Catier's strike by Jane Corrie

that Sean had in mind for her, cooking for them!
    `Oh, they have a kitchen of sorts down in the social club. Mostly tinned stuff. It's not worth keeping the canteen open for them—besides,' Mrs Pullman added darkly, 'I don't want them mucking up my kitchen.'
    `So there won't be a delivery of fresh fruit today?' Sarah asked idly, although she held her breath for the answer.
    Mrs Pullman nodded. 'Didn't have time to cancel it,' she said. 'Still, it won't go amiss. They'll be glad enough of it down at the social club.'
    Sarah let out her breath, and wondered if she dared risk carrying out a plan that had suddenly presented itself to her. If she was right about Mrs Pullman's thoughts about her, then it would work; if she wasn't, then she would be no better off than she was before.
    She carefully buttered her toast, and said thoughtfully, as if speaking to herself, 'I guess it's time to move on.' She looked at Mrs Pullman. `You can't win them all, can you?' she said, and sighed. 'He could have told me he was going to Darwin,' she added, in what she hoped sounded a
    pettish tone. 'So that's that. Do you think there's any chance of the Park van driver giving me a lift? No one seems to have any transport here, and as there's no more coaches leaving, I'll have to make my own arrangements.'
    Mrs Pullman's look said it all. She didn't think there was much point in Sarah hanging around either, not now that she had been given the big brush-off. 'He might,' she said consideringly. 'I can't offer you a lift. My son's collecting me, and we don't go anywhere near the main routes. We'll see what he says.'
    Sarah could almost smell freedom. There was no reason why the driver should refuse to give her a lift to the Park; he'd probably be glad of the company, she thought, and she could surely find other transport there to take her back to civilisation!

CHAPTER SIX
    IN gratitude for Mrs Pullman's cooperation in assisting her escape, although that good lady would have been most put out had she known the reason for Sarah's over-long stay at the site, Sarah asked if there was anything she could do to help her in closing down the canteen, now that she was without Sandy's help, and her offer was accepted.
    As they washed down tables and shelves, Sarah made general conversation with the manageress. She wondered why Sandy had gone the day before her aunt, and whether the decision to let Mrs Pullman go had been a sudden one, for she recalled Sandy saying that her aunt sometimes stayed on at the site.
    It turned out that Sandy's boy-friend was an apprentice there, and she had gone back with him to meet his family. 'I don't know what my sister will have to say about that,' mused Mrs Pullman. `She considers Sandy's a mite too young to start courting, but she forgets how it was when we were seventeen. I was married at eighteen, and she was married at nineteen. Just as well, come to think of it,' she added, as she paused for a moment, then started polishing vigorously. Was widowed twenty years later, so was Cathy—they worked together. A storm uprooted a tree and landed it right across the road—pitch black it was.
    They didn't stand a chance.' She sniffed. `There's no sense in trying to hang on to the young ones. They do what they want to do these days,' she went on, hastily changing the subject, as if she could sense Sarah's sympathy. 'It's all different these days,' she added darkly.
    Sarah was certain that Mrs Pullman's thoughts were not entirely on Sandy when she made that pronouncement, and she hastily introduced another subject. Had it been a sudden decision for her to take leave?
    The answer was as Sarah had thought. It had been sudden. Mrs Pullman would normally have stayed on if the big boss was still around, and it was plain that she considered that Sean Cartier had left the site for quite some time.
    Sarah wasn't really convinced about this, for she felt that it would be just like him to expect her to do the cooking as well as the typing. She