Digging Up Dirt

by Pamela Hart

  As on all shoots, the crew liked tea before starting, and archaeologists are apparently the same. Fortunately, although my kitchen is small, my family is not, and I’d set up tea-making facilities with a host of old mugs donated by various aunties. I’d even remembered to bring milk. I dispensed tea to everyone except Boris.

  I pulled him out the front door into the scant shelter of the little porch.

  ‘You don’t have to hang around today, Boris. If they finish early I’ll call you. But I doubt we can get back in there before tomorrow at the earliest.’ Boris was always working on two or three jobs at once, so I didn’t have to worry about him being out of pocket if he didn’t stay.

  He looked disappointed. ‘I can help,’ he offered.

  We stared through the doorway. Mugs in hands, Terry and the crew had taken possession of the small dining area to set up their gear. The lights were still in place from yesterday and they flared on, bright and hot, sending sharp shadows onto the corners and ceiling. The PR girl had squeezed in next to Mirha, who was trying to get the students to sign release forms, but there wasn’t room enough for them to wield a pen. I thought it was typical that Julieanne should mentor only male students. The first two were a buff Indigenous guy from out west—a Barkindji man, I think Annie said—and a very young one who looked like he had Indian heritage. They both had the physiques of bodybuilders, but I thought her standards had slipped with the third one, who was pale and skinny and covered with acne. As we watched, Mirha waved them through to the kitchen and slipped out the door between the dining area and the corridor to follow them. Terry started filming.

  Julieanne and Tol were down in the hole, happily levering up chipboard and chucking it up towards the doorway.

  ‘Watch my walls!’ I said.

  ‘See, miss, you need me,’ Boris said, and leapt in to gather up the chipboard and bring it out to the skip. As each board went, another section of bearer and joist was revealed.

  They took out most of the lounge floor, leaving only the boards in the dining alcove, as well as a section running to the stairs and another to the corridor. Julieanne got the students in from the backyard, and instructed them on how to set up a three-dimensional grid with string lines stretched from wall to wall, and make a computer copy of it to scale, so they could mark the location of any finds exactly. It would have been interesting if this had been the first time I’d seen it done, but three years at the museum made it old hat to me. Terry filmed it all, though.

  ‘When do they start digging?’ Mirha asked me quietly.

  I shrugged. ‘Once they’ve set up the grid, they photograph everything, then they start with the trowels and brushes.’

  She sighed.

  ‘It’s like filming,’ I said. ‘Everyone thinks it’s exciting but mostly it’s waiting for the clouds to pass or the aeroplane to go away.’

  She nodded. Filming outside, in particular, is subject to interminable delays.

  While Julieanne, Tol and the students had been setting up, the PR girl had found the folding chairs I had in the back shed and set them up under the sun umbrella I’d put up in the backyard. There was just enough room for three people to huddle there out of the rain.

  The yard was one of the reasons I’d bought the house. Unlike most of the houses around here, it had grass and bushes instead of paving, and it was cool and restful and quiet. As they could only fit one student in the pit with Julieanne and Tol at any one time, the other two and the PR girl were soon established out there, chatting and texting and watching their phones.

  If it had been any other shoot, I would have slipped away to the office to do some real work, but this was my place, and I was waiting to get Tol alone. I needed to get the skinny on how long they’d be.

  Eventually they took a coffee break, with Mirha doing the honours in my tiny kitchen. Tol looked at the mug of instant that she offered him and visibly recoiled.

  ‘No, thanks,’ he said.

  This was my chance. ‘There’s a good coffee shop around the corner,’ I said. ‘I was going to get myself one. Want to come?’

  He stuck the trowel in his back pocket and headed for the door without even looking at Julieanne, picking up Terry’s umbrella to cover us both.

  Gracie, the owner of Bar Napoli, is actually Graciella, and she hand roasts and grinds her beans because she thinks machines suck the soul out of them. As Tol and I came in and he closed the umbrella, she beamed at me and scowled at Tol. She didn’t like Stuart, either. She’s never liked any man I’ve brought into the place. I don’t know why, but I suspect that forty years with her husband Roberto has soured her on men altogether, and I don’t blame her. Roberto is—well, that’s not relevant.

  Tol, sniffing with true appreciation, said, ‘Malaga Mountain Blue.’

  Gracie peered at him suspiciously. ‘Si,’ she said. ‘What you want?’

  ‘Cappuccino, grazie, bella signora,’ he said, and smiled.

  And before my eyes, Gracie actually blushed and sashayed over to the coffee machine. She knew I always took a latte.

  ‘You are such a schmoozer,’ I said.

  ‘Guilty,’ Tol admitted, smiling down at me in much the same way he’d smiled at Gracie. Hah! I was made of sterner stuff.

  ‘What about my floor?’ I asked. ‘Could you date the pottery?’

  He grimaced. ‘Not exactly. We’ve got a range, but that kind of domestic ware was made and imported into the colony for about sixty years, starting in 1802, so it’s not much help in excluding the possibility of an early fat-tailed farm.’

  ‘Bugger,’ I said gloomily.

  ‘The carbon-14 will be back in a few days. That will settle the date. We ought to be able to get an accurate estimate, within fifty years.’

  I knew about carbon-14 from my museum days. All organic material—that is, anything that has once been alive, animal or plant—has a certain proportion of the atom carbon-14, which decays into carbon-12. Comparing the proportions of carbon-14 with carbon-12 determines how old the organic material is.

  I pulled out my phone. ‘I have to call the electricians. You’re not going to be finished in two days, are you?’

  He shook his head sympathetically.

  ‘When?’ I demanded. ‘Maybe I can get them to reschedule.’

  ‘Look …’ he hesitated. ‘I’d be happy to do a quick and dirty, get the dates from the bones and be out by the weekend. We can probably get most of what’s there to find out by then. We might miss a couple of small sherds, but nothing major. It’s not like the site is going to turn into a tourist attraction, so we don’t have to preserve the strata or anything. But—’

  ‘But Julieanne won’t do it that way.’

  He was saved from answering by Gracie coming back with the coffees. He thanked her, paid for them—waving away my money—and we silently went back out into the rain.

  As we walked under the umbrella, I was conscious of his shoulder rubbing mine—his arm, actually, because he was quite a lot taller. He had a loose, relaxed way of walking. Very different from Stuart, who was tense and contained almost all the time. Tol seemed so … sane. What was he doing with Julieanne? I had to know.

  ‘How long have you two been together?’ I asked, trying for nonchalance and sounding like an airhead as a result.

  ‘A few weeks. We met at a conference, and Julieanne told me about this consultancy. I’m between digs, so it seemed like a good idea …’

  From his tone, it didn’t seem like such a good idea any more. Or was I just being hopeful? I looked up at him. The umbrella created an oddly intimate little island for the two of us. He looked at me, his eyes warm, looking more grey than hazel this time.

  ‘And now?’ I just couldn’t resist probing a little deeper, but it was a mistake. His face closed down.

  ‘Oh, I’m not really a colonial archaeologist. I’m more at home in Jordan than Annandale. I won’t be sticking around here for that long.’

  Well, that was a warning if ever I heard one, and I paid a
ttention. My theory goes that, unless he’s an absolute lying bastard, somewhere in the first couple of meetings a man will lay his position on the line. He’ll say something like ‘I’m not really looking for a permanent relationship’, or ‘I’ve never been that interested in kids’, or ‘I like living alone’. The mistake a lot of women make is that they don’t listen. Or worse, they think: But he’ll change when he gets to know me. Nuh. Maybe once in a thousand cases.

  Usually, what happens is the woman spends a couple of years in happy almost-domesticity (sometimes complete with living together) and then when her biological clock starts ticking and she makes noises about marriage or children, the man will turn to her and say, ‘But I told you I wasn’t interested in that.’ He feels justifiably annoyed when she melts down, because as far as he’s concerned he’s been honest the whole time. She’s bereft because although he insists he loves her, it’s not the kind of love she thought it was.

  I admit it, I was disappointed when Tol said he’d be leaving soon. In fact, I was surprised by how disappointed I was. But better a little disappointment now than a lot of heartache later. Besides, we were both already involved with other people. I gave myself a mental shake and firmly took Tol off the ‘potentially beddable if I break up with Stuart’ list that lurks far in the back of my mind. The whole thing had only taken a split second.

  I smiled at him. ‘That sounds interesting.’ It also explained his reference to Jordan last night, when he was warning Julieanne not to turn him into her fiancé.

  ‘It is.’ He told me about the job he was going to in Jordan the rest of the way to the house, and I could feel him relaxing as he described the desert and the digs. ‘In fact,’ he said as he replaced the collapsed umbrella on the porch and opened the door for me, ‘the only thing I missed in Jordan was the conversation of women.’ He smiled exactly the way he had smiled at Graciella, but I was armoured against it now.

  ‘Schmoozer,’ I said.

  We walked in, both laughing, and collected dagger looks from Julieanne and Dave, because they were filming a segment where Julieanne was examining a fragment of pottery and describing it to one of the students.

  Terry wasn’t happy with the shot. ‘Poppy, you get in and we’ll do it with her explaining to you,’ he said. ‘He’s too tall to get them both in a mid shot.’

  I glared at him. I didn’t like being on screen, and Terry knew it. Technically, I’m in charge when we’re on a shoot, but try telling that to an experienced camera operator with fifteen years on you.

  So I put on some lipstick, fixed my hair (curlier than ever because of the rain) and climbed into the pit.

  Julieanne looked pissed off, but she wasn’t fool enough to make an enemy of Terry. She cooperated, and she did know her stuff. She gave a concise, interesting description of the pottery, which showed the influence Chinese ware had had on English ceramics.

  I reminded her this show was for six-year-olds, and she sighed in a long-suffering manner. But anyone who works at the museum has had to deal with school groups, so she gave a neat little word-picture of the kind of household this might have come from, complete with examples of how the kids in that household would have lived. I tried to look intelligent and interested, and asked a couple of questions I hoped we could cut out later.

  ‘Right,’ said Terry when the take was over, which was what he said when he was satisfied. ‘Let me reset the lights for some close-ups of the ground.’

  ‘Good one, Julieanne,’ I said, trying hard to be fair. ‘The kids will be really interested in that.’

  She rolled her eyes, climbed out and went over to Tol, who was still standing by the door, sipping coffee with the expression of a man in love. With Graciella, no doubt. Julieanne slipped her hand into his trouser pocket and brought a phone out. She checked for messages and frowned, then dialled a number.

  ‘Eliza, hello, this is Julieanne. May I speak to Matthew, please?’

  She waited, her face tense.

  ‘Well, when will he be available?’ Whatever the other woman said strained Julieanne’s patience and her good manners, but she managed to control herself by hitting the wall with her fist even while her voice was as sweet as honey. ‘Yes, I’d really appreciate that, thanks, Eliza. Bye.’

  She ended the call with a vicious tap and glared at Tol. ‘Stupid cow. Surely they have a result by now? If I didn’t make it, the least they could do is tell me.’

  Tol murmured something soothing and she snorted.

  ‘No, it would be just like Eliza bloody Carter to not pass the message along. She thinks all women should be barefoot and pregnant. I’ve got to go.’

  I was astonished that Julieanne would pass up the opportunity for more showing off on film, but Tol didn’t seem surprised, so I guessed he knew where she was skiving off to. Carter, I remembered, was the name of the head of the Australian Family Party. So perhaps Julieanne hadn’t got preselection?

  The day went on as before, mostly boring, interrupted by briefly exciting bits where Tol or one of the students located a piece of archaeology and alerted Terry so he could film them ‘finding’ it. Then they had to get the PR girl—I really ought to find out her name, I thought each time—to photograph the find in situ. Then the diggers would mark it on their 3D grid, and uncover it slowly with trowel, brush and fingers.

  Most of it, unfortunately, was the same kind of domestic ware we’d already documented, or more bones. Midafternoon, I called the electrician and told them the story. They were interested but said they couldn’t fit me in for another three weeks if I didn’t make the Thursday slot. Reluctantly, I cancelled. No way would this lot be out of here by the day after tomorrow.

  Boris got bored and went away to work on another job. I noticed he got Mirha’s phone number first. So much for the girl in Croatia.

  Terry is a fan of Home and Away. Don’t ask me why. But it means that, unless there’s a very good reason for overtime, he works an eight-hour day: six- to seven-hour shooting day, so he can get back to Artarmon, upload the footage and lock up the gear, and be home by seven. He says it’s not the same when he has to stream it. So he and Dave packed up just after four, and we all went home.

  The moment the lights go out on a set is a strange one. My house seemed smaller, suddenly, and drabber, and colder. I didn’t like it. Yet at the same time, it was as though an intruder had climbed back out the window and left me in peace.

  I followed Tol through the door with a deep reluctance, and looked up at the late afternoon sky. The clouds were clearing.

  ‘I probably won’t be here tomorrow,’ I said to Terry as he loaded the Ford. ‘If it’s clear, Ben and Molly and I will be at Luna Park.’

  ‘Better you than me,’ he said. ‘Anything special you want?’

  ‘Just keep them from destroying my house.’

  He winked at me and I felt comforted.

  Before Tol climbed into his battered old Lancer, I gave him my phone number. Just in case anything came up the next day. Really.

  He waved at me as he drove off, and I waved back. I was glad I didn’t have to say goodbye to Julieanne. I’d had just about enough of Dr Julieanne Weaver.

  Which was too bad for me, because when I got home Mum and Dad were watching a current affairs show about the rise of the Australian Family Party, featuring an interview with the two of the four candidates for preselection for a marginal seat in Sydney’s west. Julieanne was one. This interview was clearly where she’d skived off to. She came across as sober, intelligent, reasonable, public spirited, conservative, even kind and compassionate. Maybe she was conservative—we’d never discussed politics. And she was undoubtedly intelligent. But the rest was PR bullshit, and I had to admit she was good at it. Even her clothes were perfect—a suit in mid-blue, softened by a feminine blouse in pearl grey, with discreet pearl earrings. In one long shot, I could see she had on classic navy court shoes, the sort flight attendants wear, except more expensive. I’d never seen her in anything except flats or follow-me-home stile
ttos. Somehow, those shoes made me realise how serious she was about becoming an MP.

  The other candidate was more obviously hardline right—a middle-aged lawyer, family man, father of three, deacon at the Radiant Joy church—although that only came out via a surprise question from the reporter. The party was clearly downplaying its relationship to the church, trying to allay the fears of non-religious conservative voters. All in all, this guy represented everything I disliked about the right: bombastic, too sure of himself, didn’t care how his policies would affect the poor, happy to marginalise gay people, black people, anyone not like himself. In comparison, Julieanne shone like a lighthouse. If I were a conservative voter, I might think I’d found a winner. I might vote this nice, good-looking cardboard figure into Parliament and let her run riot through our laws and traditions.

  With any luck, she wouldn’t get preselection, and the voters would recoil from the hardliner. Cross fingers.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Wednesday

  Luna Park is one of my favourite bits of Sydney. It’s small by amusement park standards, but its location right on Sydney Harbour, next to the bridge, makes an outing there a real treat. I had Ben (camera), Molly (sound) and Jade (PA) with me, as Terry, Dave and Mirha were locked in to the archaeology shoot.

  The day was intermittently cloudy, which made for a long shoot, waiting for the light to be right so that the shots of each ride would match.

  It was great fun, though. Did you know that after the mechanics test each ride, they have to run it three or four times just to make sure it’s safe and to get the oil moving around each part smoothly? On the last try, they let me go on by myself. It was like I had my own private amusement park. Could there be anything cooler than riding the Spider all by yourself out over the waters of Sydney Harbour on a warm spring morning? Well, maybe if someone compatible had been sitting next to me it would have been better, but it was still one of the best days I’d had in the job. I uploaded some photos to the show’s Instagram and Twitter feeds, and a couple to my own accounts as well.