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.
I’ve died and gone to heaven. Just think, on Monday I’m going to see the Cavendish Laboratory, the greatest physics lab on the planet. Twenty-nine Cavendish researchers have won Nobel prizes. Twenty-nine! Imagine if I were the thirtieth?
While Don unloaded the suitcases from the car, Sasha closed her eyes and indulged in her version of the Oscar-night fantasy. Instead of the Pavilion Theatre, Hollywood and an Hervé Léger bandage dress, Sasha was in Oslo City Hall, dressed in…well, who cared what she was dressed in, the point was she was receiving her physics prize for her pioneering work in…something. There were her parents, teary-eyed with pride. And Mr Cummings, her lovely physics teacher from St Agnes’s. And of course Will, looking gorgeous in black tie, escorting her up to the dais…
Sasha had said a tearful goodbye to Will last night. For all their plans and promises to each other over the summer, they both knew that her going away would be a giant test for their relationship.
‘I’ve never felt like this about anyone,’ Will said truthfully, squeezing Sasha’s hand. They were walking through the woods that adjoined Chittenden. Now that his parents were back there was little privacy to be had at Will’s house, and none at all at Sasha’s shoebox of a cottage. A few weeks ago it was warm enough to make love in the woods at night, gazing up at the stars. (Sex, if she was honest, was still not all Sasha had hoped it might be. Although Will asked her each time if he was ‘taking her to heaven and back’ and Sasha always loyally replied in the affirmative, the truth was that the celestial round trip was still distinctly short haul.) But now the nights were closing in, it was much too cold for outdoor shagging. Even Will seemed to have lost his enthusiasm.
‘I’ll miss you so much, Will. But at least we’ll be busy.’ She tried to look on the bright side. ‘You’ll be working with your dad. And I’ll be in the lab all day and studying all night.’
‘Not all night, I hope.’ Will laughed. ‘You have to have some fun, Sasha.’
She looked at him curiously. ‘Studying is fun. I mean, nobody goes to Cambridge to get drunk and party. It’s all about the work.’
‘Oi, you lot!’ A loud, angry voice from the Porters’ Lodge brought Sasha back to reality. ‘Bugger off before I send you to the Dean. And stop harassing my freshers!’ A group of drunk, semi-naked young men dressed (or half-dressed) as Roman soldiers staggered giggling out of the Lodge, pursued by the irate Head Porter, a beadle-like figure in black suit and bowler hat. As they left, two of them dropped their togas, flashing a pair of unappealingly white and hairy bottoms in Sasha’s general direction.
‘So sorry, miss.’ The panting porter returned. ‘Not what you need on your first day at St Michael’s.’
‘Local yobs from the town, I suppose?’ asked Sue Miller disapprovingly.
‘Them lot? No, ma’am. They’re classics scholars. Ours, unfortunately. What are you reading, miss?’
‘Physics,’ said Sasha.
‘Lovely. We like the scientists. Nice and quiet, your lot. Apart from the medics, of course. You don’t want to go out with any of them.’
‘Oh, I won’t be going out with anybody,’ said Sasha earnestly. ‘I have a boyfriend. I’m here to study, not socialize.’
The Head Porter looked at her pityingly.
Poor little thing. Like a lamb to the slaughter.
Theresa Dexter watched in exasperation as, one by one, the papers fluttered to the ground.
‘Bugger!’ Her soft Irish accent rang through the crisp Cambridge air. ‘Bollocks. Come here, you stupid…oh, no, please don’t…shit.’ She was standing outside her front door, car keys in her mouth, mobile phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder, clutching the most enormous stack of essays escaping from an elastic band. Not only had the first stray papers made a break for freedom, but as the wind picked up, they began to dance around the front garden, taunting Theresa. Two sheets were heading dangerously close to the road. ‘I’m sorry, Ma. I’ll have to call you back. Somebody’s dissertation is about to get run over by the Madingley bus.’
Dressed inappropriately for the chilly weather in a floaty summer skirt and one of Theo’s old shirts, with her tangled mane of pre-Raphaelite curls held precariously in place by a pencil, Theresa dropped everything on the doorstep and began running after the errant essay papers, like an over excited puppy chasing a butterfly.
‘You all right, T? Can I help?’
Jenny Aubrieau, Theresa’s next-door neighbour and closest friend in Cambridge, stuck her head over the gate. Jenny was an English scholar, like Theresa, and was married to Jean Paul, a research fellow at Jesus. Jean Paul was always urging Jenny to tell Theresa the truth about her philandering husband – Theo Dexter’s extra-curricular love life was the worst-kept secret in the university – but Jenny couldn’t bring herself to do it. For one thing they hung out as couples, which made the whole situation doubly awkward. But more importantly, Theresa was so madly, blindly in love with Theo, the truth would destroy her. Besides, maybe Theo would come to his senses and get over his mid-life crisis soon. Jenny Aubrieau hoped so.
‘No, I’m all right,’ said a flustered Theresa. ‘Actually, yes. Grab that one. That one, that one, that one! Oh God.’ A single, handwritten sheet flew over the garden gate and dived directly beneath the wheels of an oncoming car. Seconds later more muddy tyres pounded it into oblivion.
‘Not the next Shakespeare, I hope?’ Jenny helped Theresa retie the remaining papers and carry them out to her car.
‘I very much doubt it,’ sighed Theresa. ‘Still, it’s not very professional, is it? Sorry, what’s-your-name, I threw your essay under a car. We’ll call it a 2:1, shall we, and better luck next time? God, I hate teaching.’
‘No you don’t.’ Jenny chucked the files on the back seat of Theresa’s Beetle and stood back to wave her off.
‘I bloody do. All I want is to be left alone to write.’
‘Drink after work? I have to put Amélie and Ben down at seven, but I’m free after that if you are.’ Jenny still felt awkward talking about her children in front of Theresa. She knew how desperately her friend wanted kids. Each pregnancy felt like a betrayal. But there came a point when not talking about them felt even more awkward. Particularly as these days Jenny’s every waking hour seemed to revolve around the little sods.
‘I can’t. Not tonight. Theo’s taking me out for dinner at the University Arms hotel. It’s a start-of-term celebration.’
Jenny Aubrieau watched her friend drive happily away and thought, I wonder what the bastard’s feeling guilty about this time?
Nobody was more surprised when Theo Dexter asked Theresa O’Connor to marry him than Theresa O’Connor herself. Born into a dirt-poor Irish farming family in County Antrim, Theresa had always been
