Temping

9

Temping

    “A temp agency?” said Trisha on a weak note.

    Harriet nodded vigorously. “Mm! They’re really nice! Ann Anderson recommended them, they’ve supplied a lot of people for Springer House B&B and Blue Gums Ecolodge over the past few years, you see, and guess what! Her friend Laurie Hanson, that runs the Springer House Annexe, she used to work for them! As an employment consultant, I mean, not a temp. Well, she did that, too, for a bit, but she was one of their consultants for quite a long time.”

    “Waitressing jobs?” said Trisha very, very faintly.

    “And housekeeping; I think they found Blue Gums Ecolodge their housekeeper. And their cook. That’s certainly a recommendation!” said Harriet with a cheerful laugh. “But they do all sorts of temp jobs, really. Office work, and that sort of stuff, Well, Iain—he’s one of the partners, he’s really nice—he said they get a lot of demand for barcoders, he did it himself at one stage!” She gave a cheerful laugh.

    “Barcoders?” echoed Trisha dazedly.

    Harriet laughed again. “Well, someone has to do it! ’Tisn’t all done by soulless machines. You know: putting barcodes on stuff, in great big warehouses, usually. But I don’t suppose I’ll get one of those jobs, they usually want hefty blokes with forklift licences!”

    By now Trisha was feeling if her sister gave one more cheerful laugh she’d strangle her. “Harrie, waitressing jobs usually go to kids—uni students and so on. And that sort of thing’s very seasonal.”

    “They’ve got some regular clients that are very glad to have someone older and more responsible.”

    Yeah? What about someone with a sense of balance? ’Member that time she’d split a whole bowl of goldfish all over her class at school? And she hadn’t improved since: only yesterday she’d dropped a bowl of salad. Fortunately only on the kitchen floor, and even more fortunately it had been a plastic bowl, not one of Trisha’s good glass ones that she only used for dinner parties. But the dressing had been a so-called real vinaigrette thing that Harriet had insisted on making for them and there’d been oily lettuce all over the kitchen, it had taken ages to get the oil off the vinyl.

    “I’d think twice about it if I was you. It’s pretty pressurised, and you know you’re no good at carrying things.”

    Harriet gave yet another cheerful laugh. “No! Not restaurant work, silly! No, this would be working for catering firms that do select dinner parties. It’s one of their niches, you see!” She beamed at her.

    “Niches?” echoed Trisha groggily.

    “Mm! It’s a niche market, Iain explained it all to me!”

    Oh, cripes, had she fallen for this Iain? Trisha endeavoured to interrogate her tactfully but was seen through immediately. And received the intel that he wasn’t Harriet’s type, and in any case she was sure he was younger than her, he was married, and his wife did the accounting for the firm, but only part-time, they were starting a family, and she was really beautiful, she looked a bit like Nigella Lawson!

    … “Eh?” groped Steve at the end of the report.

    “That was what I said!” agreed Trisha with feeling. “She won’t even watch those tea ads, she shudders every time the woman appears on the screen! Well, don’t look at me, Steve!” she said, as he was goggling at her. “It’s something about hair in the food, and, um, was it rings all over her fingers and claws of painted fingernails being unhygienic? Or was that Maggie Beer? Um, no, both, I think. Anyway, she definitely switches Nigella Lawson off every time she comes on!”

    “Who the Hell’s Nigella Lawson?” the driven man cried.

    “Uh—oh. Sorry, love. One of those awful TV cooks. English. She does ads for some English tea, too. Um, Twining’s, I think.”

    He gaped at her. “Isn’t that the brand Harrie likes?”

    “Um, yes, she reckons she can only bring herself to go on buying it if she doesn’t watch the blimmin’ ads,” said Trisha weakly.

    Steve smiled palely. “That her idea of a joke?”

    “No, I think she meant it, actually.”

    On second thoughts, she probably had. He sighed, but admitted: “Well, yeah; talking of paws in the food, that Jamie type was on again the other night, masherating muck like nobody’s biz!”

    “I thought you and Jimbo were watching that mad car thing?” said Trisha feebly.

    “Nah, before that, turned it on by mistake.” He scratched his head dubiously. “The kid seems to think ’e’s the bee’s knees. Fake Cockney accent and all.”

    “Um, Steve, I think his is genuine,” she said cautiously. “Not like that awful Robin Hood man with the horrible whiskers that Jimbo liked.”

    “Eh? Aw. If you say so, darl’.”

    “Well, if he’s making Jimbo’s generation think seriously about their diets, it’s a good thing, Steve.”

    “As far as it goes, yeah. But I told ’im, if I see you with yer filthy mitts in a dish in this house, mate, you can feel the business end of my mitt! Well, Jesus, darl’! In our climate? Ya know how many cases of food poisoning Sydney gets in an average summer?”

    Trisha waited but he didn’t tell her. “A lot?” she ventured feebly.

    “You’re telling me! Well, I forget: it was on one of those flamin’ talk-back shows the other day, that cretin Bob Crayshaw had ’is radio on again in the office. But a hundred thousand’d be close. –Believe it!”

    Trisha did believe it; she nodded, shuddering.

    “She hasn’t actually got one of these waitressing jobs, has she?”

    She jumped. “Who, Harrie? Not yet, no.”

    It was still relatively early: they’d had tea, Jimbo was in his room, with his computer, and Kyla was yet again over at Melanie Satterthwaite’s place. The older Drinkwaters for once had the TV to themselves and had conscientiously started watching it on the strength of it, but had more or less given up: the ABC, as per usual, had a collection of ponces and tarts that thought they were funny—no, all right, Trisha, tarty hags—shooting their mouths off about nothing on the cheapest studio set Steve had ever seen, one long counter, be knocked up from a piece of chipboard with a hunk of laminate stuck on top of it, and a few licks of paint on the flats behind ’em, yeah, flats was the technical term—and a choice of yet another re-run of CSI on 9, yet another diet show full of fat people on 10, depressing was the word, though Harrie’s was voyeuristic—good, eh?—and yet another non-funny Frog movie, very dark except for the subtitles, on SBS. And all re-runs of even worse tripe on the new digital channels and when Trisha could prove Foxtel was showing any actual new movies that a human being might actually wanna see, they might think about it. And not before. Steve got up, casting the screen a look of loathing as he did so.

    “Ya might as well turn that crap off, darl’. Think it’s a different load of ponces entirely, think this lot are Poms, but they still think they’re funny and they’re still spouting garbage.”

    “Mm.” Trisha picked up the remote and tried SBS. “Ugh!” She turned it off. “What happened to that lovely series about the blonde girl that looked a bit like Bridget Jones? Swedish, I think.”

    “Uh—that SBS thing ya liked? Think it was a rip-off from Bridget Jones, actually. Well, dunno. Must of ended. Don’t worry, they’ll re-run it! This Christmas, prolly.” He mooched over to the door.

    “Are you going to bed, Steve?”

    “Nope. First I’m gonna check on exactly what Master Jimbo’s up to on his flamin’ computer, and if it’s anything rude I’m pulling its modem wire out. Or if it’s a flamin’ online game; and next time ’e tries that one on, he can pay the bill himself! Then I’m gonna get online meself and check out this ruddy temp agency—did you say Right Smart?”

    “Mm. Um, I think she said it was one word, Steve.”

    Steve muttered experimentally to himself, deciding: “All right, I’ll try both. Don’t wanna search through seven hundred pages of brilliant-Google-algorithm-ed crap. And when I’ve done that I’m gonna check out this flamin’ Springer House these new mates of hers run!”

    “Y—um, I think the Andersons only run the crafts centre.”

    “It as well, then,” he said grimly.

    “They do sound nice—well, she sounds nice; he sounds a bit mad, actually,” Trisha admitted weakly. “Good idea, love. And, um, check out this annexe thingo, Steve.”

    “Eh?”

    “Springer House Annexe,” said Trisha limply. “It’s the first time she’s mentioned it.”

    Muttering something under his breath, Steve nodded grimly, and strode out.

    Steve’s “study” was actually a converted linen cupboard. Well, as Trisha had said, the house was full of storage and nobody could need that much linen in our climate, and they had a drier, they didn’t need to buy dozens and dozens of towels. It was right at the end of the passage, so he’d ripped out its frontage and extended its space almost up to the door of their room, putting in tall louvered doors and, since Dr Jimbo, P.E.S.T., K.I.All, had pointed out that computers got hot, Dad, ya needed air-con or at least ventilation, adding a small air-con unit, since the linen cupboard, oddly enough, wasn’t on the house’s ducted system. He hardly ever needed to use it, so it wasn’t costing them that much.

    “Thanks, love,” he said as Trisha came along quietly with a mug some time later and looked over his shoulder. “Ooh, Milo? Thanks!”

    “Just for once,” said Trisha on a weak note, not revealing that she hadn’t made coffee because he’d started complaining it kept him awake if he drank it this late, and she hadn’t wanted to make tea because that might bring the Nigella thing up again and she’d had more of that than she could take, frankly. “So what’s the verdict?”

    “He’s reprieved. Reading up stuff on electric cars.”

    “What? Oh: Jimbo! Toys?” said Trisha dubiously.

    “Nah, these new electric cars.”

    “Steve, the power bill’s enormous as it is, and they say the charges are going up even further because of the drought or the carbon tax thingo!” she said in alarm.

    “Yeah—no. Well, they do every year anyway, don’t they? No, don’t think he’s seriously envisaging one—and I’m certainly not, ’tis my wallet that hurts every time the flamin’ bill comes in,” he reminded her. “Um, purely theoretical interest. Maybe he’s gonna go into engineering after all.”

    “It’d be better than bumming round the world for fifty years like your flaming Uncle Ben!” she said bitterly.

    Or becoming a TV cook like Jamie Pommy-Face—yeah, which had recently been mooted, but thankfully only to him, so he’d told him to mention that one to his mother on pain of death. “Yeah, but I think that one’s wearing off, love,” he said soothingly. “Mr Jennings at school seems to be a good influence.”

    “Yes, thank goodness they’ve got him this year and not that silly Mr Podstolski with his environmental rubbish and stupid marches!”

    Er—yeah. Weren’t electric cars supposed to be highly environmental, too? If ya didn’t count the filthy coal-burning energy the NSW power plants hadda produce in order to make the electricity that made the ruddy things go, of course. Not to mention the carbon-heavy energy it took to make the things in the first place—to drive them industrial robots as well as make the actual steel and stuff. Steve let it go. “Yeah.”

    “Anyway, I didn’t mean him,” said Jimbo’s doting mother dismissively. “What about this temp agency? And the B&B.”

    “They look okay. Hang on, I’ll show ya the temp place’s website.” He went back to it. “It’s one word: RightSmart, see? It’s been going for a while—well, as these places go. The senior partner’s a lady, it was her that started it, and this Iain joker that Harrie met, he’s relatively new. A Pom, but not a bad bloke, by the sound of him. Ex-army. British Army, done a stint in Iraq.”

    “Where does it say that?” said Trisha dazedly.

    “They got their pics and stuff—hang on. Um, ‘Employment Consultants’, that’s it! –See?” he said as a page of short biographies complete with photos appeared.

    Trisha peered, and swallowed. Iain Ross was very good-looking. In fact not unlike the new James Bond. Fairer, though. Well, it was reddish, and Harrie had always reckoned she couldn’t stand red hair, but...

    “It’ll be all right,” said her spouse comfortably, reading her mind with no difficulty whatsoever. “Harrie’s never fancied blokes with red hair.”

    “Mm. –Ooh, this must be his wife! Heck, she does look a bit like—” Trisha swallowed. “Her.”

    “Mm? Aw—right. Pretty woman, eh? Like I say, her and him, they’re new. The other two blokes and this girl, they seem to’ve been with them for some time. That’s a good sign, especially with these little employment agencies.”

    “Is it? Good. Um, how little, is there anything about that?”

    “Well, they’re not gonna give out confidential financial info on their website, Trisha,  they wouldn’t wanna let their competition know that sort of thing. They’re not huge, obviously, but they’ve got their main office in Sydney and they’ve just opened a branch in Canberra, doesn’t sound bad.” He went back to the home page. “And they certainly got a lot of different temp jobs on their books: see the list?”

    “Mm... Do people actually want gardeners?” she said dazedly.

    “Must do. Those Jim’s franchises are going good, aren’t they?”

    “Yes, but I’d of thought they pretty well had the market sewn up, Steve!”

    “Can’t have, this lot are advertising gardening in their current jobs, see?”

    “Ooh, yeah. Go on, click on the link. –Heck, quite a few! Click on that, Steve!”

    Obligingly he clicked, and one of the jobs opened up.

    “Not much detail,” said Trisha dubiously.

    “Love, they’re not gonna give out the name and address of their clients to all and sundry: the opposition’d be in there like a shot!”

    “Mm. Well, at least it shows the suburb.”

    “Yeah, that’s sensible: gives you a good idea of whether you could actually get there without having to spend what the job’s worth on petrol. Come on, let’s try one of the hospitality jobs, eh?”

    After a certain amount of argument they clicked on the one that appealed to Trisha.

    “Help,” she said numbly. “‘Catering for select private parties for no more than fifty guests, exclusive dinners for two to two dozen, cocktail parties a specialty...’ How many people live like that in Sydney?”

    “All them rich lawyers like Muffin-Face Meiklejohn in the downtown towers, for a start!” he said with feeling.

    “Who? Oh, Mum’s lawyer!” Trisha could just see Mr Meiklejohn—Muffin-Face wasn’t a bad name for him, actually—at a coolly elegant cocktail party, eating the sort of little nibbles that the ad proclaimed this client of RightSmart’s provided. Canapés, yet. Fresh sushi as well—well, these days that went without saying, if you were in the top end of the catering business. Shit, they even did elegant afternoons with petit fours! She had heard of them—just. But she couldn’t of told you what they actually were, to save her life!

    “What the Christ is a petite four, when it’s at home?” croaked Steve foggily.

    “Um, ‘petty four’, I think, dear. Um, well, dunno, exactly. Small and sweet, I think.”

    “These elegant afternoons’ll be for the ladies, then,” he discerned without difficulty. “Here, I know! Kika Delafield!” he choked.

    “Ooh, yeah,” said Trisha in awe. “Steve, that’s brill’! She’d love it! ’Specially if she could go one-up on all her awful mates! I wonder how much these catering people charge?”

    “Dunno, but I’d email it to ’er, if I was you!”

    “Y— Um, but it doesn’t give you their name or address, Steve.”

    “No, that’d be giving the game away, see? All the other temp agencies’d be in like Flynn. No, all she has to do is contact these RightSmart people, and once they’ve checked she’s got a bona fide interest and isn’t spying for another agency—or another caterer, for that matter—they can put ’er onto them, see?”

    “Ye-es. I don’t see how they can be sure, though.”

    “They can look her up in the phonebook and ring her home number, and if it really is her she’ll be at home putting her feet up while Mrs Mop does the housework for ’er, won’t she?”

    “Y— Mrs Atkins, she’s very nice!” she corrected crossly. “Well, yes, you’re right.” She looked at him in some awe. “You’d be really good at it, Steve, you oughta work for these RightSmart people yourself!”

    “I wouldn’t mind,” he said on a wistful note. “Be better than slaving away under ole Wainwright, that’s for sure. Not to mention working next to Bob Crayshaw.”

    “Mm. –How come he had his radio on? I thought that was a no-no?”

    Steve made a face. “Too right! Nah, Painwright was at an important meeting.”

    “Was it?”

    He shrugged. “Dunno. The little people don’t get told stuff like that. Like the truth.”

    “It is the Public Service, I’d say you had a right to know as members of the public!” said Trisha angrily.

    “Yeah, but I’m not volunteering to tell Painwright that!”

    “No. Well, shall we email Kika?”

    “Why not?” Competently Steve got their email up and sent it, obligingly signing the message “Trisha”, though as it was the same email address and both their names appeared as the automatic signature anyway— Never mind.

    He thought she might have forgotten about the B&B, but no: she said: “What about the B&B? Does it look okay? How expensive is it, Steve?”

    Resignedly he repeated the search for the B&B. It looked genuine enough—that wasn’t the point. “Depends whether you stay at the house itself or the annexe, it’s down the road a bit, so if ya want the restaurant ya have to actually stagger there with yer walking frame or drive a hundred metres or so.”

    “Oh. …Ooh, that looks lovely!” she cried.

    Yeah. Steve would of taken a bet on that one. Springer House was basically just an old wooden bungalow—well, possibly dating back to Federation, yeah. Basically a deep blue. Not dark, exactly, no. Deep. The sort of blue that kind of took ya by the throat and shook ya—yep. The verandah posts and wooden lace were picked out in a heavy yellow—fruity, was probably the word. The door was the piece dee resistance: bright lime green. Yep. And if them two, kinda wings, well, shortish wings, to either side weren’t yer basic sleep-outs, extended, his name wasn’t Steve Drinkwater!

    “Four double bedrooms in the house and two in the annexe! It sounds lovely, Steve!”

    “Mm. Well, Harrie said the nosh was great—’member?”

    Trisha wasn’t listening: she’d leaned over his shoulder, wrenched the mouse out of his nerveless hand, and was clicking on the “Plan” link. “I see! Look, there’s a lovely horse-trekking place between the main property and the annexe!”

    Steve swallowed a sigh. Trisha was scared of horses. And as to where that “lovely” had come from... Oh, well, he’d known it’d be like this the minute she clapped eyes on the bloody colour sch—

    “Ooh, look! The annexe looks super, Steve!”

    Oh, boy. That had done it. They were slated for a lovely weekend at Springer House B&B before the year was out.

    “Fawn and maroon with touches of Federation green! It’s so tasteful, Steve!”

    Yeah, yeah.

    “This is one of the rooms, isn’t it gorgeous?”

    What was that? At least two “lovely’s”, not counting the horse-trekking one, one “super”, one “tasteful” and now a “gorgeous”? That was it, then: I,T.

    “Yeah, looks good.” Jesus, woman, it’d be all wrinklies and after-dinner gossip and sweet port or Bailey’s Irish Cream until they tottered off with the walking-frames at nine-thirty, wasn’t the phrase “wheelchair ramp” fair warning? “They cater for special diets, see?” he said without hope.

    She didn’t get it, she just said approvingly: “Very thoughtful.”

    The crafts centre had to get the nod next, and she ran and fetched the little picture that she’d hung by the front door—ooh, yes, it was by the man who actually ran the crafts centre, well, perhaps he was a bit eccentric, but after all artists were allowed to be—and blah, blah, blah...

    “Eh? Well, yeah, I s’pose it’d be good if Harrie got a job waiting on up there—if they can provide accommodation. It’s a three-hour drive at least,” he said without hope.

    This had no effect whatsoever, and blah, blah, blah...

    Coralie Catering & Cuisine consisted of Coralie herself, a ladylike blonde woman in her late forties whom Harriet silently characterized as a sea-changer with a difference—well off, divorced, looking around for something different to do, but had picked on elegant catering instead of a hobby farm or such-like—Jan, who assisted with the cooking, a stolid, middle-aged woman who was very clearly Coralie’s most loyal supporter, and a floating population of waiters and waitresses hired through RightSmart. Scarcely had Harriet, in the ordained black skirt and white blouse, assumed the pretty frilly white apron that Coralie explained apologetically the ladies liked, than Coralie was telling her wistfully that Iain Ross had done butler for her before he became a RightSmart consultant and he’d been lovely, the clients had adored him, they’d never found anyone like him since.

    Harriet hadn’t known that you could even get butlers in Australia. “Butler?” she echoed faintly.

    “Yes, he was perfect,” sighed Coralie. “Well, of course he speaks very nicely, doesn’t he?”

    Plum in ’is mouth the size of an orange—yep! Harriet just nodded meekly.

    “Yes... I suppose he went to a very good school. Of course he never said anything to us—did he, Jan?—but I think his family must be quite well off.”

    Then why was he working, even as junior partner, for a small employment agency at the end of the universe? Harriet just nodded meekly.

    “Well, now,” said Coralie briskly, “this week we’ve got a dinner party for six—a new client, they insisted on Balmain bugs, they’re entertaining his overseas business contacts, you see, but they wanted something different, nothing barbecue-ish, and nothing you see on the cookery shows, well, I can sympathize with that”—“Too right!”—put in Jan—“yes, overdone, aren’t they? So I’ve fallen back on something classic; well, these days, who’s heard of Lobster Thermidor?”

    She’d paused for breath, so Harriet said meekly: “I have.”

    “There you are! I knew Iain wouldn’t let us down!” cried Coralie, very pleased. “That’s the main, of course. I have to admit it, none of them have ever heard of the classic menu, they usually just order three courses, and of course you can’t argue with a client.”

    “She made the mistake of trying to, back when she was just starting out,” explained Jan.

    “Mm: it’s the quickest way to lose them,” said Coralie, making a face.

    Harriet would have thought bad food was the quickest way to lose them, but she just nodded meekly.

    “There’s a pâté en croûte for starters—well, it’s classic, and that’s what she wanted. I did suggest chicken livers, I’ve got several nice versions, but she said they were old hat and she didn’t want anything that looked liked finger-food or shish kebabs. We serve it on small cos lettuce leaves and watercress, or baby spinach or rocket if there’s no watercress: it’s surprising how far one pâté’ll stretch, done like that!” said Coralie with a smothered giggle. “And the dessert’s one of Jan’s specials!” She beamed at her.

    By the look of Jan you’d have expected something like a towering pav, smothered in whipped cream, but by now Harriet wasn’t taking any bets, so she smiled at her and asked: “What, Jan?”

    It was a thing called Oranges Caramel, she’d cut it out of a magazine thirty years back—Harriet nodded, that'd be about right, Jan must be sixtyish—and it was easy as falling off a log, you made it the day before. Just a caramel poured over the orange segments—no pith, the clients thought that was very up-market and they were paying for it—and leave it in the fridge overnight so as the caramel melted. Then you could serve it up as fancy as you liked! Jan looked sideways at Coralie, and sniggered.

    Coralie smiled. “It depends on the client.”—Right, concluded Harriet, on what the client’s purse’d stand for.—“Tonight we’re doing the version that we call Oranges en Nuage.”

    Sniggering, Jan revealed: “Sitting in a circle of spun sugar—fairy floss to you and me, Harriet—and scattered with a few blueberries and some icing sugar. On pale blue plates—looks a treat!”

    “Mm. Sometimes the clients insist on their own china, of course,” added Coralie, “but I always show them the picture of the dessert plated up.”

    “Show her!” urged Jan.

    Smiling, Coralie produced a huge photograph album, very like the one Trisha’s wedding photos were in, but with a white vinyl cover rather than white satin, and showed her.

    “Heck,” said Harriet in awe. “Clouds and then some! It’s lovely, Coralie! Um, but how do you make the spun sugar?”

    Sniggering, Jan revealed: “She’s got a machine. Easy as falling off a log!”

    “I decided it’d be an investment,” said Coralie simply.

    Presumably it had paid off: Trisha had reported that Kika Delafield had contacted the catering firm in the ad, it was Coralie Catering & Cuisine, and they charged the earth! And they were really booked up for the next six months but they’d managed to squeeze her in for an elegant afternoon in two months’ time.

    “That’s tonight, of course,” said Coralie. “Then day after tomorrow it’s a cocktail party with nibbles. Don’t worry, Harriet, I’m very particular about the clients I do drinks parties for."

    “See, originally she wasn’t into that at all,” explained Jan, “but some of the regular clients starting asking her, and we thought we could manage it—she’d started using RightSmart regularly for personnel, you see—but we had a few disasters, eh, Coralie?”

    Coralie shuddered. “Yes. Well, nothing drastic, Harriet, drunks pinching the young waitresses’ bottoms, that sort of thing."

    “Indecent suggestions,” added Jan drily.

    “Yes; and at one dreadful do a man offered one of the boys who was waiting on coke.”

    There were possibly worse things a boy might have been offered, but Harriet just nodded meekly and said: “I see.”

    “Now, tonight,” said Coralie briskly, “it’s table service, of course. Offer the dish at the person’s left, Harriet. You won’t have to spoon things out: let them help themselves from the veggie dishes.”

    “The others are plated up,” explained Jan.

    “Yes: just place them from the left, too, Harriet.”

    Was that all? Harriet looked at her numbly.

    “It’s what they want, Harriet,” said Jan kindly. “A bod in a black skirt and white blouse with a fancy apron serving them servilely.” She eyed her drily. “Or white shirt and black trousers, of course, but most of the boys we’ve tried were hopeless—well, nice boys, trust RightSmart for that, but didn’t have a clue!”

    “Mm, even the ones that had restaurant experience,” added Coralie mournfully.

    Jan looked drier then ever. “Most of them were the worst.”

    “Yes, um, would you want me to set the table?” gasped Harriet. They couldn’t have hired her—it was an hourly rate and Iain at RightSmart had said she’d be wanted for at least three hours and the travelling time between the client’s place and Coralie’s place—she worked from home—was billable time, too—they couldn’t have hired her just to hand a few plates!

    “Since it’s you!” replied Jan with a sudden loud laugh.

    Blushing, Harriet looked doubtfully at Coralie.

    “I always check, of course,” she smiled, “but yes, we’d love you to set the table, Harriet, it’s one less worry off my mind, you see.”

    Harriet did see. It was pretty clear why lain Ross had leapt on her mature self for the job with Coralie Catering & Cuisine. And to think she’d imagined he was doing her a favour! Well, she supposed hazily, that was the employment consultant’s art, no doubt. And some of the chat he’d indulged in during the interview had clearly not been harmless chat at all! As to how he’d got her onto the subject of Oxford, and that meal at the Mitre—! After that they’d diverged onto frightful Australian food they’d known... Yeah, well.

    Now, they were ready, if Harriet could just grab that esky—not too heavy, was it? Good. And they piled into Coralie’s ageing station-waggon, and went.

    “Was that all?” said Trisha numbly, chopping silverbeet briskly for dinner the next day. “You were awfully late back, weren’t you? I meant to wait up but I went to sleep.”

    “The thing was pretty long-drawn-out ’cos the guests were all talking their heads off. But Coralie drove us home, just like Iain said she would. That was pretty much it, yeah—just waiting at the table and helping with the washing up. Well, I had to pour the first lot of wine—it was okay, I just took my time, they didn’t even look at me, they were all chatting—and then the host took over, just like Coralie said he would. They got through four bottles of the dry white with the starter and the main, and then a bottle of sweet stuff that Coralie reckoned she wouldn’t have served with the dessert, but it was the client’s own.”

    Frowning, Trisha did complex arithmetic, lips moving silently.

    “Two-thirds of a bottle each of the dry white, and a sixth of bottle each of the sweet stuff,” said Harriet mildly. “I worked it out. It comes to five-sixths of a bottle each. Then they went on to liqueurs, but we just served the coffee and did the washing up, and came home. Coralie said they’re usually like that. The hostess was very pleased, she came into the kitchen and thanked us all personally. And guess what! She tipped me and Jan!”

    “Good. How much?”

    “Ten bucks each!” reported Harriet gleefully.

    Looking grim, Trisha wrenched open a packet of Fetta cheese and commenced chopping it fiercely. “Great. Don’t dare to declare that on your tax return!”

    After a moment Harriet said weakly: “I hadn’t thought of that... I see. Tips count as non-declarable income, do they?”

    Trisha chopped cheese fiercely. “You betcha!”

    “Uh—Trisha, you could just crumble the cheese,” said Harriet weakly.

    Trisha stopped and stared blankly at what she’d just done. “Oh. Oh, well, never mind, it’ll all melt anyway! I just hope this recipe works, I’ve tried making spanakopita before and it never worked out.”

    “It’ll work, when Coralie interviewed me for the job she said it was failsafe!” Harriet reminded her, grinning.

    Her sister smiled weakly. “Yeah.” Well, even if it didn’t, thank goodness Harrie had at last found a job—and with an employer that she actually liked!

    Steve’s verdict was “Yum! Can I’ve some more?” So that was all right.

    The cocktail party with the nibbles was easy-peasy, too. About two dozen guests, all shouting their heads off, drinking huge quantities—lots of champagne and white wine, actual cocktails seemed to be an also-ran—and gobbling huge quantities of dainty nibbles. Hot ones, mainly: both Coralie and Jan were chained to the kitchen, making or frankly re-heating them. Harriet didn’t have to serve the trays of drinks, Coralie had two girls, both hired through RightSmart, to do that, thank goodness! She just served the platters of nibbles.

    The party was being given by a very up-market, apparently childless couple, in a huge flat with a large balcony providing a magnificent view of Sydney Harbour. Jan explained in the kitchen as she shoved little thingos under the grill: “The balcony’s stretching a point. We don’t do outside parties, pool parties and stuff, except for her own friends. They always get too drunk, and then, Coralie doesn’t want to risk the waiting personnel getting sunburnt. See, when they’re drunk they don’t care how long they keep you out in the sun. Well, some of the ones we’ve had wouldn’t’ve cared, drunk or not!”

    “No,” said Harriet faintly. “What—what are those, Jan?”

    Jan grinned at her. “Mixture of angels on horseback and devils on horseback. They date back to the Ark, of course, but this lot won’t have heard of them, they’ll think they’re something new!” She chuckled. “They’re just oysters or prunes wrapped in bacon, Harriet.”

    “I see. Which are which?”

    “I forget!” she admitted cheerfully.

    “Buh-but what if they ask me?” she faltered.

    “They won’t, it’d be showing up their ignorance! But if they do, tell ’em anything!”

    “Yes,” said Harriet weakly. “Okay.’

    Jan shrugged. “They didn’t want sushi or anything Asian, but they couldn’t suggest what they did want, so Coralie just showed them a couple of pages of the easiest hors d’oeuvres and they leapt on them.”

    “Mm. Those tiny vol-au-vents look extra,” she admitted as Coralie withdrew them from the giant eye-level oven.

    Coralie turned round, smiling. “Just choux pastry puffs cut open with a dollop of fish sauce in them, and the tips of some prawn tails to make them look expensive!”

    Harriet nodded seriously. The prawn tails were shelled, more than proving that Coralie and Jan had sense. The ones you saw in the mags and on the cooking shows with their tail fins left on might have looked smart but just imagine being faced with one of those at a cocktail party! How on earth would you cope with the fins?

    “Now, this is the finishing touch!” Rapidly Coralie inserted a small feathery spray of fennel leaves into each puff next to its small piece of prawn.

    “Lovely!” approved Harriet. “Um, so the sauce hasn’t got prawn in it as well, Coralie?

    “No, I used the rest in a special scalloped seafood mixture.”

    “Not for them,” noted Jan sardonically.

    “No, I’ve frozen it,” said Coralie calmly. “It’s a creamy sauce mixture, Harriet. We’ve got a special dinner party coming up the week after next, I’ll use it at that.”

    “Spoonful each on a scallop shell, no pun intended, plus a poached scallop on top of that,” explained Jan. “Then they pay through the nose for it. It is nice, I’ll give you that.”

    “Mm, well, these are quite nice, too, but they’re so easy, the woman could do them herself,” admitted Coralie. “Have one, Harriet!”

    “Me?” she gulped. “Ooh, thanks!” She took one eagerly. It was utterly yummy, of course. “That was delicious, Coralie,” she said shyly.

    “Thanks!” replied Coralie with a laugh. “Now, take them through, Harriet. Oh—and watch out, half of them’ll take the fennel off, and they’ll put it anywhere. Don’t put the bits on your tray until they’ve emptied it, but then you’d better circulate quietly and collect up any rubbish.”

    “We’ll see you in a hour’s time, then,” noted Jan.

    Smiling weakly, Harriet went out with her tray.

    … “It wasn’t quite that bad!” she reported to Trisha and the fascinated Steve over a belated supper. “But I could see why the lady had hired us: it wasn’t the cooking and serving, so much, it was the tidying up afterwards! You wouldn't believe where some of those people had put their rubbish!”

    “In the potted plants?” suggested Steve.

    “That was the least of it! –They had those tall things with huge long oval leaves—quite narrow; I’d only seen them on TV before. Um, on CSI Miami, I think. Or was it Gardening Australia, in one of those everlasting Queensland segments they seem to think the rest of Australia can’t do without? Um, both, I think. Very long, Steve,” she explained, as he was looking dubious. “Each leaf at least as long as my forearm.”

    “Oh! I know!” cried Trisha. “They are lovely, Harrie.”

    “Yes, they’re very elegant,” agreed Harriet. “That didn’t stop the guests from putting muck in them, though. And all the coffee tables were covered in sticky glasses, and so was the mantelpiece—some idiots had put the sticks from their little hot thingos in a beautiful pottery bowl, wouldja believe?—and the balcony wall as well. Some of them were unspeakable!” She shuddered. “Dead-looking things in them! You know: dregs of drinks that someone had dropped a half-eaten oyster in. One of the girls even found half a vol-au-vent wrapped in a paper napkin shoved down behind a sofa cushion! We hadn’t contracted to clean the rugs, just as well, there was an awful lot of trodden-on muck in them. They were white, of course—huge fluffy ones.”

    “They sound like the sort of people that’ll just chuck them out,” noted Trisha.

    “They’ll have to chuck out the one that a man spilled a Campari and sofa on, I should think,” Harriet admitted.

    “A bloke was drinking that muck?” croaked Steve.

    “I don’t think I’d call him that, Steve.”

    “Uh—gay?”

    “No, I don’t think so. The sort that shaves his head and wears sunnies indoors.”

    “Right. Mobile phone welded to ’is ear, was there?’

    “No, it was clipped to his belt. But the sunnies were blue!” she assured him.

    Steve went into a delighted sniggering fit, slapping his thigh.

    “It sounds terrible,” concluded Trisha with a sigh.

    “The people were pretty bad, yeah. But Coralie and Jan are solid!” she assured them.

    Trisha and Steve exchanged glances, and smiled. Phew!

    Iain Ross scratched the chin that was rather like the new James Bond’s chin. “Ye-ah. Well, you can fit it in, Harriet. And Julia will handle the cooking, no sweat, you’ll only have to hand things round. But—uh, look, Pixie Pearson’s quite an old client of ours—”

    “Pixie?” said Harriet numbly. “I thought it was a man?” Up until now the placement consultant had referred to the client as “Mr Pearson.”

    The charming Mr Ross was seen to swallow. “Well, yes, he is. Pixie is his nickname. He’s gay, you won’t have any trouble with him, Harriet, and his friends are a load of pseuds, between you and me, not the sort to look twice at the waiting staff whatever their sexual orientation. But, um—”

    “I’m not prejudiced!” said Harriet quickly.

    “No! Good Lord, no, never thought that for an instant! Er—no, it’s just that he may come out with—er—well, let’s say, something slightly inappropriate about, uh, his feelings for yours truly.” He grimaced. “Depending on how much he’s had to drink.”

    Harriet stared blankly at the extremely hetero Mr Ross.

    “I just thought I’d better warn you. He’s a very decent little fellow, but, uh—well, there it is. I don’t want you to be embarrassed by one of our clients, Harriet.”

    “Oh, dear, I see,” she said slowly. “Did you have to give him the brush-off?”

    “Mm,” he admitted.

    “That’s rather sad.”

    Suddenly he gave her a beaming smile—hundred watts, the full bit. Harriet blinked. “Yes, ’tis! That’s exactly what I feel! So—so don’t mind him, whatever he blurts out, will you?”

    “No. Well, I probably will be embarrassed,” said Harriet honestly, “but at least I’m forewarned. Thank you, Iain.”

    “Pixie” Pearson also lived in a huge high-rise with a view of the harbour—it must be typical of the end clients who wanted waiting staff for private parties. His flat was even bigger than Coralie’s clients’ one and considerably more tasteful, featuring shelves of books and genuine Persian rugs. Scarcely had Harriet, in the ordained black skirt and white blouse, assumed the pretty frilly white apron that he explained apologetically he liked his “helpers” to wear, it impressed the guests, than Mr Pearson was telling her wistfully that Iain Ross had done butler for him before he became a RightSmart consultant and he’d been lovely, his guests had died of jealously, but the firm had never found anyone like him since.

    “Butler,” said Harriet faintly. “I see.”

    “Yes, he was perfect,” sighed Pixie Pearson. “He speaks so very nicely, of course.”

    Harriet nodded feebly.

    “Yes... One called him ‘Ross’ when he was serving, of course,” he sighed. “So astounding to find anyone of his quality out here. Well, one doesn’t like to interrogate him about his family background—but I do know that his real name is Duff-Ross and the uncle owns vast stretches of Scotland!” He nodded coyly and meaningfully at her.

    Then what was he doing out here at the end of the universe— Oh, never mind! Harriet smiled kindly at the poor little man. He was little, quite a bit shorter than her, and very sleek and well-dressed—and you wouldn’t have taken him for anything but what he was: a rich gay dilettante with time on his hands and a passion for modern art, short blacks in the trendiest cafés, and, apparently, red-haired extremely hetero new James Bond lookalikes. Not something she would ever have expected to find in Australia, but apparently Sydney was now big enough and diverse enough to feature anything.

    … “So?” said Trisha with a smothered giggle as her sister tottered home and fell on the large helping of extremely down-market macaroni cheese that had been saved from the depredations of Steve and Jimbo by brute force.

    Harriet swallowed. “This is extra!”

    “Good. So what was it like?”

    “Very sad,” she said grimly.

    “Eh?”

    “Well, he must be terrifically rich, of course: he lives in one of those fantastic high-rises with a view of the harbour—you can see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, it’s miles more up-market than that other place—but all the people he invited yakked their heads off all evening and drank his booze and hardly addressed a word to the poor little man! And there was one dreadful man—I think he was something to do with one of the big art galleries—he came in and kissed everybody on the mouth, would you believe, men as well as women,”—Trisha made a sick noise—“yeah; and I thought well, he’s kissing him, maybe he’ll talk to him, but he totally ignored him! And some of them got in corners and sniggered over his paintings.”

    “So he’s an artist?”

    “Eh? No, he collects art. They sniggered over the stuff on his walls.”

    “What was it like?”

    “Most of it was too trendy for me. Full of heavy significance and totally lacking in anything approaching aesthetics. But there were one or two abstracts that I liked, and a wonderful portrait—huge, just the face—of an actor, I can’t remember his name but I’ve seen him on TV.”

    “Ooh, what in?”

    Harriet couldn’t remember. “Young and good-looking. The portrait was done in pencil but you wouldn’t have called it a sketch. Very detailed, showing almost every hair and pore, kind of thing, miles bigger than life-size. I thought it was amazing, but a clump of them were sniggering over it: one of them said: ‘Darlings, it’s very pretty, but is it art?’ and they all looked sideways at poor little Mr Pearson, and laughed! And then one of them—a lady, they were almost as bitchy as the men—she said: ‘Pixie always has fancied the pretty ones,’ and the pigs all laughed again.”

    “Um, Pixie? Was she someone they had their knives into, too?”

    “No, they meant him. Pixie Pearson. It’s his nickname.”

    “I see. They sound horrible, Harrie.”

    Harriet sighed. “Yes; they were.”

    “But um, did the job as such go okay?”

    “Mm,” she said with her mouth full, nodding. She swallowed. “Iain warned me they’d all be gobblers, and he was right. Everything vanished liked the dew, even the really ordinary sushi Julia made—just rice rolled up with a strip of cucumber, she’d run out of the tuna, and Mr Pearson was desperate for more, ’cos a whole mob of them came in late.”

    “And was there much clearing up to do, this time?” asked Trisha sympathetically.

    “Not so much muck in the carpets, it all went down their gullets, and Julia didn’t do anything on little sticks, so there were none of those to fish out of the vases and bowls. But there were millions of glasses. Julia got them from a commercial catering supplies firm, evidently Mr Pearson likes to hire someone that can manage all that side of it for him, and she thought half the number’d be enough, she was gonna get six dozen, but Iain told her to double it and he was right! As it was, Lissa and Cherie and me were washing glasses all night. –They kept grabbing clean ones—full ones, you see. It took us ages to finish washing them all and pack them.”

    “So how many people were there?” asked Trisha dazedly.

    “Counting Mr Pearson, sixty-seven,” said Harriet with precision. “Lissa and Cherie had a bet on, you see, so we counted. Not all at once, a few left early, and then those ones came in late, but yeah—sixty-seven.”

    “I thought you said it was a flat?” she groped.

    “’Tizh,” replied Harriet thickly through the last of the macaroni cheese.

    “But how big is it?” she croaked.

    “Mm? Well, pretty big, and he’d thrown the big lounge-room and the dining-room together—he’s got folding doors, a couple of them had a go over that as well—but they were packed in like sardines. He hadda have the air-con on.”

    It had been a very mild day. “Heck,” said Trisha numbly.

    “Yeah. How the other half lives, eh?”

    “Mm. I don’t suppose he tipped you, did he?”

    “Yes, he did, twenty bucks! Far too much, really. He came out to the kitchen and thanked us all very nicely, and tipped us all, even Julia—well, especially Julia, he said her little smoked trout canapés were wonderful—well, they were, we all had a taste. And Julia let the girls go, they’re both students and they’d already missed a train, the washing up was taking so long, and we were just gonna finish up between us but he put an apron on and insisted on helping, poor little man. It was awfully sad, he went on and on for ages about what a lovely butler Iain had been and how all the ladies that he’d served when he was working for him had been ferociously jealous and wanted him for their parties. Evidently he did chauffeur for him, too, one time: he said they used to have lovely chats about the art at the galleries he drove him to, and it was no fun not having a driver who was ‘simpatico’. Well, he’s rather a silly little man, I suppose, but he does know a lot about art. He’s got a couple of Brett Whiteley sketches in the foyer—some of his sketches are really shoddy but these two are good ones, so I said I thought they were really good and he brightened up like anything and insisted on showing me all his treasures once we’d finished the washing up. He was complaining that his bedroom was boring because it was someone else’s taste—I didn’t ask!” she said with a laugh—“and so I put in a good word for Deanna Springer’s quilts at Springer House Art & Crafts Centre, I thought I might as well! But I’m afraid he won’t buy any of Bernie’s gum trees!” She laughed again.

    “Um, no,” said Trisha, eyeing her uncertainly. “Harriet, this isn’t another one like that awful Mary Wilton woman, is it? Or that dreepy guy that foisted himself on you when you were at uni—I forget his name, the one with the horrible wispy beard that nicked twenty-five bucks out of your wallet.”

    “One of the lame dogs I used to help over too many stiles, ya mean? Nah, I’ve given that away, I can spot them a mile off, now. And Mr Pearson certainly doesn’t need to nick twenty-five bucks off anyone!”

    “There’s other sorts of needy,” replied Trisha grimly.

    “Well, yeah, but actually if he wants to make a friend of me, I wouldn’t mind. There’s no-one I can talk to about art and stuff, either,” said Harriet very drily indeed.

    Trisha swallowed. “I suppose there’s the people up at Springer House, but it’s a bit far, especially without a car. Um, well, Kyla’s interested in art.”

    “She’s interested in scrapbooking, ya mean. It could be art, and the old nineteenth-century scrapbooks are fascinating, but hers aren’t. What about going to uni and doing Art History? It’s not that popular, you don’t have to have very high marks in Year Twelve to get in.”

    “What can you do with it afterwards, though?”

    “Nothing practical. It might broaden her horizons a bit, though. Well, fads come and go in every discipline, but art history’s got a pretty broad scope.”

    “Harrie, if the degree isn’t gonna be any use to her, it’s pointless!”

    “You don’t have to convince me,” replied Harriet mildly. “Well, why not let her sign on at RightSmart? She might see something she’d like to do, and even if it’s only waiting on she’d see a bit of life.”

    “Silly old gays and their bitchy friends, and the sort of rich people that throw cocktail does to impress the sort of people that trample muck into their good carpets?”

    Harriet smiled. “It’s all part of the human pageant. But you certainly wouldn’t want her to absorb those values.”

    Trisha shuddered. “No. It’s bad enough with her living in Melanie Satterthwaite’s pocket! Her mother’s bought another new car. She traded in the Saab because—get this—she was bored with the colour!”

    “Typical. Um, hang on... Kyla’s a good driver, isn’t she?”

    “Mm. Better than me,” Trisha admitted.

    “We-ell... Mr Pearson’s looking for a new driver. It’s a Rolls, and he’d probably want her to wear a blazer and a cap, but—”

    “That’s no sort of job for a girl!” she gasped.

    “Why not? No, seriously, I think he’d enjoy telling her what to think about the art he looks at. And she’s impressed by the café scene, isn’t she? Evidently he does a lot of sipping of short blacks, she wouldn’t think it was silly.”

    “Harrie,” said Trisha in a hollow voice, “Steve’d have a blue fit at the mere idea of his daughter working for a silly old gay.”

    “He’d have more reason for a blue fit if it was his son— No, sorry!” she said quickly. “He did make a pass at Iain Ross, I gather, but—“

    “What?” she gasped.

    “Yeah, but it was a very tactful pass.”

    Trisha took a deep and trembling breath. “Don’t you dare suggest it!”

    “I think she’d be quite safe with him, Trisha, and how many kids get the chance to drive a Ro— Okay, I won’t! It was just an idea,” she ended lamely.

    Trisha scowled. “Just a silly idea.”

    Harriet couldn’t see that it was that silly, but she nodded obediently and asked hopefully if there was any pud. At which Trisha came to and bustled around playing Kitchen like anything.

    Mrs Montgomery needed a temporary replacement “housekeeper” so Harriet said she’d do it, why not? It was cleaning, of course. It was supposed to be three hours a week, max’, but by the time the grim-jawed Mrs Montgomery, a commanding matron in her fifties who seemed to have nothing to do all day, had finished criticising and making her re-do stuff, it turned out more like five. The first week Harriet meekly put the maximum three hours on her timesheet but when it happened the second week she thought blow it! And put the exact time. To her astonishment, Mrs Montgomery signed it without a blink.

    “She’s been taking advantage of you,” discerned Christie, the young female placement consultant, when she popped in at RightSmart to drop the timesheet off.

    “Mm, I suppose she has.”

    “She’s like that: I suppose Drew never mentioned it, did he?”

    Drew was one of the two male placement consultants who were subordinate to Iain, and to Gail, the top boss, whom she’d never seen. He evidently dealt with quite a few of the so-called housekeeping jobs. He was a mild-mannered person with gold-rimmed specs but that didn’t mean, Harriet silently recognised, that he wasn’t up with all the tricks in the placement consultant’s book—of which, she was gradually coming to realise, there were a-many. “Mm,” she agreed meekly.

    Christie couldn’t possibly be more than thirty, if that, but she leaned across her desk and gave Harriet a stern dissertation on how not to let the clients take advantage of you. Complete with all the with-it jargon, it was most impressive. Pity that Harriet knew that she’d never be able to say any of it, eh?

    “Yes. Thank you, Christie,” she said humbly. “Um, it’s funny, isn’t it,” she ventured: “the woman seems to have nothing to do all day; I can’t see why she can’t do her own cleaning.”

    Lapsing rather from the professional personnel placement consultant stance, Christie replied cheerfully: “They’re all like that! You don’t wanna let it worry ya, Harriet!”

    From which it was pretty clear to Harriet that Christie Wilkins, in spite of the jargon, the very smart business suit and the ultra-smart hairdo, a bit like that lady’s once spotted at Waratah Real Estate, a shining short bob with not a hair out of place, was just an ordinary Sydney girl, after all. And maybe placement consulting—if that was the noun phrase—would do for Kyla!

    “Um, Christie, can I ask how you get started in this sort of work?” she asked shyly.

    Looking pleased, Christie replied: “I started off at Reilly’s. You know: they’re very big. It was good training, but RightSmart teaches you the more personal touch, y’know? And you get more responsibility here.”

    Er—yes. This answer was typical of her kind, in that it did not actually address the question, whilst successfully preventing the questioner, unless very brass-faced, from pursuing the point.

    “I see,” said Harriet meekly. “Um, you have to have good computer skills, I suppose.” –Looking at the computer on Christie’s desk.

    “Yes, that’s right. Not necessarily database skills, they teach ya those. And Gail uses different software anyway, it’s miles better. That’s why I asked you to pop in and see me, actually.” Harriet’s jaw dropped. Either not noticing this or blithely ignoring it, Christie went on: “I’ve got a nice little office job that might just suit you. It’s unusual, mind you, not all the personnel on our books could do it, by no means!” She gave her a blinding congratulatory smile—without really seeing her, Harriet realised, swallowing. “They’re really keen to have a mature person do it, they tried a couple of uni students and they were hopeless. They’re a project management firm, quite small, but very busy; you’d like it!”

    It was hard to know which point to address first, really. “Whuh-what sort of project management?” she stuttered.

    “Well, you know: project management!” beamed Christie.

    Right. “Um, engineering?”

    “No, I don’t think so...” Christie tapped expertly at her keyboard and read the result over to herself, her lips moving silently. “Nah. Mostly overseas aid. That’s funny, this here says ‘educational aid’. Can ya get that? Well, must do, I s’pose! Yeah, that’ll be it, that’s why the personnel database selected you!”

    “Uh—I did work in education, broadly speaking, but—but that’s nothing like aid—”

    Christie wasn’t listening. She plunged into a glowing and almost completely incomprehensible description of the job.

    “Christie, I’m not a data-input person!” said Harriet desperately.

    “Nah, they don’t want that, they said that specifically. They want someone who can think for herself!” Another congratulatory beam. Oh, help!

    The session ended with Christie beaming from behind her computer, having phoned the client to let them know that an extremely suitable candidate was on her way, and Harriet tottering out with a print-out of the details in her hot little hand.

    “Oy, hang on, Harriet!” said a very up-market Pommy voice as she smiled timidly at Marlene, the ultra-efficient receptionist, and tottered over to the door.

    Iain Ross caught up with her, grinning, and came out to the lift with her. “That Christie’s project management job?”

    “Mm.”

    “Sorry I couldn’t speak to you about it myself. Um, ’tis an office job, technically speaking, and Christie manages most of those, and, well, I’m the new boy around here,” he said with his charming smile.

    “I see. I don’t think I’m suitable,” said Harriet in a small voice.

    “You’re more suitable than anyone else on our books at the moment, that’s for sure! Well, we use the same database management software ourselves, Gail or I could do it with both hands tied behind us, but funnily enough we’re a bit busy! And Veronica could, too, even though it’s not sums!”

    This was his lovely wife; Harriet smiled shyly and said: “I’m sure she could. But I’ve never heard of the system, Iain.”

    “No, well, it’s popular in smaller libraries—there’s a couple of law firms on our books who use it for their library systems—not just catalogues and indexes, case notes as well, it manages loads of text with ease. One of the partners in Global Project Management is a former librarian—very cluey lady! She’ll show you how to use it: their input screens are set up to be really easy, don’t worry. They’re working on a couple of big educational aid projects at the moment, one in Indonesia and one in the Philippines, and an ongoing legal systems improvement thing in Indonesia—one gathers there was a lot of room for improvement, the project’s in its tenth year!” he added with a chuckle. “There was a near-disaster when one of the students they were hiring to save pennies entered a month’s worth of Philippines data to the Indonesian file, we gather. That’s when they gave in and came to us.”

    “They—they sound very big,” she quavered.

    “No,” said Iain comfortably, as the lift arrived. He got in with her and pressed the ground-floor button. “They’re very small as these firms go, but they’re quids-in with AusAID, see?”

    “No,” replied Harriet frankly.

    He twinkled at her. “It’ll dawn once you’re there! It’s often AusAID money, or World Bank money, behind the project, but the actual management is farmed out to firms like GPM. They source the project managers themselves—there’s several in the firm fulltime, of course, and they set the project timelines and so forth, but they contract a lot of on-the-ground managers as well—and also the subject personnel. Education-ists, for example,” he added primly.

    “Not a word,” replied Harriet grimly.

    He laughed. “You know that, and I know that, but we’re a dying breed, in this day and age!”

    The lift jolted to a halt on the ground floor: kindly he held his arm in the door to prevent its snapping closed on her.

    “Thanks,” said Harriet gratefully.

    Iain lounged after her, grinning. “It’s a bugger, isn’t it?”

    Harriet gave the lift a look of loathing. “I’ll say!”

    “We have protested—in writing—several times, in fact all the tenants have, but nothing goes on happening. –Just tell yourself it’s better than educationalist,” he added kindly.

    “They use that, too,” replied Harriet grimly.

    “I’ve noticed! Seriously, you’ll find they’re a good crowd at GPM. Not what you and I would call a sense of humour—or an education, ’smatter of fact,” he added, making a comical face at her, “but really decent people.” He walked over to the front door with her. “You couldn’t suggest something to tempt the appetite of a pregnant lady who isn’t supposed to be eating too much salt, could you?”

    Harriet smiled. “I see, you’re getting your wife’s lunch!”

    “Mm. We do often make our own, but you get bored with bringing your lunch every day, don’t you? And this low-salt thing’s getting to be a real hassle.”

    “Yes, it would: the Australian diet’s terrifically high in salt,” agreed Harriet seriously. “Well, I always think chicken and avocado with cream cheese is a nice option. Um, with lettuce, of course. Is there a Blue Lemon near here?”

    “Er—not that I know of, Harriet!”

    “It’s a chain. Um, come to think of it, actually I’ve only seen them in Adelaide, I dunno if there are any in Sydney. They specialise in readymade takeaway baguettes. Well, they call them that, but they’re not what you’d think of as a baguette. They’re soft.”

    “Uh—a baguette certainly isn’t soft, no! Crisp. Never found ’em here,” he said sadly.

    “No, we use the wrong flour. The French use durum wheat flour—hard flour. The local foodies will have heard of it in relation to pasta, but that’s all. Um, sorry. Chicken, avocado and cream cheese is one of the Blue Lemon’s standard mixtures. But you could get the same ingredients at most sandwich places, I’m sure. Just ask for a roll, or a lepinja bread, that’s nice and soft.”

    “I don’t know that one,” said Iain with interest.

    “Well, it’s a nice soft, flattish bread, about this big,” said Harriet, demonstrating. “Very pudgy. It is rather filling, though.”

    “Great, just what Veronica needs to stop her guzzling biscuits all afternoon!”

    “Good. Um, not all places have them, and you can’t get them double-cut, they’re not thick enough,” she added shyly.

    “Double-cut?” he groped.

    Harriet nodded hard. “Mm! Don’t you use that expression in England?”

    “The whole Australian lunch terminology is entirely different from the British one, Harriet,” he said solemnly.

    “Help! And Veronica’s English too, isn’t she? Well, they slice the roll horizontally into three pieces, not two, if you ask for double-cut, and then they put two lots of filling in.”

    His jaw sagged. “You mean that all those yummy sprouty salad rolls dashed Jase and Drew have been observed scoffing these last few years aren’t something special they’ve nipped out and grabbed while little Iain’s been chained to his desk, but a—a standard option?”

    Harriet bit her lip. “Mm.”

    “Go on, laugh at the poor foreigner,” he groaned.

    “No, it’s too mean. They may charge a bit more for double-cut, mind you.”

    “Double-cut,” said Iain very, very faintly. “You can’t ask, if you don’t know the term exists!” he added savagely.

    “No,” agreed Harriet simply. “All idiolects are difficult.”

    “Yeah,” he agreed, grinning. “Had a mate once who defined that as ‘the babbling of tiny morons.’ Good, eh?”

    Harriet laughed. “Yeah!”

    “I’ll try the sandwich shop for that yummy filling and—lepinja, was it? –Right. Thanks. Oh: you go that way: cross over our street, cross over one further block and catch the bus from the far side of that road.”

    “Thanks,” said Harriet with true gratitude.

    “No, thank you!”

    “No worries!” she replied happily, and went off, smiling.

    Iain Ross shoved his hands in his pockets and wandered down to the sandwich shop. He was in quest of something for lunch for himself and Veronica, and he had genuinely never heard of “double-cut” or “lepinja”, let alone being able to spell the latter, and he was grateful for the delicious sandwich-filling suggestion. But that wasn’t why he was smiling. Sending the candidates off to their job interviews feeling happy and confident rather than shaking with nerves was one of his goals as senior placement consultant and partner in RightSmart. And he was getting quite good at it.

    … “There’s Sally and Jim, they’re the bosses, and Pete, he’s a partner, too, but he’s away at the moment,” explained Harriet over dinner. “Sally’s very efficient, she’s one of those bustling short women—quite stout, she’d be well into her fifties, but determinedly blonde. Not over-smart, at all: she was wearing a denim jacket and skirt and quite low-heeled shoes. And Jim’s very tall, one of those easy-going, drawly men. A bit shy, I think.”

    “Are they married?” asked Trisha with interest.

    “Yes, but not to each other!” said Harriet with a laugh. “They’re really good mates, that’s all. It’s really nice to see!”

    “How about this software you said you’ll have to use?” asked Steve, shovelling in spaghetti bolognaise.

    “Stop gobbling, Steve, there’s plenty,” said Trisha with a sigh.

    “I’m hungry! –Go on, Harrie, what was it like?”

    “A really lovely graphical interface!” replied Harriet, beaming.

    He blinked. “Good.”

    “It’s got all sorts of great design features—Sally showed me some. You can customise the look of the screens, and move all the boxes and everything, and it does wonderful print-outs! They print out all their contract documents from it!”

    “Eh?”

    “Mm! It’s terrific, Steve, I’ve never seen anything like it! Not just short personnel contracts, like if they were taking me on directly rather than through RightSmart, but huge great documents for their project managers! And you can scan stuff directly into it and everything. Link to documents on your server, or on the Web, and when you put the web address in the link’s live in the display and you just click, and bingo! There you are!”

    “Right. They running it on their network, are they?”

    “Yes, but they’ve got a version on their web page as well. You need a password to search the databases, of course. Well, two: there’s a link that says ‘Search GPM databases’ and that takes you to a page that asks for a password, and then you get the database menu, and each database has it own password as well. It’s for the convenience of the people in their overseas offices.”

    “Thought you said they were only small? How many overseas offices have they got?”

    “Well, only two actual offices at the moment, one in the Philippines and one in Indonesia, but they’ve got personnel in, um, several other countries, I forget them all. Thailand and Tonga, anyway. They can connect with their laptops, you see.”

    “But what sort of work do they want you to do, Harrie?” groped Trisha.

    “Just a variety of data input. Names and addresses of new contacts or new clients, or new candidates for their personnel database, that sort of thing. They want me to scan the résumés, too.”

    “Dog work,” diagnosed Steve.

    “Someone has to do it: the whole firm runs on the candidates’ data. If they can’t put forward the right people with their proposal they don’t get the job, see?”

    “Yeah. How much of this is keying and how much is scanning?” asked Steve in a hollow voice.

    His sister-in-law gave him a good glare. “There is quite a lot of inputting, but Sally said just take it at my own pace, see? They don’t want it fast, they want it accurate!”

    “I see,” he said peaceably. He shovelled in salad. “This ish goob sal’ dreshing,” he noted thickly. “You make it?”

    Harriet nodded. “Yes. I got some nice wine vinegar and Dijon mustard on my way home.”

    “Good. You can do the salads in future,” decided her brother-in-law.

    “It’s just an ordinary vinaigrette dressing,” said Trisha on a cross note.

    “Come out better than yours, though. Don’t worry, you’re still chief cook: she can’t make a decent bolognaise to save ’er life.”

    “No, that’s true,” admitted Harriet cheerfully.

    Trisha looked mollified. “You don’t let the meat cook slowly enough, I think’s the problem. So how many hours are you gonna be doing for the project people?”

    “Sixteen hours a week. Four mornings. Any time between eight and one; Sally usually starts at eight.”

    “That’s quite a lot; what about the job with Coralie?”

    “It’ll fit in quite well, ’cos she never needs me in the mornings.”

    “You’re often pretty late back from these ruddy dinner parties, though,” objected Steve.

    “I’ll be okay, I can always start at nine if I’ve been very late the night before. And it’s really easy to get there: the train to the city, then a bus goes straight there, they’re right on the bus route.”

    “That sounds all right,” conceded Trisha.

    “And I’m not doing Fridays, that’s one of Coralie’s busiest days! See, it almost seems as if it was meant!” she beamed.

    “Ye-ah. How long is this contract for?” asked Steve.

    “Three months.”

    Yeah, well, didn’t tie either party down to much, then, did it? He eyed her tolerantly and didn’t say anything. At least she’d be earning a bit of cash and seeing a few different people.

Next chapter:

https://trialsofharrietharrison.blogspot.com/2023/09/new-horizons.html