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.
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