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“A Melville Donohue, hmm? Do you mind if I take a photo of your eyes? There’s a lot of genetic quirks in that neck of the woods, due to a largely static population. I find some of them manifest in some interesting iris formations. It’s a pet project of mine.”

“Uh, I guess. Though I’d assume I’d be more Bronson than Donohue. That was my great grandfather, so a bit of a distant connection.”

“Bronson and Donohue? Fascinating, yes, must take a photo. I can take your headshot straight afterwards, for your ID, and get that out of the way.” She picked up a DSLR with an odd lens attachment, whose purpose soon became apparent.

It came to rest on my eye socket, blocking my vision.

“Just focus on the green light for a moment...” she said, then I was blinded by a bright flash.

I jerked away, reeling a little, only to be caught by a couple of strong hands.

“Oh, sorry,” I said when I saw it was Finn. Slowly, my sight returned without the big white spots.

“Excellent, excellent,” the doctor said, looking on her computer screen at what looked like a large image of my eye.

“You’ve got the golden flare here,” she said, gesturing to the yellowish coloured fibres around my pupil.

“And these little dots here... This is quite a common iris pattern in this county , though not so much outside of it. Have a look at Finn’s eyes. ”

I glanced up almost shyly. There was nothing awkward about staring into the new boss’s eyes, up close and personal, nothing at all. I was handed something that looked like an oversized jeweller’s loupe, and I put it to my eye, testing out the magnification on it around me.

“Take a look,” she urged. He met my gaze with a slight smile, and with a bit of manoeuvring with the loupe in place, I could see his eye in full technicolour glory.

“Can you see that same flare of yellow around the centre?” I could, kind of.

His eyes went from yellow to green to grey, all the colours blending in together.

I put the loupe down. “Whereas if you look at mine,” she brought up another image of a hazel iris, “you’ll see that my iris is relatively uniform.

I haven’t noticed anything significant about it yet, but it’s an interesting pattern.

Now, let’s do your ID photo.” Finn steered me outside as soon as was practical.

It was about now that I really started to wonder what I’d gotten myself into.

This place was weird, people were acting weirdly.

I considered briefly the idea that I might go to the city and try my luck, but I knew what my answer was.

Right now, I didn’t have the money for petrol, accommodation or food, so it wasn’t an option.

I looked around at the green buildings and figured, I only had to stick it out long enough to earn some money, and then I could get out of here if it turned out too weird. I took a deep breath, I could do this.

“Look, you’ve probably got a lot to do before you feel comfortable in your accommodation. Why don’t we cut the tour short for today and go and get you settled?”

Oh, fuck yes , I said internally. Instead, I nodded and tried hard not to sigh with relief.

The names, the workplaces were all starting to blend together in my head.

After overcoming the mountain of anxiety before the interview, I was now feeling really flat.

I just wanted to have a shower, put some jammies on, and go to sleep.

Once we were in the cart, Finn drove us up a road that peeled away from the sheds and out to a slight rise, where a series of cabins were situated.

It looked like mine was one of the ones at the back.

As we pulled up, I could see it was cute.

I had visions of dilapidated caravans or sagging demountables, but this was a nice little cottage with a porch that ran around the whole thing.

Finn got up and walked up the steps, fishing some keys out of his pocket.

He unlocked it and opened the door with a flourish.

“Wow, this is lovely!” I said. “I thought it might be a bit musty, but it looks ready to move in.”

“Yeah, Kelly had a good feeling about you on the phone, so she had some of the guys give it a clean before you arrived, just in case.”

“Did I need to be worried about the interview at all?” I asked.

This got me a slow smile. “You met a lot of the criteria we had for the job, so we were hopeful, but we wouldn’t have taken you on if we didn’t think you were up to it.”

“I wish I’d known. I was panicking.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You could tell? It was that obvious?”

“No,” his smile broadened a little, “I’m just really good at picking those kinds of things up.”

“Yeah? You’re not like a mind reader or anything, because that would be super embarrassing.”

“Oh?” An eyebrow arched slowly. “Why’s that?”

“Oh, you know…” Because I checked out your arse. Because I was struck momentarily dumb when you walked into the room. Because you smelled so good when I was sitting next to you in the cart. “Because if I’m getting pissed at you, I don’t want to get sacked for mental insubordination.”

“Right, well, feel free to call me whatever you like in the sanctity of your own mind. Hey, chuck me your car keys, and I’ll give you a hand moving in.”

“You don’t have to…”

“I don’t want you to have to carry those boxes all by yourself. It’s fine, it’ll go faster if I help.”