the street to get a better look, she saw that the placards read ‘No Condos on Holy Ground!’ and felt slightly less warmly disposed. God squadders had never been Sasha’s cup of tea, and as a real estate developer she found it hard to muster enthusiasm for the no-building brigade either. But curiosity got the better of her.
‘What’s this about?’ she asked one of the protesters, a pale, skinny girl with unfortunately prominent buckteeth.
‘They want to build apartments on that lot over there, next to the church. The city’s said they’re gonna consent, because it’s vacant land. But there are people buried there. It’s consecrated!’ She imbued the last word with as much outraged awe as her dental challenges would allow.
‘Couldn’t they move the bodies?’ asked Sasha innocently. ‘To some other consecrated ground?’
The girl looked as if she might burst into tears. ‘How would you like it, if someone dug you up and dumped you someplace else, like some hunk of garbage? What if it was your mother down there?’
Thinking privately that, as she’d be dead, she’d probably be past caring, Sasha murmured something supportive and continued on her way. It was only after she’d gone another two blocks, and was thinking about heading home for a sixth mince pie and some Vicar of Dibley DVDs, that it suddenly hit her. An idea so radical, and yet so obvious, so simple! Running back to where the protesters were standing, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a wodge of twenty-dollar bills, thrusting them into the bucktoothed girl’s bewildered hands.
‘Thank you!’ she beamed. ‘Thank you, and good luck with your campaign! And Merry Christmas!’ she added for good measure, skipping towards her apartment, her heart still racing.
‘Er … you’re welcome?’ said the girl, watching the beautiful girl in the couture coat twirl her way down the street. She was sure she recognized her from somewhere.
Back in her apartment, Sasha kicked off her boots, dropped her coat on the floor and ran to her bedroom, bouncing up and down on the bed like a five-year-old, whooping and laughing until she was out of breath.
After all these years, just like that, she’d done it.
She’d figured out a way to get her revenge on Theo Dexter.
It wouldn’t be easy, of course. Plenty of things could go wrong. But it was a chance, a plan, a window of opportunity she’d come to believe she would never be granted.
It was going to be a good Christmas after all.
Theresa sat in the waiting room of the Bridge Street surgery, flicking through a three-year-old copy of Country Life and marvelling at how cheap the property prices were back then … back when they’d seemed astronomical. The property market had been on her mind lately, ever since an extremely polite American couple had knocked on the door of Willow Tree Cottage a few weeks ago and asked her at what price she would consider selling.
‘It is just the most utterly charming house we’ve ever seen,’ gushed the wife. ‘We were planning to buy in the Cotswolds, you know, around Oxford?’ She pronounced it ‘Arksford’.
Theresa suppressed a smile. ‘Yes, I know the area. It’s lovely.’
‘But then we came out here and Cambridge just blew us away, didn’t it, Bill?’
‘Blew us away,’ the husband agreed. For a moment Theresa wondered whether he was being literal. She loved Cambridge as much as anyone had ever loved a city, but the February winds were brutally bitter. With its bare trees and grey, plaintive skies, and the last of the holiday snow turned to sludge in the streets, neither Cambridge nor Willow Tree Cottage looked at their best.
‘You’re very kind, but I’m afraid I couldn’t consider selling,’ Theresa explained, taking their telephone number and email address anyway because they were so insistent. Ironically, had the couple knocked on her door a few weeks earlier, she might well have entertained their offer. When she first heard that Theo had applied for the St Michael’s Mastership, she’d jumped off the deep end, vowing to abandon her own bid for the job and leave the university altogether. As usual, it was Jenny Aubrieau who got her to see sense.
‘Are you out of your mind? In fact, forget that, you can scratch the question mark. You are out of your mind.’
It was the morning after Theresa’s passionate night with Horatio Hollander. Theresa had woken late, hideously hung over and in complete emotional turmoil. Thank God Horatio had left early. There was a note from him propped up against the butter dish on the kitchen table, but she didn’t have the strength to read it yet. Last night had been amazing, incredible, a complete revelation and one of the most meaningful experiences of Theresa’s life. But she already knew she mustn’t repeat it. What can I offer a boy his age? Once his infatuation wears off he’ll want children and a normal family life. All the things I can’t give him. She pictured Horatio at forty, still handsome and youthful, pushing her around in a wheelchair. Admittedly, it was a bit of a stretch. When Horatio was forty, Theresa would only be sixty-one. But the basic truth remained: she was too old for him. He would grow to resent her, and rightly so. Downing two extra-strength Alka-Seltzer, she crawled back to bed but was woken by a phone call from Jenny, demanding to know where she’d been last night and insisting she come over for brunch.
‘I really can’t, Jen. I’m too ropey to drive.’
‘Fine,’ said Jenny. ‘I’ll come and get you. Throw on a sweater, I’ll be there in five.’ An hour later, fortified by a hefty slab of Jenny’s homemade chocolate cake and numerous cups of hot, sweet tea, Theresa had confessed that she was thinking of leaving. ‘I can’t face bumping into him every day. Well, maybe I can, but I don’t want to face it.’
‘So you’re just going to pull out of the Mastership? Roll over and let him win?’
‘Come on, Jenny,’ Theresa laughed joylessly. ‘He’s already won. You know how strapped for cash St Michael’s is. Who are they going to want as Master, a penniless woman Shakespeare scholar no one’s ever heard of, who’s too inexperienced anyway, or a world-renowned superstar with a sex-symbol wife who can raise the six million they need to reroof the chapel just by fluttering his eyelashes? It’s hopeless.’
‘It’s not,’ said Jenny robustly. ‘Not if you don’t give up hope. Besides, isn’t there a principle involved here?’
Theresa took another big bite of chocolate cake and tried not to think about principles.
‘I mean, why should you give up everything you’ve worked for just because he has some passing whim about coming back to his roots? What sort of message does that send your students, especially the girls?’
‘I’ve never set myself up as a role model,’ mumbled Theresa guiltily, thinking about Horatio. What the hell was she playing at?
‘Maybe not. But you’ve never been a coward, either, not while I’ve known you,’ said Jenny. Theresa was shocked by the anger in her voice. ‘You love your life here, you love your work, you love that house. Don’t let him drive you out, T. Don’t do it.’
And in the end, Theresa hadn’t. She’d channelled her inner Blitz spirit and hunkered down at Willow Tree Cottage, working harder than ever on her book and her teaching, doing her best to impress the St Michael’s fellowship with her quiet industry and determined professionalism. She’d also told a devastated Horatio Hollander that she couldn’t go out with him. For a few weeks afterwards she would see him at supervisions, but it was torturous for both of them. Shocked by how much she thought about him, and horrified by the degree to which her ending their short-lived affair had affected him physically – hardly stocky to begin with, he’d become positively gaunt, his cheeks caving in