with another man. In his fevered imaginings, the other man always looked preternaturally handsome, and usually bore a strong resemblance to Professor O’Connor’s ex-husband, the ghastly, white-toothed, perma-tanned Theo Dexter. Theresa had reverted to her maiden name after the divorce, largely to stop people making the connection between her and her world-famous ex. But of course, everyone at Cambridge knew.
This must be what Chris Martin felt, asking Gwyneth Paltrow out after she’d been engaged to Brad Pitt. But look at Chris, eh? He got the girl! Then again, he was a multi-millionaire rock star with legions of screaming fans. Whereas I’m a scruffy student from Leeds with an overdraft and holes in my jacket.
The thing was that Theresa had given him just enough hope – a smile here, a shy glance there – to make Horatio think that perhaps, just perhaps, by some miracle, his affections might be returned. Yes, she was his teacher. And yes, she was twenty years older than him – not to mention twenty times more beautiful and brilliant and funny and kind and …
‘Get a move on, mate!’ Jack, Horatio’s roommate, was banging on the bathroom door. ‘You can’t polish a turd, you know. She’ll either see past your ugly mug or she won’t, so hurry the fuck up, would you? I need a slash.’
Jack was an engineer. Lovely bloke, but no soul whatsoever.
Horatio opened the door. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you’ve got no chance,’ said Jack robustly. ‘She’s old enough to be your mother, she’s sworn off men, which is probably code for she’s a lesbo …’
‘She is not a lesbo!’ said Horatio crossly.
‘And, she supervises you, which makes you even more off-limits.’
‘Maybe that’ll be part of my appeal?’ Horatio smiled hopefully. ‘I’m a forbidden fruit.’
‘You’re a forbidden fruit-loop more like it,’ said Jack. ‘Nice jeans though. You don’t look like as much of a scrawnster as you usually do.’ And with that he shut the bathroom door, abandoning his friend to his fate.
Theresa unlocked the outer, heavy wooden door of her college rooms with the same, heavy, palm-sized metal key that its occupants had been using for over two centuries. The romantic in her loved the giant key. Like the rest of her rooms, the rest of Cambridge in fact, it felt magical, like something out of a fairy tale. The key to Rapunzel’s tower perhaps, or to some lost city of gold. Once inside she turned on the lights and the fan heater. It was April, spring according to the newspapers, but Cambridge was still bitterly cold and the college authorities were notoriously parsimonious about luxuries such as central heating. Soon, however, the noisy little fan had expelled the chill sufficiently for Theresa to take off her duffel coat, turn on the kettle, and start leafing through her notes for this morning’s session on Macbeth.
She had a one-on-one supervision this morning with her star pupil, Horatio Hollander, and she was looking forward to it immensely. Horatio’s last essay, on Macbeth’s classic ‘Tomorrow’ soliloquy, was so good it had moved her almost to tears. Then again, that wasn’t hard. Yesterday evening she’d sobbed like a child watching Jenny’s cat, a fat old tabby inappropriately named ‘Ninja,’ give birth to six healthy kittens.
‘What’ll you do with them?’
‘Sell them, I suppose. Or more likely give them away. I doubt people pay for kittens any more. We might keep one, I suppose.’
‘Oh, you can’t do that!’ protested Theresa. ‘Look at them. They’re a little team. They have to stay together.’
‘I’m not housing seven cats, T,’ said Jenny reasonably. ‘JP would divorce me and I wouldn’t blame him.’
‘Well, at least take two,’ pleaded Theresa, watching the blindly crawling fur balls through a haze of tears. ‘They can be company for each other. I’ll have the rest.’
Jenny laughed. ‘All four of them? You’re not serious?’
‘Why not? I like cats. They’re good company.’
‘But you’ve already got Lysander. You’ll be like the classic old cat lady, T! Blokes’ll be too scared to come near you.’
‘Perfect,’ said Theresa, reaching down to stroke one of the fur balls. ‘I don’t want blokes coming near me. They can be pets, companions and bodyguards all in one.’
This summer it would be five years exactly since Theresa had last been on a date. Looking out over Cloister Court, with its medieval arches and cobbled paths worn smooth with age, the thought gave Theresa a warm glow of contentment. I don’t need a man. I don’t even want a man, and that’s the God’s honest truth. In the first couple of years after her divorce, she’d accepted occasional dinner dates, largely as a way to keep Jenny and Aisling and her other friends off her back. But as time went by and she settled once more into the rhythm of academic life, cocooned in beauty both at work and at home, Theresa began to take a stand.
‘I’m not denying myself,’ she would say, truthfully. ‘I’m happy as I am.’ Coming home to Willow Tree Cottage still made every night feel like Christmas Eve. After she had finally published her book on Shakespeare in Hollywood, the first really serious academic analysis of the modern media interpretations of the plays, to high critical acclaim. The book was never going to make her rich, but Theresa was inordinately proud of it. As a result, she’d been approached to edit and write an introduction to the new Cambridge University Press Shakespeare anthology, a huge honour and without doubt the crowning professional achievement of her life so far. I have my work, my friends, Lysander, my perfect, chocolate-box home. What more could anyone ask for?
If there were one thing she might have wished for, had someone presented her with a magic wand, it would probably have been a baby, although even that desire had softened over the years. It would not, under any circumstances, have been a boyfriend, still less a husband. Theresa had loved once, deeply, and she had lost. As far as she was concerned, that was that. Her feelings for Theo had also faded – when she saw his face on the television now it was like looking at a stranger – but the memory of the pain remained. Someone had once told her that that was the definition of a lunatic: someone who repeats the same mistakes over and over and over again. Well, Theresa O’Connor was not a lunatic. She was simply a single woman who happened to share her home with five cats.
A knock on the door disturbed her musings.
‘Come in,’ she trilled cheerfully. ‘It’s open.’
Horatio hovered in the doorway. Not for the first time, Theresa thought what a kind, intelligent face he had. If I had a son, she thought, I’d like him to look like that.
‘Good morning, Mr Hollander. Can I offer you some tea?’
Horatio cleared his throat. ‘Er, no. No thank you. I’m fine. Thanks.’
Theresa smiled. ‘You look nervous. If it’s about your essay I can assure you you have no reason to be. As usual you were insightful and to the point. I did want to debate a couple of your conclusions with you, however, especially your position in the final stanzas, where …’
‘It’s not about the essay.’
Pouring herself a cup of Earl Grey, Theresa noticed the boy’s complexion had faded from its usual white to something closer to see-through. ‘My goodness, Horatio. Are you all right?’
‘Not really.’ He walked over to where she was standing and gently took the mug of tea from her hands. Unfortunately his own hands were shaking so much, he instantly scalded himself, yelping with pain. Theresa shifted at once into motherly mode.
‘Come on, come with me. I’ve some frozen peas in the kitchenette, I think. I don’t cook much in my rooms but I think they’re still there. Stick it under the cold tap while I have a look.’
Horatio stood at the sink, oblivious to the burn on his hand, watching her. In a pair of slouchy jeans that looked in permanent