Olivia's Mine Page 19

  It was a gamble for Olivia to consider as well. McMichael would probably laugh his head off if he heard Akiko was a salesperson in the store. Cow-towing to the foreigners, oh she could practically hear him snickering. But Akiko had a very good point. The community was made up of many different cultures and there was something to be gained on a lot of levels if this worked. Who else would employ this woman and pay her a fair wage? And she had inadvertently gotten her fired.

  “Well,” Olivia said. “It looks like I’ve solved one of my problems, Akiko. Why don’t you come back at five when the store is closed so we can talk?”

  “Mrs. Olivia?”

  “Yes, Akiko,” Olivia said firmly. “I would like to offer you a job. I’m going to need someone to help in the store in the mornings. Would that suit you?”

  Akiko smiled and bowed.

  Olivia offered her hand.

  “We shake hands in Canada,” she said. “No bowing. We don’t want Lucy getting used to that, do we? She’ll have us bowing all day long.”

  Akiko shook her hand as she had seen her husband do.

  Outside the window, Sarah clapped her hands in delight. She opened the door and stuck her head inside.

  “Come along Akiko,” she said. “It’s time for a celebratory piece of cake from the café. My treat! I’ll save mine for my dinner, but you’ll know I’ll be thinking about you all afternoon!”

  The two friends walked arm in arm down the street, giggling like two schoolgirls.

  Olivia thought about the decision she had just made. It really wasn’t any crazier than the position her Uncle Aaron had just put her in. He had insisted that a blood relative look after the new fire-proof cement concentrator going in at the mine until it was fully bought and paid for and legally no longer his. He had asked her to look after it for him and agreed to pay her wages to McMichael while she was there on a part-time basis, in the mornings, supervising the installation. Not that she knew anything about concentrators, but she would learn very quickly.

  “Funny how things work out,” she thought to herself.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Olivia walked into the mining office that first day with great apprehension. Frank, of course, was furious with her when he heard the news but said nothing to her. Nothing at all. He hadn’t carried on a civil conversation with her in weeks. She supposed he had heard the news directly from McMichael. She had heard McMichael had been very vocal about it. But with Frank it was a conversation she didn’t know how to begin and preferred just to avoid.

  “Let sleeping dogs lie,” she told herself.

  Perhaps he felt the same way, she thought. Frank’s face had held no emotion.

  McMichael met her with the same stone-faced expression.

  “So,” he said matter of factly. “You’re here are you?”

  “Yes sir. I thought I’d start with Sarah today. I’d like to go over the re-billable expenses for the installation and sign off on them before they are sent to Mr. Bower for final approval.”

  “You thought you’d start off with my personal secretary did you? Sarah is quite capable of looking after the books herself, I can assure you. It’s month end and she’s a little busy to be teaching you.”

  “I’m sure she is, Mr. McMichael. But I’m also sure my signature on those bills to authorize their payment will ensure that David Hearn’s cheque is on time for him back home for his family, while he is here supervising the construction. And as for teaching, I do run my own business Mr. McMichael, as you are well aware. I can read a ledger.”

  Hearn was an engineer Aaron had sent up from one of his companies in the United States to ensure the concentrator was installed safely.

  “My Uncle certainly won’t pay him for hours he hasn’t actually worked. I am to keep an eye on him. When Hearn signs off that the concentrator is fully operational, we will be done here. That should satisfy your bosses and the insurers, not that there will be any more fires.”

  “I see,” McMichael said.

  He looked at Olivia, standing determinedly before him. Her eyes pierced right through him, and he found himself unable to look away from her.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I don’t want you to be here, make no mistake about that. But since you are, I’ve had Sarah set up a desk for you across from hers. I expect you’ll find everything you need there.”

  “So she can keep an eye on me?”

  “In as much as a fashion that Sarah could ever secretly keep tabs on anyone, yes. Your Uncle isn’t the only one keeping an eye on things. You have limited access to the office and concentrator area. That’s it. I catch you anywhere near a tunnel and you’re out of here, Aaron Bower or no Aaron Bower. Understood?”

  He watched as she removed a strand of hair from in front of her eyes.

  “Yes sir,” she said. “I do believe you have made yourself quite clear.”

  McMichael found himself gazing at her. She was truly beautiful. He had heard all the rumours of how Frank was treating her, and he wondered how he could possibly do that to such a lovely woman. He had had his moments with his wife while she was alive; both of them having heated tempers, but the silence between them had never lasted until the morning, let alone for months.

  “Is there anything else sir?” Olivia asked, noticing McMichael was staring at her.

  Caught off guard, McMichael raised his voice.

  “Just keep out of my way,” he said. “Then we’ll all be better off. And let Sarah get her work done. You can have her for a half-hour in the morning, once she gets me my coffee, and that’s it.”

  So it began that Olivia started each day over at the mine with Sarah, ensuring that her Uncle’s payments were met on time by the mine and his fixed costs did not run overboard. She found herself having a whole new opinion of Sarah, who she had always thought of as a likeable yet somewhat silly woman. She had attributed that to Sarah’s youth and sheltered upbringing here at Britannia. While it was certainly true that she was clumsy and often spoke without a thought towards what she was about to say, Olivia quickly learned that at least part of it was an ongoing act she played with McMichael.

  When he had barked at Sarah one morning for no apparent reason, Olivia took her aside.

  “You shouldn’t let him treat you like that Sarah,” Olivia offered.

  “Well, he is the boss.”

  “But still, he should show some respect. He’d be lost without you.”

  “Don’t let it get to you. His bark is worse than his bite.”

  “Sarah, how long have you worked for Mr. McMichael?”

  “Since I finished school. I was the best at math in my class, and he needed a bookkeeper he wouldn’t have to pay very much, and there I was, with no experience needing a job. It was a match made in heaven. At least for him.”

  “How on earth do you put up with him?”

  “It all blows over. I’m used to it. He doesn’t stay mad for long. I know what makes him crazy and what doesn’t. If he’s particularly mean with me, then I’ll forget to sugar his coffee. I’ll listen out here while he has a fit about it in his office and I’ll have a quiet little chuckle to myself. He just thinks I’ve been forgetful. He won’t fire me. I’m very good at the books although my typing isn’t that great. And I think he does know he’d be lost without me.”

  “I see,” Olivia said.

  “I know people think I’m a blabbermouth, but really Olivia, there’s not much about this operation that I don’t know about, sometimes months in advance. The numbers are right before me. You don’t have to worry; my lips remain sealed. That goes for your Uncle’s affairs as well.”

  Sarah read the astonished look upon Olivia’s face.

  “Don’t look so surprised. I’m a smart cookie. If I were you, I’d be checking the grade of the bolts being used in the installation. Check inside the box and make sure they haven’t been switched with a lesser grade of material. You’ll probably find the good ones in a bag in the stockroom, not in the box. The foremen are a
lways under the gun to save costs. It’s not something your engineer would necessarily look out for, but then he doesn’t know all of our foremen’s, (including your husband’s), tricks in the stockroom. He’ll switch them if he thinks he can save a dollar or two. Oh, and those specialized drill bits your man Hearn wanted? Here’s the purchase order Frank gave me. A little suspect don’t you think? Why would he be ordering twice as many as Hearn told me he needed? Hmm, maybe so he can keep them after the job is done? He likes his coffee with double cream, Mr. Hearn does. He just mentioned the drill bit order to me in passing. Funny how it all comes around eventually.”

  Sarah accidentally knocked her teacup to the floor. It tumbled before she could grab it, but it did not break.

  “He wouldn’t!” Olivia exclaimed.

  “Go,” Sarah said, pulling a towel from her desk that she kept there for just such an emergency. “Do a little sleuthing. Just protect your source.”

  Sure enough, Olivia had the engineer do an inspection and Sarah had been right. The bolts had been switched, and Frank did try to order more bits than were needed for the installation of the concentrator. She would have to have a talk with Frank when she got home. Or not. It was probably easier just to re-write the purchase order, since Sarah still had it on her desk.

  As she began to feel more comfortable at the mine, she found that some of the problems she encountered she could solve by a simple phone call to her Uncle. Busy as he was, he always made time to ease her concerns and share a little gossip. Some however, were a little more complicated.

  “What are you doing?” McMichael had asked her one day when she wandered over to the concentrator site and started nosing around.

  “I’m inspecting the installation sir. I’m to do it once a day.”

  “And you know what to inspect, do you?”

  “It doesn’t matter if I do or I don’t sir. I rely on Hearn for that. It’s just a formality. I find the men pay more attention when I come around.”

  McMichael stared at her. The men started to snicker amongst themselves.

  “All right, enough,” McMichael said to them.

  “I meant that they need to be watched. They’re not always focused on their jobs.”

  The men quieted.

  “I knew what you meant,” McMichael grunted. “Listen to me. Women were not meant to be at the mine. Not in this part of the mine. They cause distractions. The men focus better on their jobs when you’re not around, rest assured.”

  “Mr. Bower says I am to do it once a day.”

  “Well, Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Uncle Aaron Bower or no Aaron Bower, there will be no women in dresses in my concentrator building. Safety hazard. All that material could get stuck in the machinery. Your hair could get caught in a moving part. We can’t have that, now can we? Go back to the office, please.”

  Olivia sighed.

  “I am just doing my job, Mr. McMichael,” she said as she left.

  McMichael addressed the men.

  “If I hear any of you saying one word, one inappropriate word about Mrs. Fitzpatrick, while she’s working here, there’s going to be trouble.”

  The next day, at precisely eleven o’clock, Olivia returned to the concentrator building.

  McMichael could see she had donned a pair of oversized men’s coveralls, the length of her skirt stuffed down the baggy legs. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail. As odd a sight as it was, she looked stunning. The men stood there with their mouths open.

  McMichael smacked his newspaper against the wall in anger. She had got to him, in more ways than one.

  “What are you staring at?” Olivia asked the men. “Get back to work. Focus, focus, focus.”

  They glanced at McMichael who raised his arms in a circular motion, indicating that they return to work.

  “You heard her,” he said, mimicking her. “Focus, focus, focus.”

  Olivia wasn’t amused.

  “Get new shoes,” he ordered Olivia as he stormed back to his office. “No women’s heels. Regulation footwear must be worn on site. You can get some at the store. My store.”

  It had been the beginning of their co-existence at the mine. Most of the time McMichael just looked her over, grunted, and left, although occasionally she was sure she could hear him mutter “damn railroad“ under his breath. She took guidance from Sarah and ignored most of his more personal outbursts, fortunately they were beginning to be fewer and farther between. Sarah had been right; the outbursts didn’t last long. She thought once or twice he had actually been quite pleasant to her, but they were usually alone when that happened.

  He was an interesting man, she admitted to herself. She found herself looking forward to at least having a good conversation with a male each day. Sometimes the chatter at the store amongst the women was more than she could bear.

  Today, as she left home and went over towards the mining office, she could see a group of men outside, blocking the entrance.

  “Excuse me Peter,” Olivia said. “I need to get by. Should you not be on shift already?”

  “Mrs. Fitzpatrick, this is nothing personal, but I don’t work for you. I work for Mr. McMichael.”

  The group of men lined up behind him. They stood there, with their hands in their pockets and their gear on the ground, refusing to budge. She could see Frank up the hill, watching the situation from above, and choosing to do nothing.

  “Oh but it is personal, Peter,” she said. “And you do work for me in a sense. Because if you and the other men don’t get to work, there will be no ore mined today, which means my concentrator will be empty, which in the end, means you won’t get paid. You or your friends. Now stop blocking this entrance so my men can get to work. We’re scheduled to run a preliminary test on it today, you know that.”

  “We don’t take orders from women,” one of the older men said. “And those men you’re calling yours won’t be crossing this line anytime soon. Not until we get a proper supervisor, a man, overseeing us.”

  “We’re on a protest strike,” one of the men in her unit said.

  “A protest strike?” McMichael yelled. He had come out from his office to see what the commotion was about. “Did I hear you correctly? A protest strike?”

  The men’s bravado had suddenly been lessened.

  “Well please,” McMichael began, his voice being very theatrical, “tell me if I’m wrong, but in order to have a protest strike, you’ve got to have a union. And as far as I know, and I would know because I am the boss, there is no union in this town. So therefore, there is no strike. Do I need to remind you about what happened when the Armstrong brothers tried to form a union a couple of years ago? The Wobblies, I believe they called it? They didn’t succeed, did they? And are they working here now?”

  He paused for effect.

  “Are they working anywhere now? No, they are waiting in the bread lines in Vancouver. Gentlemen, let me put it to you in words you will understand. I don’t like having Mrs. Fitzpatrick overseeing the concentrator operations any better than you do. But in order for this mine to have a new fireproof concentrator, I had to pay that price. I paid that price to save your jobs. So you’ve got five minutes to get back to work before I re-think this whole deal, including why I employ you in the first place. Does anyone have a problem with that?”

  There was a low grumbling as the ad-hoc protest group started to disassemble.

  “Oh and Peter,” McMichael said, “pack your bags. You’re fired.”

  There was a look of shock on Peter’s face.

  “Well really Peter, what did you expect?” McMichael asked. “Get going. Give my regards to the Armstrong brothers should you run into them.”

  McMichael turned to Olivia.

  “The next time someone steps out of line like that, you fire him. Or deal or no deal with your Uncle, you’ll be the next to go.”

  “But that’s not my responsibility,” Olivia said. “I don’t work for the mine. Peter was right in that regard.”

  “No, but you represent
your Uncle. I’m sure he wouldn’t let any other manager he had be disrespected. For the past two weeks Peter’s sole job has been installing the concentrator. So technically, he was on loan to you. I want you to go up to the Chinese barracks and get two men to take his place. I don’t care if it’s their day off. Take two of the biggest, strongest men you can find. We’ve lost time with this nonsense today. I need that concentrator fully operational. I want the first load going through it today, no excuses. Don’t worry, your Uncle’s costs won’t be raised any with the extra men on board.”

  “Yes sir,” Olivia said.

  “I see your husband watched all this from the hill. Interesting. He didn’t rush down to see what all the fuss is about?”

  “No sir,” Olivia admitted.

  “Well I’ll say one thing for you Olivia. You’ve got more backbone than he does. I don’t like my supervisors not supporting each other. Carry on.”

  Olivia took a deep breath and headed inside the concentrator building. McMichael stormed up the hill to Frank.

  “What the hell were you doing watching all that from up here? Are you my foreman or not?”

  “She seemed to be handling it.”

  “Well lucky for you she was. You should have stepped in and stopped it before it got started. That’s your job, need I remind you. You are to ensure that there is no trouble as far as Olivia is concerned. I would have thought that would come naturally. Let’s not even think about the ramifications of my railway deal going sideways if her family wants to make trouble. Because if that goes south, you’ll be going south, the pair of you.”

  “I’m sorry sir,” Frank said.

  “Sorry? Do you still not get it Fitzpatrick? It’s her family, your in-laws, that are holding all the cards here at the moment. If I were you I’d be holding it over my head like there was no tomorrow. What am I going to do? Fire you? Not until that concentrator is up and running. Bower wanted a relative in charge. All right, I can understand that, blood being thicker than water. God knows why he didn’t leave his nephew Jason up here, but he didn’t. But he didn’t have to pick Olivia. She could have stayed at that confounded store of hers. There was another male family member here all along. You Frank. You! How did you lose all that control? Did you ever have it? If you were a smart man, you would have used that leverage to become a partner in the railroad we’ve been trying to push through. But instead, now we both have to deal with Olivia.”