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‘It’s Atkinson Construction’s rubbish, isn’t it? Plus, I won’t tell if you don’t.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mind? I feel like I’ve already put you out quite a lot, and I haven’t even been here for twenty-four hours.’
‘Of course I don’t mind. I wouldn’t have offered if I did, would I?’
‘In that case, can I ask another cheeky favour?’
‘Go on.’
I show him the picture on my phone. ‘Can we go via this place so I can drop off the curtains and nets?’
He glances at the screen. ‘You don’t want to go there. I know a much better one, run by a Nepalese family. If you’re lucky, they’ll turn them around for you in an hour or two.’
As we head for the site, the manky mattress safely stowed in the back of Noah’s van, I can sense him pondering something, and I wonder if he’s changed his mind about helping me.
‘What’s up?’ I ask. ‘If this is all too much aggro for you, you can just say. I won’t be offended.’
‘It’s not that. I was just wondering where you slept last night. You obviously didn’t stay in the caravan of shit.’
‘You’re right,’ I admit. ‘I checked myself into the Premier Inn. I couldn’t face the caravan, with the state it was in.’
‘I hope you’re going to charge it to expenses.’
‘I’m not sure I can. I haven’t officially started yet.’
‘Nonsense!’ he exclaims. ‘They knew you were coming down yesterday, so it’s only reasonable that you should expect to be able to sleep in the accommodation. If you had to stay in a hotel because it was so disgusting, that’s down to them and they should pay. Same with all the cleaning stuff I guess you must have bought. I’d charge the bastards for every single thing.’
I glance across at him, surprised by the strength of his feelings on the subject.
‘You really hate Deborah, don’t you?’ I ask him.
‘Honestly? I want nothing more than for someone to hand that woman her arse on a plate. I don’t know if that will be you or not, but you’re the only horse I’ve got in this race at the moment, so I’m backing you.’
I sit there for a while in silence, digesting what he’s said. If I look hard, I think there might be hint of a compliment lurking in there, but I can’t be sure.
17
My plan to get to work early and settle in before everyone else arrives backfires massively as, when I pull up outside the site office at eight, the place is already a hive of activity. There are people everywhere, climbing ladders, walking around the scaffolding, and there’s a backing track of dozens of radios, all of which sound like they’re tuned to different stations. Partly blocking the entrance to the site is a massive articulated lorry with a load of bricks, which the crane operator at the back is offloading onto the ground, and forklift drivers are then ferrying to one of the houses about halfway down.
‘Afternoon,’ Noah greets me with a smile as I enter the office. He’s studying the wallchart with the holidays on it and adding a few annotations.
‘What time do you guys normally start?’ I ask him. ‘I thought I was early.’
‘I usually unlock the site at seven, and the guys start arriving shortly after that. The first deliveries start arriving at around eight. You’re just in time for the weekly team meeting. Did you want to lead that, or would you rather I did it this time?’
Noah has definitely taken me under his wing, and I’m both grateful and a little annoyed by it. Grateful, because I now have a habitable caravan with clean curtains and bedding that isn’t likely to give me a skin disease, but annoyed because all his interventions just keep reminding me how hopelessly out of my depth I am here. I’ve taken his advice and put on a pair of jeans this morning, but I’m acutely aware of the steel toe-capped boots. I have been wearing them this weekend to try to break them in a bit and stop them looking so new, but they still feel like bags of cement strapped to my feet, and I’ve had a slightly hairy journey from the caravan park as they’re slightly too wide for the dainty pedals in the Fiat, so I accidentally caught the side of the brake a couple of times when changing gear.
‘Why don’t you run it today, and I’ll take the opportunity to observe and get a feel for how things work,’ I tell him, settling myself behind the desk and turning on the computer. After I finished cleaning the caravan yesterday, I snuck down here with the leftover products and had a bit of a blitz in here as well, not that Noah seems to have noticed. The keyboard is less of a health hazard, and I also cleared up the kitchen area. The computer was password protected, but I laughed to myself when I typed in the string of letters written on the post-it note stuck to the bottom of the screen and found that I was in. Cyber security was obviously not Andy’s bag. I wasn’t surprised, when I tested it, to find that Orchestra had cancelled my subscription to the online project-planning software I’m used to, so I set up a new subscription for myself. It’s not expensive, and it will make my life loads easier. I’ve already filled in the bare bones of a plan, which I’m hoping to flesh out with Noah once the meeting is over.
After a few minutes, the office door opens and a bearded man that I reckon is in his fifties walks in, carrying his hard hat.
‘Morning, Michael,’ he says to Noah, completely ignoring me.
‘John, this is Ella,’ Noah tells him. ‘She’s our new project manager. Ella, this is John, who heads up the chippies.’
John makes no attempt to hide his disdain as he looks me up and down, before acknowledging me with a grunt.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, darlin’,’ he tells me, ‘but a building site is no place for a bird.’
