Chapter 4 #2
This time he does smile, but only briefly. “Pip, you’re not here because you’re perfect. You’re here because you’re good. There’s a difference.”
I look down at the floor.
He continues, quieter now. “Perfect is brittle. Good holds under pressure.”
Josh has always had an annoying talent for sounding like he’s talking about operational standards and accidentally hitting something personal.
I stare at the edge of his desk. “If he writes one more thing that makes me look like I shouldn’t be here…”
“Then I’ll deal with him.”
I look up.
Josh’s voice is calm, but there is steel under it now. “Not you. Me.”
I blink.
He adds, “You’d still be in charge of what happens on station. If he gets in the way, you send him out. If he ignores instructions, he’s gone. If he writes anything we haven’t agreed he can observe, we end it.”
I study him. “And if I say no?”
“Then I call the editor and tell her we are not interested.”
Simple.
No guilt.
No trap.
Which makes it worse, obviously, because apparently, I am only fully comfortable when people make themselves easier to argue with.
Josh sighs and rubs a hand over his jaw. “I’m not asking because I think you owe them anything.”
“Good.”
“And I’m not asking because I think you need to prove yourself.”
My throat tightens.
He looks at me properly then. “You’ve already done that.”
I hate this conversation.
I hate it with the full, mature dignity of a woman who can manage emergency incidents but would very much like her mentor to stop quietly believing in her in an office at the end of her shift.
Josh continues, “I’m asking because people don’t understand what the job is. They don’t understand command. They don’t understand why not going in can be the bravest and most responsible decision in the room.”
The farm comes back for a second.
Smoke.
Heat.
The shape of the building.
The knowledge in my gut that nobody was going inside that structure unless I wanted to risk losing firefighters for equipment, feed and timber that were already gone.
I made the right call.
I know I made the right call.
“You don’t have to teach him everything. You don’t have to like him. You don’t even have to make it easy,” Josh says.
That pulls a reluctant breath of laughter out of me. “Good. Because I wasn’t planning to.”
“But if he’s going to write about this station again, I’d rather he did it after seeing the work than after collecting quotes from people at the end of a lane.”
I know that is reasonable.
I resent it.
I pick up my bag, then set it down again.
“What does he actually do?”
“He learns,” Josh says. “He observes, but he also gets put through the safe version of the things we can put him through. Checks, kit familiarisation, hose work, ladders if he isn't too clumsy, prevention work, station routine, the lot. If there’s a call, he comes out with the crew as an observer, but he stays exactly where he’s told and he doesn’t get anywhere near anything operationally live. ”
I stare at him. “So not just watching.”
“No. Watching would be too easy.”
For the first time since this conversation began, something almost pleasant moves through me.
Not joy.
I’m not unwell.
But the idea of Anthony Hodgson discovering that firefighting involves more than dramatic quotes and standing at the edge of fields with a notebook has definite appeal.
I narrow my eyes. “How safe is safe?”
“Very.”
“How uncomfortable is safe?”
Josh pauses.
I know that pause.
That is a pause full of possibilities.
He smirks at me. “Depends who’s supervising him.” Josh leans back, and now the mentor has quietly put on the face of a man dangling a biscuit in front of a dog he knows will pretend not to want it. “You know, if you supervise him, you set the structure of the day.”
I give him a flat look. “I know what supervision is.”
“Exactly. Which means if the appliance bay needs sweeping, he can understand station standards.”
I say nothing.
“If the hoses need washing, he can gain valuable insight into equipment maintenance.”
Still nothing.
“If someone needs to restock the kit room, wipe down surfaces, check equipment stores, carry things from one side of the yard to the other and then carry them back because Kev put them in the wrong place…”
I hold up a hand.
Josh stops.
I stare at him.
He waits, looking innocent in a way that would not hold up in court.
“That is manipulative.”
“That is operationally educational.”
“You’re bribing me with chores.”
“I’m offering immersive learning opportunities.”
I try very hard not to smile.
It is a close thing.
Josh sees it.
Obviously he sees it.
He has the survival instincts of a man who should keep quiet and the personality of a man who absolutely will not. “There’s probably a gutter that needs looking at.”
Beyond the office window, the yard sits quiet under the fading light. Someone has left a helmet on the bench. The place looks quiet from here, almost peaceful, but I know better than most how quickly quiet becomes noise.
I think about Samantha earlier, swallowed by a high-vis vest and ordering grown men about as if nobody has ever suggested authority might not belong to her.
I think about her older.
Fuck it.
“When would he start?” I ask.
His expression doesn’t change, but I know him well enough to see he’s careful not to look pleased. “When you’re back on duty.”
“Fine. But don’t even dream of me spending my four days off emotionally preparing for Anthony John Hodgson.”
“Understood.”
“And I can end it.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re telling the editor this is not a fluffy redemption piece about a poor misunderstood journalist learning women can be competent.”
Josh looks faintly offended. “Obviously.”
“Good.”
I breathe out slowly.
This is a terrible idea.
Possibly one of the worst ideas ever conceived in this office, and this is the same office where Kev once proposed improving community engagement by starting a station TikTok called Hot Responders.
Still.
I look at Josh.
“Fine.”
His eyebrows lift.
I point at him before he can look too satisfied. “In principle.”
“Of course,” he says solemnly. “In principle.”
I pick up my bag again.
“And Josh?”
“Yes?”
“If he brings a notebook on day one, tell him to write down that I already regret this.”
Josh smiles.
“That,” he says, “might be the most honest opening line he gets.”