was said and they sat down to eat. Most of them were elderly and wrinkled, a curmudgeonly group of old farts. Almost all of them were male. Watching them slurp their soup and scatter breadcrumbs through their thinning beards, Theo was conscious of being a class apart. Not only was he half their age, but he was clearly the only senior member of college who took care of himself. With his streaked blond hair, naturally athletic physique and bland, almost soap-star handsome features, Theo took great pride in his looks. His wife Theresa had annoyed him last week by giggling when he came home from a four-day academic symposium in Los Angeles with a mouthful of bright white porcelain veneers.
‘What? What’s so funny?’
‘Sorry, darling. They’re jolly nice teeth. It’s just that they make you look so…American. Were they awfully expensive?’
‘Of course not,’ lied Theo. They’d actually cost him the better part of fifteen grand, but he wasn’t about to tell Theresa that. In America where Theo had spent most of his postgraduate years, no one criticized you for spending money on your appearance. If anything, good personal grooming was considered a sign of self-respect. This was one of the many things Theo preferred about the States. Here you were made to feel like a vain, shallow idiot. ‘Besides, I’m a fellow now. It’s part of my job to look professional.’
Unlike his wife, Theo’s young mistress Clara had been wildly impressed with his Hollywood smile when she saw it this morning. Young people appreciate me, thought Theo. The sooner the undergraduates breathe some life into this place, the better.
‘My goodness, Professor Dexter. You’re ready for your close-up.’
Margaret Haines was smiling. One of only two female fellows in the entire college, Margaret made Theo uncomfortable. A Latin scholar, she was cleverer than he was and only a few years older. He could never quite tell if she was being sincere or taking the piss. In this instance he rather suspected the latter.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a perfectly pressed gown in my life. It looks good with your tan though. Have you and Theresa been away?’
‘I was away,’ Theo said cautiously. ‘California, for work. T had to stay here, unfortunately. She’s at a crucial stage with her book.’
‘Oh. How unfortunate.’ That smile again. ‘You must have been lonely.’
Definitely taking the piss. Stupid old dyke.
‘I soldiered on, Margaret.’
‘I’m sure you did, Theo. I’m sure you did.’
Margaret Haines had vociferously opposed Theo Dexter’s appointment last year, but she’d been shouted down. Anthony Greville, the Master, in particular had been a big supporter. ‘Dexter’s glamorous. The undergraduates worship him. And he’s a natural teacher. We need a bit of vigour at St Michael’s, Margaret my dear. A bit of pizzazz.’
‘The man is ghastly. He’s vain and arrogant. Not to mention an inveterate womanizer.’
Greville ran his rheumy old eyes lasciviously over Margaret Haines’s body. In her early forties she was still trim and attractive, albeit in a motherly sort of way.
‘I can think of worse crimes,’ he oiled, smiling to reveal a set of crooked, yellowing teeth. ‘Let he who is without sin and all that…’
The fellowship had supported him. Margaret Haines wondered how many of them were regretting it now, forced to share high table with Theo’s insufferable vanity. The man’s self-satisfaction needed a seat all to itself.
‘I saw Clara Hausmann leaving your rooms earlier.’ Margaret Haines felt a guilty rush of satisfaction watching the smile die on Dexter’s lips. ‘Back early, is she?’
Theo hesitated for a moment before answering. ‘Yes. Clara’s been struggling with her dissertation. I’ve been doing what I can to help.’
‘I must say, it’s very generous of your wife to share you so freely with your students. Not even term time and already you’re giving private tutorials.’
Bitch. If she says anything to make things difficult for me with Theresa…
‘You forget, my wife teaches herself,’ Theo said smoothly. ‘She understands the pressures of the job.’
‘But not the perks of the job, I imagine.’ The meal was over. Margaret Haines got to her feet. ‘Something tells me she would be rather less understanding of those. Enjoy the term, Theo.’
Theo Dexter watched her go, feeling something close to hatred. It was no good. St Michael’s wasn’t big enough for the both of them. He would have to figure out a way to get rid of her.
Sasha Miller sat in the back seat of her parents’ old Volvo, gazing out of the window in wonder.
‘There’s Downing!’
‘Oh my God. That’s King’s!’
‘Look, Dad, that’s Trinity. J.J. Thomson was Master there.’
‘J.J. who?’
‘Thomson, Dad.’ Sasha shook her head in wonder. ‘J.J. Thomson? He discovered the electron in 1897?’
‘Oh.’ Her parents exchanged smiles. ‘That J.J. Thomson.’
Sasha had been so quiet on the M25, her parents started to worry that something was wrong. She’d mumbled a few words in the Dartford tunnel – something about Will, the lad she was seeing from Tidebrook – then reverted to mutedom all the way up the M11. It was only when they pulled off at exit 11 and made their way through the flat East Anglian landscape towards the ancient city itself that Sasha miraculously sprang back to life.
‘It’s all so beautiful.’
And it was. Sue Miller wasn’t a fan of the featureless countryside they’d driven through on the way here. No hedges, no nice old dry-stone walls, just acres of industrially cultivated rape-seed fields cutting a garish yellow swathe through the landscape. But Cambridge itself was adorable, a medieval, redbrick wonderland with charming cobbled streets and alleyways all tumbling down towards the river and the vast, green expanse of the Backs beyond. Everyone seemed to be on bicycles, not surprisingly given that the roads were so tiny. Twice Don almost scraped the paint off his wing mirror trying to squeeze the Volvo down some wafer-thin alley or other, in search of St Michael’s. As for the ludicrously complicated one-way system, at one point they wondered whether they would have to give up on the whole enterprise and go back to Sussex, so impossible was it to get within a mile of Sasha’s college. But at last they did get there. Sasha sprang out of the car like a shot.
‘Wow.’ It was like stepping into a scene from Brideshead Revisited. Young men in rugby shirts and college scarves chatted to pretty girls with piles of library books under their arms. Bikes with wicker baskets leaned against every available wall. The spire of St Michael’s College Chapel cast a long shadow over the Porters’ Lodge. Across the court, Sasha could just glimpse the tops of the punts as they made their sedate way upriver.
