And just like that I was back at the stable door. This time, though, I had dressed conservatively in black tailored trousers, a white shirt that was buttoned close to the throat and a gray, loosely fitting jacket. My hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and I wore no make-up. After the last visit I knew what I was in for. And I was not wrong.
The brute who had laughed at my application form came toward me. ‘Get us some tea, will ya? Black, no sugar,’ he said, as he passed me by.
I didn’t miss a beat. ‘Where’s the kitchen?’
He pointed his thumb over his shoulder to indicate somewhere at the back.
I nodded. ‘Anybody else want tea?’
There were two other guys there. Both had the same macho attitude.
‘I’ll have mine with milk and no sugar,’ said one leaning back in his chair and stretching.
‘Black. One sugar,’ said the other without looking up from a book he was reading.
I nodded. No one was wearing name tags so I had no idea who anybody was and no one seemed inclined to introduce me.
I went into the kitchen, a small area with a microwave, toaster, a small fridge and a kettle. I found tea, sugar and milk, and from the back of a cupboard a tea-stained tray.
Just as I finished serving the men, another man walked in.
‘Jolly good, tea. I’ll have a cup, love. Two sugars and plenty of milk.’
I walked to the kitchen fuming, but my expression remained as cool as a cucumber.
I fixed the tea and put it in front of the man.
He waved vaguely toward some filing cabinets. ‘How about putting some order into that fucking mess over there?’
‘Right,’ I said and walked toward it. He was right. It was a fucking mess. I decided to take all the files out and start from scratch.
‘Come on,’ a big, shaven-headed white man said as he walked past me. I recognized his voice. The man with the authority. I quickly jumped up and followed him into a small office.
‘Close the door,’ he said, as he lowered himself into his chair.
I obeyed. You could tell he had a hair-trigger temper just by looking at the tension in his shoulders. In fact, he reminded me of a standard issue brutish gangster.
‘Sit.’
I sat.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Great,’ I said.
Something flicked very quickly across his eyes. ‘Nice one. Off you go, then.’
Sorely disappointed, I stood up, thanked him and walked out of his office. I closed the door and another tough-looking guy walked in through the stable door.
‘I’m gasping for some tea and toast,’ he said, looking me right in the eye.
That morning I made twenty rounds of tea between bouts of ‘administrative’ work while they sat around regaling each other with tales of their bravery and the times when they had narrowly and heroically escaped death through relying purely on their wits. It became quickly obvious to me that the fastest way to gain their respect was to administer some sort of violence.
And the next day the routine was the same: round upon round of tea and toast and having to listen to their misogynistic and snide comments. But my grandmother had taught me, when you live in a lake you don’t antagonize the crocodiles.
I was determined to stick it out and live in that infested lake. They were not going to break me. I was there for a reason and all those thinly veiled attempts to provoke me were not going to get a rise out of me. Although the atmosphere was macho, intimidating, and openly contemptuous of the rest of the police force, these men thought of themselves as the elite: I had not been brought there to make endless cups of tea. I knew I had so
mething important they wanted. I was the mouse they needed to catch a lion. Let them have their fun until then.