Chapter 12
Issy pretended not to notice the hush that came over the little café as she weaved a path between the tables. It was no wonder they never came into town. Being an Ashworth around here was like being a Kennedy in Cape Cod: the locals seemed to hold them up as gods of some sort.
She drummed her fingers on the unattended counter, looking for a member of staff. She didn’t have long before the site meeting she’d asked Warwick to arrange for twelve thirty. She caught the eye of a waitress in the far corner and reached for a takeaway menu.
‘I’ll have an oat milk latte and a green Buddha bowl, please, dressing on the side. To take away,’ Issy said, as the waitress approached, stony-faced. Honestly, service in Australia was a disgrace. How hard was it to greet a customer with a smile?
The woman shook her head. ‘No, you won’t.’
Issy frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’re not welcome here,’ the waitress said.
The diners at the nearest table stopped their conversation and looked at them.
Issy let out a strange little laugh. ‘What? What do you mean? You can’t—’
‘Yes, I can.’
Issy’s chest tightened. She looked around, aware of more eyes on her now, then turned back to the waitress. ‘I’d like to speak to the manager.’
‘You’re speaking to her.’
‘The owner, then,’ Issy said, flustered.
‘Also me.’
Issy swallowed hard. A boy at a nearby table sniggered. A young couple exchanged whispers behind their hands. A woman in the corner with short dark hair watched intently from behind a laptop.
The waitress pointed at the door. ‘You need to leave.’
Issy took a steadying breath, then walked out, her face burning.
As the door swung closed behind her, she heard people clapping.
Issy kept her head down as she walked briskly back to the construction site. She hurried past the site office, keen to avoid Warwick, and went straight to the bathroom—another temporary shed, which had been installed behind the old building.
Her hands trembled as she turned on the tap, trying to make sense of what had happened at the café.
Was it possible that woman didn’t know who she was?
Surely not. In fact, maybe the opposite was true, she realised, recalling the expression on the woman’s face as she’d entered the café.
The set of her jaw. Her cold glare. No. That woman knew exactly who she was refusing service.
As she splashed her face with water, she had another thought.
Was it because of her name that she was kicked out so unceremoniously?
She was accustomed to her family name opening doors, not slamming them in her face.
She was an Ashworth! Ashworths were practically royalty around here.
This town would be nowhere without them.
Just last year, they’d funded a complete overhaul of Hartwell Cricket Ground, including a state-of-the-art scoreboard, lights and a new grandstand, a gift to the people of Hartwell. And this was the thanks they got!
She patted her face dry with a sheet of paper towel, trying not to smudge her makeup. She must be missing something. Maybe that woman was mad! Anyway, there was nothing she could do about it now. Best to put it to one side and focus on the site meeting.
At exactly twelve thirty, Issy stood in front of the office, ready to start the meeting. A few minutes later, Warwick slunk out of the office and joined her. She looked at her watch, for rhetorical rather than practical purposes.
‘Where is everyone?’ she asked.
‘Lunch, probably.’
‘But I scheduled a meeting.’
Warwick shrugged. It seemed his primary means of communication. ‘Twelve till one is when the subbies knock off for lunch.’
‘Subbies?’
‘Subcontractors.’
‘Right, of course. Maybe you could have mentioned that when I asked you to schedule the meeting?’ She was starting to wonder about this man. Was he being deliberately obtuse? She sighed. ‘Why don’t you take me on a tour. We can push the meeting back half an hour.’
Warwick went into the office and returned with a high-vis vest (yellow, unfortunately) and a hard hat. Issy put them on, reluctantly—the hat would flatten her hair terribly—and followed him through a gate in the makeshift fence.
Over the course of the next twenty minutes, she got a status update from Warwick.
The restaurant spaces were all leased, with fit-outs currently underway.
The luxury apartments were a few weeks behind schedule, and the outdoor theatre and entertainment space was delayed even further.
Reading between the lines, it was clear that the previous project manager was utterly useless.
The fact that every worker on site disappeared for a full hour between twelve and one was just the tip of that iceberg of incompetence. They were probably at the pub!
As they made their way back to the office, a nauseous feeling took hold in her stomach.
How on earth was she meant to fix this mess and meet the launch deadline?
It was less than a month away, and Christmas was between now and then!
Did her father know the extent of the mismanagement?
She inhaled deeply, wondering if there was flexibility to push the launch back.
It would be the most sensible decision, given the state of things.
Although, on second thoughts, her father was not one to admit defeat easily. If she suggested moving the launch back, he would think she was making excuses before she even got started. She huffed audibly.
Warwick turned around, eyebrows raised. ‘What?’
‘Nothing, sorry,’ she mumbled, pulling at the strap of her hard hat, which was rubbing on her neck.
The situation was lose-lose. If she didn’t tell her father how bad things were down here, he would blame her for it when the project was delivered late. But if she did tell him, he’d accuse her of shying away from a challenge.
She thought of her therapist. ‘You’re catastrophising again,’ she would say, before telling Issy to refocus on the positives in the situation.
What were the positives of the situation?
At least her father trusted her enough to send her down here.
That was a good sign. He’d given her a real challenge to handle, all on her own.
He must believe she was capable of handling it. That was something.
As they reached the site office, a white Prius pulled up at the boom gate.
‘Ah good, that’s Cathy,’ Warwick said.
‘Cathy?’ Issy bristled as an arm emerged and punched in a code. ‘Cathy Stone?’ Surely he wasn’t talking about her father’s long-term personal assistant. Former personal assistant.
Warwick nodded as the gate opened and the car rolled into the space next to her own.
‘Didn’t she retire?’ Issy asked. After thirty-plus years as Malcolm’s assistant, he’d gently suggested it was time for her to move on and given her a very generous bonus on the way out the door.
There had even been a dinner at the new Neil Perry restaurant in Double Bay to send her off. Issy had sent her apologies.
The door opened and Cathy appeared, wearing a clingy wrap dress in one of the garish patterns she’d been inexplicably fond of since the mid-nineties. She’d aged since Issy had seen her last, but her grey hair was still styled into a bob so sharp the corners looked hazardous.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ Cathy said.
Issy stiffened at the term of endearment. Two words. That was all it took for this woman to make her feel like a child. ‘Cathy! What a lovely surprise!’
Issy’s phone beeped.
It was her father: From what I hear you’ve got your work cut out for you. I’ve sent Cathy down to help.
She shook her head in disbelief, then looked up at Cathy. ‘You’re just in time for our first site meeting. Would you mind taking minutes?’
Cathy gave her a curt nod.
‘Okay, everyone, gather round please,’ Issy called out.
A group of workers standing in a circle by the office glanced in her direction, then continued their conversation. The stop-go girl kept scrolling on her phone, ignoring her completely. Maybe she couldn’t hear over the sound of a passing bobcat.
‘Excuse me!’ Issy made her voice louder this time. ‘I need everyone to come together for a quick meeting.’
Again, nothing happened.
Warwick walked out of the office pulling up his pants and used his thumb and forefinger to whistle. It was the ear-splitting sound more commonly used to call a dog. Faces snapped to attention. The bobcat stopped in its tracks. Even the stop-go girl looked over, putting her phone in her pocket.
‘Get your arses here now!’
Issy straightened her hard hat as the workers crowded around.
She didn’t approve of the language but at least it was effective.
By the time everyone was assembled, roughly thirty sweaty, grimy men stood in a loose huddle.
The only other women were the stop-go girl (What was the official term?) and Cathy, who stood by her side, holding an iPad.
Issy rose up to her full height, grateful for the extra inch she got from her platform trainers, and stared into the sea of faces.
Was she imagining the hard edge she saw there?
The steely stares? Hopefully it was in her head; a hangover from the bizarre incident in the café, perhaps.
Or maybe they were just wary of newcomers.
She cleared her throat, but the low rumble of voices continued. She looked at Warwick.
‘Oi!’ he shouted. There was a hush as everyone fell quiet. Warwick looked at her. ‘Over to you.’
‘Thanks, Warwick.’ Her face felt hot. ‘Hello, everyone. I’m Isobel Ashworth. I’m down here to—’
‘Speak up!’ someone called out. ‘We can’t hear you!’
‘Sorry.’ Issy projected her voice as loudly as possible without shouting. ‘I was saying, I’m down here to oversee the final stage of the project on behalf of Ashworth Property.’ There were murmurs across the group. She tried to ignore them and went on. ‘I’ve had a tour just now—’
‘What’s your experience, if you don’t mind me asking?’ The question came from a skinny man with an eyebrow ring.
‘Of course. I’ve been working for the Ashworth Group for six years in various roles. Most recently I’ve been in the marketing team—’
‘Marketing?’ someone scoffed. ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘What about construction projects?’ someone else interjected.
‘I’ve worked on a number of our residential developments in Sydney,’ Issy said, striving for an authoritative tone.
It was technically true. Obviously she didn’t tell them that the number was one and her role had been purely administrative.
She’d never even been on site. There was more chat now, especially from the men at the back.
‘Okay! Guys!’ Issy called out, trying to restore order. ‘Can I have everyone’s attention, please?’
God. What a nightmare. It was a total free-for-all.
No wonder the project wasn’t meeting milestones.
Clearly this whole site was out of hand.
She tried again. ‘Hello? Hello! I need a bit of quiet!’ A bit of quiet?
She sounded like her high school music teacher, who’d had to take medical leave after a nervous breakdown and was never seen again. ‘Please!’
No one was listening.
Cathy stepped forward. ‘Thank you!’ she snapped.
The voices stopped.
‘Like it or not, Isobel is here to work with Warwick to get this project delivered.’
No one spoke. Some of the more vocal tradies looked at the ground in front of them.
‘You will show her respect. You will listen when she speaks. Do you understand?’
There were some nods, mumbles of agreement.
Issy swallowed, her face burning. ‘Thank you, Cathy.’ Right.
It was time to assert some control. ‘I’ve just had a tour of the site and I’m more than a little concerned about some of the things I’m seeing.
At this rate, the project is at risk of missing the deadline.
Things need to change around here. The work rate needs to increase.
Pub lunches will have to wait until after the launch, when we can celebrate delivering the project on time. ’
Warwick cleared his throat. ‘Yeah nah, you can’t actually say that.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Breaks are legislated in the industrial agreement. They can go to the pub if they want to, they just can’t drink grog if they’re coming back to the site.’
‘Right, of course.’ Her face felt like it was on fire. ‘That’s what I meant.’
How dare he undermine her like that in front of the team! She would need to have a conversation with him about this later.
She turned back to address the group. ‘Obviously you can take the breaks you’re entitled to, but when you’re on site, I expect to see people working hard, not standing around having a chat. You can save that for the pub, over your lemonade.’