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The Big Community Dig is the centrepiece of the Faculty for Humanties and Social Sciences’ claim to be engaging with the local community. Basically, it’s an archaeological dig on a former car park in the city centre which is apparently destined to become a block of luxury apartments, but because we’re ‘engaging with the community’ we have special activities for kids and displays of finds from other nearby digs, and pretty much everybody who works for the faculty has been forced to don their wellies and come and stand in what is essentially a massive muddy puddle.
I look around the site. Even Helen is here. Helen is not a digging-in-mud sort of person. She’s a libraries and theatres and museums sort of person. She’s standing at one edge of a group who are waiting to get their instructions for the day from one of the archaeology professors. Looking more closely, I notice that all the hourly-paid lecturers are here, apart from Dr Sandys who’s about eighty. Aside from Alex, they’ve all applied for the permanent job as well. Such a coincidence that that would coincide with a sudden upsurge in team spirit.
Fortunately I’m saved from actually having to get my hands dirty, by dint of having brought a clipboard with me to hold. It’s a brilliant trick. Stand anywhere, looking vaguely purposeful and holding a clipboard and people will assume that you’re incredibly busy. At the moment I’m standing with my dad, who is far too important to be expected to go near actual mud, and Dom who’s managed to wangle himself onto ‘showing round local dignitaries’ duty, and is also saved from having to wield a trowel.
I try to pay attention to the introductory speech the archaeology professor is making. I almost feel sorry for him. He’s probably had a team working here for weeks and now he’s got all these amateurs clomping across his beautiful site. Eventually, he splits the ‘volunteers’ into smaller teams and dispatches them to different trenches, each one with an archaeology grad student to keep an eye on them.
I whip round the side of the group and grab hold of Helen before she ends up knee-deep in mud. ‘You must really want this job.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘This wasn’t my idea. Alex made me come.’
Alex. I find my eyes scanning the crowd looking for him. He’s at the other side of the site. His hair’s all sticking up, and the waterproof he’s put over his uniform skinny jeans looks like he rescued it from a charity shop reject pile. ‘Why’s Alex bothered about what you do?’
‘He’s obsessed with helping me get this job. He thinks turning up here will make a good impression.’ She leans towards me. ‘To be honest it’s knackering. He’s got formal interview practise scheduled for most of next week, and I haven’t even definitely got an interview yet.’
‘Right.’ I smile. ‘He must really care about you.’
She shrugs. ‘Guess so. Anyway I’m going to need a break at some point. I wondered if you wanted to go costume shopping together?’
Costume shopping? ‘What for?’
‘Er, for your dad’s party. The fancy dress ball.’
Oh. That. ‘I guess.’
She slips her arm through mine and walks me a few metres away from the general rabble. ‘I thought you’d be excited about the wedding by now Em.’
I shake my head.
‘What’s wrong? Tell me.’
‘She’s not right for him. I keep trying to say something, but he doesn’t want to hear it, and Dom thinks it’s none of my business but it is my business. I know him better than anyone, and she won’t make him happy.’ I can feel my fists clenching. ‘She won’t.’
I wait for her to tell me I’m making a fuss. That’s what everyone thinks. I tell myself that’s why I haven’t actually followed Dom’s advice and gone to the history centre yet. It’s because I want to believe that the whole Tania-wedding thing will blow over, but that’s not the reason. Actually going there and finding out the truth is the point of no return, isn’t it? Whatever I find out, I’ll have crossed a line.
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Everything. You haven’t met her. She’s like something from a different planet to him. He’s nice pullovers and good whisky. She’s all spray tans and yoga and she knows about colour blocking. My dad shouldn’t be with someone who reads fashion magazines. He should be with someone who bakes and sews and knows how to look after him.’
I see her start to laugh, but she swallows it fast. ‘And if he managed to find this perfect 1950s housewife, would you be happy for him then?’
‘Of course I would, if she made him happy.’
‘You can’t really do anything about it though, can you?’ Helen rubs my arm. ‘And it’s been four months now. If it was a holiday fling I think it’d have flung by now.’
I shrug.
‘So costumes?’
I suggest a day and time.
Helen pulls a face. ‘That’s the day before the party.’
‘It’ll be fine. The wedding planner’s got a deal with the costume place. They’re getting extra costumes in the week before specifically for us.’ I walk away before she can suggest we go at the start of the week. If things go to plan there won’t be a party and we can forget the whole costume thing anyway.
Helen excuses herself to go back to the dig. I hold my clipboard in front of me like a shield and make my way back to the little marquee they’ve set up to keep the rain off the important people.