays Every Day.”

    “I see; it’s a reciprocal arrangement,” said Iain feebly.

    “Yes. Pure coincidence in the first place, but it’s working out well for both of us.” He ran a rapid and obviously very, very practised eye down the CV, what time Iain tried not to quail. Though he did seem, on brief acquaintance, to be a nice chap. Ouch, now he was looking at Martin Richardson’s reference.

    “It’s quite genuine,” said Iain feebly. “Um, not in his official capacity, though.” Jase Durrant didn’t react at all. Ooh, ’eck. “Um, I was in Bosnia with him. Fridays Every Day checked it out,” he said very, very lamely. “You could always email them.”

    “It’s RightSmart’s policy to check all references,” replied Mr Durrant very, very smoothly.

    “Yes, of course,” said Iain feebly.

    He laid the CV down and said nicely: “Can I ask why you left the Army, Iain?”

    Ooh, ’eck. Were they all gonna ask that, every time he applied for a job in Australia? He’d sort of thought they’d take it as a given.

    “Oh, well, y’know!” he said with an easy laugh. “Had enough, really. Did the stint in Bosnia—”

    “Which force were you with?”

    Jesus, the chap wasn’t gonna take his word for a thing, was he? “IFOR,” said Iain on a grim note. “That is verifiable. Anyway, that was fairly foul, civilians committing atrocities on other civilians, kind of thing, and the so-called troops were even worse. Then the regiment was sent to Iraq, and it was more of the same. Well, dust, heat and flies rather than freezing mud and slush, but pretty much the same otherwise. Decided to give it away.”

    “I see,” he said mildly. “Modern warfare, eh? –I thought the British were pulling out of Iraq?”

    “Uh—yeah. Graduated withdrawal, kind of thing.”

    “Right. Whereabouts were you?”

    “Near Basra, mainly,” said Iain, not managing not to sound grim, though managing not to point out to the fellow that if he was a fake, he could have got that from the ruddy media!

    “Right. We’ll need to see your paperwork before we can offer you employment. What sort of visa have you got, Iain?”

    Oh, boy. Why had he had this potty idea that Australia would be all breezy camaraderie—mateship, that was the word, mateship. Well, you got that from chaps in pubs, all right, along with the “English, are ya, mate?” Most of them that had found out, by dint of asking, that he’d been in the Army—Iain hadn't figured out a suitable lie to tell chaps in pubs who asked him baldly what he’d been doing before he came out here, mate, but he was working up to it—most of them had been surprisingly sympathetic. The general feeling seemed to be that the politicians didn’t ought to have sent either our boys or the Brits over there in the first place, but with terrific sympathy for the boys that had got sent. Interesting sociological phenomenon, really.

    Iain pulled out his passport and the wad of associated bumf that was bulking out his breast pocket.

    Jase’s conclusion was: “Right, well, this visa’s okay, and you’ve got a Tax File Number, but why aren’t you still with your sponsoring employer? Um—John Smith Trading Pty Ltd.”

    Iain ran a hand through his curls. “They call it downsizing. Last in, first out. Think they’re going under, to tell you the truth.”

    “What were you doing for them?”

    “They’re import-export wholesalers—deal in a lot of army surplus stuff, that sort of thing. They wanted me to vet stuff they were thinking of buying—not Chinese overalls masquerading as fatigues, but heavy stuff—and to demonstrate the stuff to potential buyers as required.”

     Mr Durrant was now frankly goggling at him. “What sort of heavy stuff?”

    “Not missiles or anti-tank guns, they don’t let you bring those into Australia,” said Iain drily. “Uh, well, while I was with them it ranged from a dozen beat-up Humvees they’d got dirt cheap and then couldn’t manage to flog off wholesale, so they were trying to get rid of them to unwary Australian farmers, only unluckily for them your farmers aren't unwary, to a nice line in slightly used fridges—an army marches on its stomach, you know—and a fleet of ducks: amphibious vehicles. I had to vet those, which is why that passport includes a visa for South Korea. The bosses weren’t allowed to import them: your authorities began to ask awkward questions about who they imagined they were going to sell them to, and it was around then that they started downsizing.”

    “I see. What was your rôle vis-à-vis the fridges?” he asked, rallying.

    “Uh—they were genuine Army, at a big sale your chaps had at some facility they were dismantling. Had to go and inspect them. They seemed in reasonable nick, so I reported that. Think the bosses bought them dirt cheap. Then they resprayed them and flogged most of them off to a motel chain.”

    “Your Army experience would certainly be an asset, in that sort of business. I’ll just take some notes. –Why isn’t the job on your résumé?”

    “What? Oh—didn’t have access to a computer,” said Iain lamely.

    “There are free computers in every public library these days, all you need to do is book one.”

    “Oh—right. Thanks.”

    Jase made a few notes and then said briskly: “You seem to have had a bit of varied experience with Fridays Every Day.”

    “Yes: don’t mind what I turn my hand to. Um, and I’ve done a fair bit of driving, delivered a few cars round Europe, that sort of thing.”

    “That needs to go on your résumé, too,” he said, picking up his biro again. “Details?”

    Ooh, ’eck. Details of jobs for Skin-Flint McMurtrey? “Well, um, for the same chap, really. Um, when I first got out, took a Roller over to France for him, just a short trip, then, uh, just before I left, delivered a Lamborghini to his buyer in, um, Bosnia. Um, look, Jase,” said Iain on a desperate note, “they were bona fide jobs, but the fellow who employed me isn’t exactly what you’d call kosher! I mean, not above winding back the odd speedo and, uh, I’ve no proof, of course, but I’m bloody sure that Roller was nicked!”

    “What was it?” he said unemotionally.

    “Uh—a Corniche. Circa 2000. Beautiful job, lovely ride, but not built for speed. Touring car.”

    “Good. Just write down all the makes of car you’ve driven, would you?” he said, ripping a sheet off his notepad and handing it to him.

    “All?” croaked Iain.

    Jase’s eyes twinkled. “Let’s say, since you got your licence, and that you were authorised to drive.”

    “Yeah,” said Iain weakly. “Hah, hah. No, well, not claiming I’ve been a good little boy all me life, but the only car I ever actually nicked— Uh, no, there were two.” As Jase was looking at him enquiringly, he went on: “My headmaster’s, when I was twelve, and a certain tit of a general’s when I was almost old enough to know better.”

    “Why flog a general’s car?” he asked, lapsing into the vernacular.

    Cheering up, Iain explained: “The man was a prick of the first water and in the first place he’d just torn a strip off a very decent R.S.M. without bothering to find out what tit of an officer the man was carrying the can for, and in the second place he’d just told little Iain after the frostiest afternoon of my life sipping tea under his wife’s glacial eye that if he caught me anywhere near his daughter again he’d see I was cashiered.”

    “Like, court-martialled?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Could he of?”

    “Yeah. There were plenty of crimes little Iain had committed besides getting up his daughter.”

    Jase bit his lip, trying not to laugh. “Right. So you nicked his car?”

    “That’s right. Not the very next night, the night after. Drove it just far enough away to be findable and paid an inordinate sum to a tight-fisted but not wholly unsympathetic German farmer for a load of manure.”—Jase collapsed in sniggers.—“Yeah,” agreed Iain, grinning at him. “Mind you, the fucking thing was a coupé, not an open car, but I was so steamed up I shovelled muck into it all night!”

    At this Jase’s sniggers devolved into positive hysterics, so Iain concluded his first impression had been correct and the chap was fundamentally okay. Well, couldn’t blame him for doing his job, eh? He got out his pen and began writing out a list of... Crumbs.

    “Um, other vehicles as well?” he said feebly.

    “On a separate sheet, thanks—here. I’ll get you to fill out our standard questionnaire, too: here you are. Fancy a cup of coffee?”

    “Uh—yes, I would, thanks very much,” said Iain, very startled.

    “Good-oh; me, too,” said Jase, getting up. “How do you like it?”

    “Warm and brown, really, Jase, after twelve years in the Army!” replied Iain with a laugh.

    “Okay.” Jase went out, casually scooping up Iain’s résumé in passing.

    Iain looked limply at his great long list of cars. He hadn’t even got all the models, merely the makes... Crumbs.

    ... “What?” said the CEO of RightSmart as one of her senior placement consultants appeared in her office doorway.

    “I’m getting coffee, want one?”

    “Yeah, ta, Jase. –Thought you had a candidate, this morning?”

    “Yeah, he’s filling in the form. Um, look, I think I’d better get your input on this one, Gail.”

    Jase was very experienced and usually had no trouble dealing with anything that turned up on RightSmart’s doorstep. Giant inarticulate hulks, capable of driving forklifts but not much else, included.

    “What in Hell’s wrong with him?” said Gail in astonishment, laying down her ballpoint.

    “Not sure... Maybe everything. Read this.”

    She looked rapidly through the résumé. “No suspicious gaps.”

    “No, I don’t think he’s been in gaol, unless it was a British Army gaol.”

    “Uh-huh.” She looked at the reference from Major Richardson. “If this bloke’s a major, why isn’t this on official stationery?”

    “He did sort of—not explain it, but he did refer to it. I think it must be like that weird Public Service regulation where they can’t give them a written reference. I don’t think a major would be allowed to give a man who’s left the Army a reference, Gail.”

    “You’d better email your contact at Friday’s Every Day ASAP, then.”

    “Terry Waite. Yeah, I will. The thing is, it sounds all right, only...”

    “Smooth explanation for everything, has he?”

    “He’s not too smooth, they’re easy to spot. He came out here with a sponsoring employer but they’ve let him go. Downsizing.”

    Gail raised her eyebrows slightly. “That’s not on his résumé.”

    “That’s Fridays Every Day’s. I don’t think he's much of a typist. Um, well, he has been a serving officer.”

    “I’m only going by Redcap, here,” said Gail very drily indeed, “but I’d’ve said that word-processing is what most British Army officers mostly do, these days.”

    “That was their office... Um, well, he’s been fighting in Bosnia and Iraq.”

    “Ugh!”

    “Well, yeah, I suppose you can’t blame him for packing it in. But, um, that’s it, he has sort of got an explanation for everything...” His voice trailed off and he looked at her hopefully.

    Jase was a lovely guy and very competent, but a certain tendency to ask Mummy to kiss it and make it better had been observed in the past. And Gail Vickers wasn’t anybody’s Mummy. So she said briskly: “They used to call ’em Remittance men, Jase. Did you actually like him?”

    “Well, yes. He struck me as very likeable. Um, bit of a lady’s man, reading between the lines. And, um, pretty up-front about being a bit of a larrikin. Well, there was an episode with a general’s car that he filled with manure,” he disclosed with a silly grin.

    “Boys’ peer group, was it?” said Gail very drily indeed.

    “No! Um, well, it would’ve developed into one if he’d had his way, yeah.”

    “Uh-huh. What rank was he, again? ...Captain. Ri-ght. Larrikin’d be the least of it, I think, Jase: I’m ninety percent sure he oughta be a major at his age.”

    “Oh—I geddit. Is there anyone we know who’d know?”

    “You’re the one that deals with the blokes that can drive tanks and giant motorised sit-on lawnmowers, the Australian Army for the use of.”

    “Three!” said Jase crossly. “No, hang on, George Rennie, only he was a corporal in an office—really good office skills, I passed him on to Christie. None of them were officers, they won’t know.”

    “If you say so. Hang on! Jack Jackson!”

    True, Gail was gay, but nevertheless she had her favourites amongst their male contractors and the whole office knew that nice Jack Jackson was top of the list. Jase looked at her weakly. “He’s never been in the army.”

    “Not him in person: that bloke he knows in Outer Woop-Woop! He’s a general or a colonel or something. I’ll ring Jack, you grab the coffee.”

    “Righto.” Jase went out, looking dubious.

    Gail appeared in RightSmart’s small and inadequate kitchen as he was hefting the mugs.

    “I’ll take those,” she said, taking two. “I got hold of Jack. His bloke’s an actual English colonel.”

    “Cripes. Didn’t you say he reckoned he was a really decent bloke?”

    “Yeah. Presumably proves the Colonial cringe is unjustified after all. He’s given me his number and he’ll have a word with him.”

    “Good. Any chance Jack might come back to town in the foreseeable future?”

    “No, the job on the ecolodge building project is gonna lead on to more jobs for the bloody firm and the next one’s scheduled for Tazzie. Not that I’m not glad for Jack, but where the Hell else are we gonna find a really nice joker that’ll put up flaming rose arbours and cubbies and pool cabanas for the dotty dames of Double Bay without a murmur?”

    “There was that do with the woman client that made a pass,” Jase reminded her cautiously.

    “Mm. But Jack’s an attractive bloke for his age and from the way Christie described her, that client’s a man-eater. Just a pity she didn’t describe her before she took on the job,” she added drily.

    “No, well, we don’t wanna turn work away,” said Jase firmly, leading the way back to Interview Room 2.

    Gail followed, looking wry. It’d do Jase all the good in the world to be made a partner in the firm and to have to take some real responsibility, but he wasn’t into that: he and his Annette were the sort of woolly-minded, nice middle-class types who protected the environment with solar panels on their roof and a recycled grey-water system whilst driving a giant 4WD, and sent their unfortunate kids to a Montessori school, thus ensuring they grew up never knowing how to deal with real people. Owning a small business would have been too much like capitalist entrepreneurship for him. Added to which, he didn’t have the drive.

    Of course Jase hadn’t mentioned what the bloke looked like, and Fridays Every Day’s smudged computer-printed colour pic wasn’t all that illuminating—no ex-Army officer had bright apricot hair, for a start—so Gail was a trifle taken aback to meet the actual bod. And sent up a silent prayer of thanks that Jase hadn’t been too busy to see him, because otherwise Marlene would have made an appointment with Laurie, who was old enough to know better but would have been completely overwhelmed, or Christie, who was more than young enough to— It didn’t bear thinking about, actually. Or with Drew, who was gay, and claimed not to like the macho type, but Gail would have bet her very new, far too expensive car that his reaction would have been identical to Christie’s. The technical term was “Got what it takes.”

    Iain got up groggily. Oh, Lor’, the chap had called up reinforcements! Not merely a nice lady who helped serve the coffee, no, he recognised silently as, having shaken hands firmly, Gail Vickers—he had a strong feeling he oughta be addressing her as “ma’am” and thinking of her as “Colonel”—sat down and said amiably: “Well, let’s see what you made of our form, Iain.”

    “Not much, I’m afraid,” he admitted ruefully. “None of the questions seemed to fit, really.”

    “No, it was designed for office staff,” she murmured.

    This was Gail’s standard gambit in return for that gambit: Jase looked at her out of the corner of his eye over his coffee mug, but said nothing.

    “I’m not familiar with these databases,” she said, looking at the “Other” slot he’d filled in.

    “No, you wouldn’t be. They’re Army databases. Um, I have used other software but, uh, well, you won’t require me to track targets or so on, will you?”

    “Just put it down,” said Gail, pushing the form and her notepad over to him. “Use a sheet of paper if you haven’t got room.”

    Glumly Iain wrote.

    “Thanks. Let me see...”

    Oh, God. Iain just sipped coffee glumly.

    “Practical skills?” she queried.

    “No.”

    “Never built anything?”

    “N— Look, I’ve put up shelters in almost any kind of conditions you care to name, the bloodier the better, from freezing cold to fifty degrees Celsius, but I’d be at a complete loss on a building site!”

    “Outback survival skills,” said Gail heavily.

    Iain’s jaw sagged. “Well, uh— Well, yes, if you like to put it like that.”

    “Mr and Mrs Takamura,” recognised Jase glumly. “See, they wanted a reliable driver to take them through the Outback last year. They could’ve taken a really nice campervan, but they wanted to rough it. We’d only supplied them with gardening and housekeeping staff before, but they were very pleased with them, so they came to us. I interviewed loads of blokes, but most of them were hopeless, they didn’t have a clue when I asked what they’d take.”

    “What would you take?” asked Gail of Iain in a friendly tone.

    “Is this on the assumption that your Outback conditions are similar to the bloody Iraqi desert? –Mm. Well, a gun,” he said drily.

    Jase choked.

    “What for?” asked Gail, unmoved.

    “Two reasons. One, in case Mr and Mrs Takamura found a snake that didn’t slither off at the noise they made tramping over to it. Two, in case we encountered another Outback murderer along the lines of that frightful case that was splashed all over the media quite recently. Personally I wouldn’t have stopped for the chap, not with a woman in the car. I might have stopped otherwise but I bloody well wouldn’t have turned my back on him. Though it’s easy to be wise with hindsight.”

    “Yeah. Go on.”

    “Water. Lots and lots of water. Petrol. Lots and lots of petrol. Very tightly sealed in  containers with plenty of room for the fucking fumes to expand in the fucking Iraqi—beg your pardon, Australian—heat. First-aid kit. Tool kit. Complete set of spare tyres. Non-perishable food, couple of tents, sleeping-bags, ruddy big knife and,” said Iain very drily indeed, “matches. Lots and lots and lots of matches, which I'd keep well away from the petrol. And just in case it does rain in your Outback, in sealed containers. Boots, hats, khakis, lots of spare pairs of socks, anoraks. And if your desert’s as bad as the Iraqi one, rather a lot of firewood, just in case we felt like hot tea. Sand and stones don’t burn that good.”

    “You’d’ve got Mr and Mrs Takamura further than Broken Hill, that’s for sure,” noted Gail.

    “See, they were gonna go further, but by that time they’d had it. The drongo never thought of firewood,” Jase admitted. “My fault, should’ve checked up on him, but I was swamped with a couple of really big jobs at the time. Well, every time they came to a town they could get a hot drink, but—yeah. They did have a thermos, but you’ve gotta boil the water to start with, don’t you?”

    “Uh-huh,” agreed Iain, trying not to laugh.

    “What about beer?” asked Gail.

    “Beer’s not a priority, alas, Gail!”

    “It is pretty much for most Aussies, but you’ll do. Though we may never get another job like that.”

    “What about personal protection?” said Jase.

    Iain had mentioned the gun, what was the chap— “Oh! You mean for the clients? I’d hope they’d have the sense to load themselves up with sunscreen, Jase, but I would check up on that, yeah, likewise any medication they might need. Just as a matter of interest, what would one’s position be, let’s say insurance-wise, if one of these clients dropped dead halfway across the Outback?”

    Jase looked warily at Gail.

    “A personal liability suit is the phrase you’re seeking, I think. It’s all care and no responsibility. They could sue you, but after the contract we’d have made them sign, they wouldn’t get anywhere. They could also sue us, but ditto. We pay megabucks in personal liability insurance, so we are well covered.”

    “Mm. Does that extend to your temporary employees?” he asked thoughtfully.

    “Within limits. Wilful negligence excepted. Or are you asking what happens if you fall off a chair and break your neck while you’re at work?”

    “No. I wouldn’t care, in that case, would I?” said Iain lightly.

    “No family?” she murmured.

    “N—Uh, my mother. Lives in France with her second husband. He’d probably cheer if I fell off a chair. Though he wouldn’t be above suing you, I have to admit.”

    “You have compensation rights in the case of workplace injury: they’re spelled out in the state laws covering workplace accidents, Iain.”

    “State— Oh, yes, it’s a federal system, isn’t it?”

    “Yes. –Your former employer should have told you this sort of thing.”

    “Mm, well, I had the impression they were rather more interested in making a fast buck than in workplace safety. Uh, my stepfather found me the job with them, actually. Shouldn’t have taken it, I do know he knows some pretty shady characters, but, uh, it looked okay, and your government officials okayed it, so, uh—took the risk,” ended Iain with a grimace.

    “I see. We don’t normally require our contractors to take risks,” said Gail drily.

    “No, well, there are risks and risks! Not all that many chaps put their hands up for the Easter Chicken job with Stoner’s that Fridays Every Day found me!” said Iain with a laugh.

    “He had to wear a suit,” said Jase helpfully. “It’d be even worse than spruiking, if you ask me.”

    “You’re not extroverted enough to enjoy that sort of thing. –There’ll be some Santa jobs coming up, but that’s no picnic, in our summers,” Gail warned Iain.

    “After Iraq in body armour? But I’m not that good with kids. The chicken job entailed dealing more with the mums coming into the store. Or not coming in: had to lure ’em with free chocolate eggs and descriptions of the lingerie sale!”

    “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din,” she concluded wryly. “Ever done chauffeur?”

    “No. Tried out for a Fridays Every Day job driving an elderly couple, but I speeded up to thirty on the test drive round Piccadilly Circus, I lost that one. Uh—that’s thirty miles. –It’s hard not to speed up when you’re on a very large roundabout and the rest of the traffic is doing thirty,” he explained plaintively.

    Gail just waited out Jase’s splutters. “May I ask why you chose to come out to Australia, Iain?”

    Ooh, ’eck. “Wanted a change, really. Well—land of opportunity, all that.”

    “It is if you’re a skilled carpenter or electrician, we've had some very good men on our books who’ve had short-term jobs over in Western Australia. Or if you’re used to driving heavy machinery—there’s a lot of mining and building work out there. There’s an interesting article about it in one of the magazines in the reception area, actually.”

    Ooh, ’eck, was this a Test? If so, little Iain was about to fail it! “’Fraid I didn’t look at the mags, just chatted to the other people waiting.”

    “Oh? –Was that Mike Piper for Drew’s gardening job?” she said to Jase.

    “Yeah. And a new cook for Laurie.”

    “Mike never struck me as a chatterbox,” noted Gail. “What did you talk about, Iain?”

    Ooh, ’eck. “Well—Big things, initially. And possums, only they came along later. And a chap called Don on your telly that used to wear jumpers.” Iain looked at her glumly.

    “Don Burke,” said Jase.

    “Think that was the name, mm.”

    “Uh—yeah,” said Gail on a weak note. “Look, why don’t I take over here, Jase, you’ve got that big warehouse job on, haven’t you?”

    “Okay. Thanks, Gail. Good to meet you, Iain.”

    Iain got up and shook hands. “You, too, Jase.” Okay, that left little Iain alone with the lady colonel. Was she gonna tear a strip off? Oh, well, who cared, it was obvious he wasn’t what they were looking for.

    Gail sat back in her chair. “Sorry about the awful coffee.”

    “That’s okay! You don’t know what bad coffee is until you’ve had Nescaff with tepid water, stirred up by a chap’s oiled bayonet! Look, you don’t need to tell me I’m not what you’re looking for, Gail, I can see that.”

    “I wasn’t actually gonna tell you that: I was gonna tell you you can speak freely, now.”

    Iain swallowed.

    “These Big things: they’d be the Big Banana and so forth, right? –Right. Who initiated this conversation?”

    “Me. Well, you know what bloody waiting-rooms are: everyone sits there mumchance like bumps on a log, dreading what’s to come. So I thought it might be better to chat.”

    “Right. Why the Hell Big things?”

    “Met a chap in a pub that was telling me about them. Well, um, I’ve been to the Australian Opera but I didn’t think that either a mediocre Barber of Seville or the Opera House as such were fruitful topics in the circs, and the Big things sounded like fun, and well, sort of looked at this pretty ordinary-looking chap and thought he’d maybe know about them, and the chap in the pub had said he wasn’t sure if there was a Big Lobster. So I asked him if he’d heard of it. I’m not sure how the possums got into it. Well, they came down in the night and ate his wife’s daisies, but not sure how the daisies came into—” He broke off with a relieved grin, as Gail collapsed in splutters at last.

    “People skills!” she gasped when she could speak.

    “Eh?” groped Iain.

    “You’ve got people skills, you right royal birk, most people splatter that all over the front of their résumés whether they’ve got ’em or not; why didn’t you say?”

    “Well, uh, didn’t know the phrase, actually, Gail. Is that standard usage?” he said dazedly.

    “In this neck of the word-processed, post-résumé-formatting-class résumé? You better believe it!”

    “I see. I’ve been on the wrong wavelength with that poor chap Jase, haven’t I?” said Iain ruefully.

    “Not entirely: he is quite bright,” replied Jase’s boss placidly. “Look, we can probably find you something to tide you over, if your references check out, but you ought to be making appointments with the big places that do executive placement.”

    “No qualifications.”

    Gail raised her eyebrows. “Excellent people skills, practical skills, specific survival skills, management skills including specific team-leading skills and human resources management, report writing, risk assessment?”

    “I think you mean get on well with the chaps and most people, done me Army survival stuff, made sure the chaps kept their heads down, bumf writing and risk taking.”

    “These days it’s all in how you put it,” replied Gail with the utmost calm.

    Iain gulped.

    “Managing the manufacturing side of a nice little progressive firm with some solid venture capital behind ’em?”

    “Come off it, Australia must be full of better qualified chaps, chaps who’ve been doing that for years!”

    “Innovative firms don’t want the types who’ve been doing it for years, they keep on doing what they’ve done for years, and hold them back. Look, let me give you a referral to a pleasant consultant with one of the big corporate head-hunters.”

    Iain hesitated. Then he said: “It’s very good of you, and I may take you up on the offer a little further down the track, but just at the moment I’m not sure what I want or where I’m going. Well, never expected the job with John Smith’d last as long as it did, actually. I’d be very happy just to do a bit of driving or wear a chicken suit or anything at all you can find for me, Gail.”

    “I see. If that’s what you want, we can find you any number of odd jobs. Most of them’ll be pretty soul-destroying, though. Lots of deadly repetition. Not quite as bad as factory jobs, we don’t tend to get those, but not much more exciting. That nice Mike Piper you met in Reception, his last job was heaving heavy rocks about for a lady who was building a rockery. She did all the design stuff and made all the decisions, he was just the muscle, get it?”

    “Yeah. Sounds very restful, actually.”

    “Right, well, if restful’s what you need after bloody Iraq, I think we can supply it.” She got up. “We’ll reformat your résumé if we put you on our books. If you’d like to come in and gain a new skill one of our consultants will be happy to go through it with you and explain how to do it.”

    “Uh—yeah,” said Iain dazedly, stumbling to his feet. “Thanks very much. Um, but that means I’ll be able to do a lovely shiny résumé and dash off with it to other employment agencies, doesn’t it?”

    Gail eyed him drily. “Yeah. Personally I’d be happy to see you do that, Iain, as soon as you feel up to it.”

    Iain smiled weakly. “Right. Got it.”

    “Hang on. I suppose this is your only copy of this?”

    “I admit the soft impeachment.”

    Gail sighed. “I won’t ask if you’ve got a copy on your laptop.”

    “Haven’t got a laptop, Colonel, ma’am!” replied Iain smartly.

    “Don’t dare to salute, I’ll have hysterics,” she warned, gulping. “Go out to Reception and tell Marlene I told you to ask her to make us a copy of it, okay? And please do us a tremendous favour and don’t flirt with the girl: it’s taken us ages to find her and train her, she’s utterly reliable and she knows the job backwards, and with all the short-term Christmas hospitality and shop-assistant jobs coming up it’d be the last straw if she went off the rails over a type like you.”

    “Boy, you’ve spotted that as well? Okay, hands off,” he agreed meekly.

    “Thanks.” Gail held out her hand.

    Iain shook it hard. “Thanks for everything, Gail. You’re a bloody good sport.”

    “Thanks. We don’t often get candidates with brains, let alone that can toss off that ‘mediocre Barber of Seville’ without a blink. We’ll be in touch.”

    She’d opened the door for him before he could move, so he warned: “I will salute.”

    “What? Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Gail released the door handle and allowed him to bow her out. “I’d avoid anything they put on by Puccini, Strauss—either Strauss—too. See ya!”

    “See you,” agreed Iain dazedly as she vanished through the door labelled “Private.”

    Gail’s phone rang during her nominal lunch-hour, when she was bolting down a nominal sandwich. “Marle’,” she said thickly through it, “ish thish ur’ent?”

    “Well, um, not exactly, but it’s that man that Jack Jackson asked to ring you back,” said Marlene in a very odd tone.

    Gail swallowed with difficulty, boy that bread was stodgy! “What’s wrong with him?”

    “Nothing, but, um, first he said his name was Gil and then he said maybe I’d better tell you it was Colonel Sotherland! And he sounds like Prince Charles or something!”

    “Cripes. Well, okay, put him through.”

    This resulted in Gail saying “Gail Vickers speaking,” and a hugely posh Pommy voice saying: “Good afternoon. My name’s Gil Sotherland. Jack Jackson asked me to ring you: about British Army ranks, was it?”

    “Yes. Thanks for ringing, Colonel Sotherland,” said Gail, sounding bloody weak in her own ears—she’d never in her life before called anyone “Colonel” or, indeed, anything higher than “Mr.” If you excepted the ruddy dentist that you were expected to address as “Dr.” God knew why, he had a B.D.S., period.

    “Please, call me Gil,” he said nicely: you could hear he was smiling nicely, cor. “What was it you wanted to know?”

    “I’m sorry to bother you, Gil, it’ll sound trivial,” said Gail feebly. “Uh—I’d better explain that we’re an employment agency, specialising in short-term or temporary jobs.”

    “Yes, of course, you’re Jack’s temp agency,” he agreed, still with the smile.

    “That’s right, yes. We’ve got a new job applicant who’s been a captain in the British Army, and, well, he seems to have seen a fair bit of service, been in Bosnia and Iraq, and he’d’ve been thirty-four or -five when he left: I was just wondering if that was normal.”

    “Depends whether he got shot up, I’d say,” he said drily.

    Oh, shit, hadn’t Jack mentioned that the guy had been horribly wounded in Iraq, himself? “No, sorry, he wasn’t, as far as I know. Shouldn’t you be a major by the time you’re that age, is what I mean.”

    “Oh, I see! Ri-ight...” he said slowly. “Promotion to major happens when one is thirty or over, but it isn’t inevitable. You’re sure this fellow has seen that much action?”

    “I haven’t checked it out, but I think his claims are genuine: he has got a personal reference from a Major Something who seems to work for your War Office.”

    “Oh? May I ask who? I may know him.”

    “Major Richardson.”

    “Martin Richardson? I know him very well!” he said, you could hear the smile was back.

    Gail sagged. “This guy was in Bosnia with him.”

    “Gail, are we talking about Iain Ross?” said Gil Sotherland baldly.

    Gail had to swallow. “Yes. Do you know him?”

    “Yes. Couple of regiments did a joint operation—well, the details don’t matter. Suffice it to say that he has served under me. He saved Martin Richardson’s life: Martin copped a bullet in the leg when he and his men were in a very tight spot. Ross turned up with a handful of chaps, got them to give him covering fire, and crawled in and hauled Martin out bodily. Given the number of witnesses it seemed only fair to put Ross up for a gong—sorry, medal—but there was the slight drawback that he’d been ordered to be utterly elsewhere at the time. I put the matter to him in that light and said did he want me to ask the Colonel to write him up for a commendation and he said: ‘No, ta awfully, Major, sir, might be better to let sleeping wolfhounds lie, in this instance.’ You couldn’t ask for a better chap to be on your side in a tight spot, but that’s him, you see: bloody insubordinate with it. Not the type the Army promotes to major, more the type they leave where he is in the hope he’ll take the hint and get out. –Incidentally, his tactics were quite correct: he should have been backing up Richardson all along, but that wasn’t what the Colonel had ordered.”

    “I’d call that initiative,” said Gail drily.

    “Mm. The Army calls it disobeying orders,” said Gil Sotherland, even more drily.

    “Right. Him in a nutshell?” she concluded.

    “Pretty much, yes. May I ask what reason he gave you for leaving the Army?”

    Cripes, what giant tiger was about to be let out of its bag? –Talking of wolfhounds, the cheeky bugger! “He just said he’d had enough, after Bosnia and Iraq.”

    “Mm. Martin bumped into him in town not long after he got out and got the whole story—or put it like this: he’d already heard a couple of versions and by dint of pouring single malt into him got him to cough the lot. The official line is merely that he resigned his commission. Those who dislike him, and there are plenty of them, will tell you that he was warned to do so before he was thrown out. That’s perfectly true. It’s also perfectly true that, as his detractors claim, he’d been fraternising with an Iraqi woman. The version offered by his supporters is that he’d been using this woman as an informant and passed her information to his superior, who ignored it and sent a young officer and his men out to where the informant claimed a fresh lot of mines had been laid and got them killed. That’s true, too. His colonel, who disliked him intensely—with good reason, to be fair—believed Ross’s commander’s story that his claim he’d been using the woman for intel was only a cover-up. There was no proof he’d been fraternising, as they couldn’t find anyone who’d admit they’d seen him with her. He told Martin that quite a few of the lads had, though.”

    “I see...” said Gail slowly. “So his men stuck up for him.”

    “That’s it. They don’t respect vainglory, but they do respect genuine bravery, not to mention appreciating the fact that, contrary to what one might assume, he is the sort of officer who makes damn sure his men keep their heads well down.”

    “I see. He’ll do something mad himself but not lead others into it.”

    “That’s not quite correct,” said Gil Sotherland placidly. “He won’t lead his subordinates into it.”

    Oh, boy, talk about an analytical mind! Why in God’s name had he ever left—Oh, would’ve been the wound, of course, poor bastard. Gail allowed weakly that she saw, thanked him very much, asked him what he thought about Iain Ross’s general honesty and ability to stick at a given task, got pretty much the answers she’d been expecting, thanked him, got his contact details just in case, and hung up. After that she just sat there for some time, staring into space.

    Finally she got up and went along to Jase’s office. He was on the phone. Gail went in and closed the door behind her. Office doors were generally left open at RightSmart if the consultants weren’t interviewing a client or a contractor—it wasn’t precisely a policy but everyone took their tone from Gail—so Jase looked at her in some surprise.

    He hung up and said: “I’ve got four possibles for that barcoding job. Most of them hear the word ‘warehouse’ and run a mile. –Anything up?”

    “Not exactly. You can add Iain Ross to your list of possibles for that job.”

    “Oh, good!” Jase made a note. He looked at her expression. “What?”

    “I’m not sure how to put this. Jack’s bloke rang me back. He’s a ruddy English colonel. Well, ex, I suppose. Sounded very nice, mind you. He actually knows Iain Ross.”

    Jase pounced. “Then why not give him as a referee?”

    “I don’t think they’re that close. He’s given him the thumbs-up as far as not ripping off his employers goes, and for short-term jobs he’ll put his head down and go for it.”

    “Good, that’s what the warehouse wants!”

    “Mm. Apart from that, he’s no respecter of persons, one of the main reasons he didn’t get further than captain. Sort of bloke that tells his superiors where they’ve gone wrong. Uh—shit. I don’t wanna damn the guy, and I don’t think we’ll have any problems with him on short-term jobs. But we’ll have to be bloody careful placing him in anything longer-term, like a six months’ contract.”

    “Won’t stick at it?”

    “Not that. Too bright for his own good, and like I say, no respecter of persons. He’ll tell them how it can be done better. Or just go ahead and do it his way.”

    “Shit!” said Jase in dismay.

    “Yeah. Doesn’t matter in sole-charge jobs, where he can use his initiative and get the thing done.”

    “But the contractor’s always answerable to the client!”

    “Yeah. I was thinking of Jack and that old dame with the bloody rose arbour. He’s got the sort of temperament required to make her accept that it hadda be strong enough to withstand the weather, so she was gonna have to spend a bit on it, plus and, not tell her that the whole idea was mad and something else’d give her a much better result. Which was why she came to us in the first place, because sixteen fancy gazebo firms wouldn’t do what she wanted and tried to shove off their standard patterns on her!”

    “Right,” he said, shuddering.

    “Right,” Gail agreed. “Iain Ross has got precisely the opposite temperament. Now tell me how to phrase that in his file.”

    “Just put ‘Don’t place without consulting Gail,’” said Jase kindly.

    “Uh—okay. But heck, that’s how we’ve coded that disastrous doormat of a Janet, and Weepy Maureen, and Sushila-Knows-Better!”

    “It does seem a bit mean. Well, um, put ‘Good worker but don’t place without consulting Gail.’”

    “Roger, wilco!” said Gail in relief, grinning at him.

    “So Iain’s reference checked out?” he added, getting the personnel database up.

    “Without a phone call to England—yeah. According to Gil Sotherland, the colonel bloke, Iain saved Major Whatsisface’s life in flaming Bosnia.”

    “That’d explain the reference, all right,” he said drily.

    “No, from what Gil said it’s more the Major’s attempt to make it up to him for a pretty raw deal from the Army. Well, faults on both sides, but Iain came out of it pretty much smelling of roses according to Gil’s account, which struck me as fair and extremely balanced.”

    “Right,” said Jase in some surprise. Gail didn’t often use those words. He looked at Iain’s entry in the database. “You haven’t filled in any fields.”

    “Eh? Oh—no. The more I thought about it, the more likely to mislead it seemed.”

    “It can’t be that hard! Come on: ‘Works well as part of team’, I suppose?”

    “No.”

    Jase’s hands hovered over the keyboard. “Eh?”

    “See? He’s a team leader, not a team player.”

    He looked at the form on his screen in dismay. “We haven’t got a slot for that.”

    “Exactly. And if we code that field “No” it’s gonna give entirely the wrong impression!”

    “Not entirely, but I see what you mean. We need another field, really.”

    “Yeah. Well, yeah, okay.” Gail picked up his phone. “This’ll hurt,” she warned. “Yeah, Marlene, it’s me. Can you get everyone off the personnel database, please? –Thanks.”

    “It’s not a boing,” said Jase thoughtfully, “it’s more a—poing!” he gasped, covering his ears as the horrible inter-office communications system went “POING-NG-NG! Scratch, crackle—tants please exit the per—crackle—database! Would scratch, scratch, scratch, crackle, please, scratch, crackle—onnel—scratch, scra-aatch, crackle, crackle, crackle!”

    “It’s getting worse,” he noted sourly.

    “Yeah. –Well, exit it!”

    “Eh? Oh—sorry.” Jase closed the database.

    “Count to ten and then open it again.”

    Obediently he did that.

    “Put in the master password, Jase!”

    “Aw—right. Hang on, can I do that on top of my access password?”

    “Yes. –Look, get up.”

    Jase got up, looking relieved, and Mummy sat down. See, her idea had been, she was gonna ease him into doing a bit of database design—it was very easy software to use, compared to most—and then Mummy wouldn’t be the only person in the office that could restructure the databases, would she? Silly her.

    Surprisingly enough everyone was off, so having put the master password on, she opened the structure, added a field for team leader, and then changed the input-edit screen, the search screen and search results screens appropriately. The whole thing only took about ten minutes.

    “Neato,” he approved as she got the new input-edit screen up for him.

    Gail stood up. “Something like that. Go on, he’s your candidate, you can fill it in. Put my initials in the reference check box and we’ll take it as read, okay? Uh—and don’t let’s kid ourselves that the bloke isn’t a bit of a lady-killer, Jase. You’d better shove the code in.”

    “Mm.” Jase clicked in the field in which secret and pejorative codes known only to their entire office, Marlene not excepted, were entered. There were several of these, reasonably mnemonic: “WW was “weeper”, for instance, like the frightful Weepy Maureen, and “DM” was literally “Defenceless Male”, meaning a contractor who’d let a lady client seduce him. Iain was awarded “DJ.” Nothing to do with pop music: it stood for “Don Juan”. Modern personnel placement was of course non-sexist, non-racist, non-ageist and non-everything, but that wasn’t actually of much help when it came down to cases. So Gail had dreamed up the codes. There was no written documentation to tell anyone what they meant, so if some demented contractor—and they’d had some pretty demented contractors in their time—stood on his/her rights and demanded to see her/his records, RightSmart wasn’t liable. The software didn’t care what field names you used, so that field was cunningly called “Input check”.

    “Better ring him about the job,” said Gail, peering at the contact details which Jase had already entered. “Shit, he’s not staying in a motel, is he?”

    “It’s only a suburban one, quite reasonable. I don’t think he was home much, his employers sent him off to look at fridges at some Army camp, and then to South Korea. He’s mad to go on paying for a motel room, though. Where did Jack stay?”

    “In a lady friend’s granny flat, and her finding out about the thing with the man-eating client was what broke them up. Ask Laurie: her cook-housekeepers are usually on the lookout for boarders.”

    “Ye-ah, but if he’s a DJ...”

    “I know you’re a hetero bloke, too, Jase,” said Gail kindly, “but did you look at the guy? I mean, actually look? Laurie’s cook-housekeepers are all fat and fifty-plus!”

    “Aw. Right,” he said with a sheepish grin.

    He’d gone rather pink. Gail went out, repressing a sigh. Jase and his Annette weren’t actually moral re-armers, but close. Niceness and Montessori-ness went hand-in-hand. On the other hand, he wasn’t a macho nong. Or a ruddy insubordinate, cheeky bastard, like Iain Ross. “Let sleeping wolfhounds lie”? Jesus! By the time she got back to her desk, she found she was swallowing a grin, however.

    … “How’s the barcoding going, Jase?” she asked, some ten days later.

    “Good, except that Ryan Armstrong’s broken his leg—not at work, over the weekend. I rang the client but they don’t need a replacement: Iain works twice as fast as the others.”

    “In that case either it hasn’t dawned that he’s being paid by the hour or he’s as honest as what Jack’s colonel bloke said he was. Maybe we should have made it piecework.”

    “Too hard to calculate, they’ve got pallets of different-sized stuff,” he explained.

    “I see. Well, keep him on our books, then?”

    “Yeah, of course!”

    Okay, so be it, but she, Gail Vickers, would keep a ruddy keen eye out for the joker. Hard workers were assets, but RightSmart didn’t need cheek-givers and lady-killers.

Next chapter:

https://temps-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/turkey-trot.html