“Leave it, love. Give her a minute. She doesn’t need an audience.”
In the kitchen, Sasha stood with her back to the stove, turning the envelope over in her hands. Sensing her anxiety, Bijoux heaved his fat form out of the dog basket and sat loyally at her feet.
“Thanks, boy.” Why did the stupid rejection have to arrive today? She wanted to remember this as the day Will Temple made her a woman. Not the day that St. Michael’s Stupid College rejected her because she didn’t know about globalization and her cardigan was buttoned up wrong.
Wrapping her anger around her like a cloak, Sasha tore open the letter.
On the other side of Frant village green, the Carmichael family was enjoying a summer barbecue with friends when they heard the scream.
“What was that?” Katie Carmichael put down her beer and moved toward the garden gate.
“Nothing.” Her dad, Bob, turned over the last batch of pork sausages. “Just some kids playing silly buggers. Any chance of another jug of Pimm’s out here, Kelly? It’s thirsty work you know, slaving over hot coals.”
But Bob Carmichael’s wife wasn’t listening. She was standing at an upstairs window, staring openmouthed at the spectacle unfolding before her.
“Oh my God!” Katie Carmichael had reached the gate. “It’s Mr. Miller. He’s got no clothes on.”
“You what? Don Miller?”
Bob Carmichael dropped his tongs. Half the village was outside now, pouring onto the green. Some of them were taking photographs. Most of them were laughing, or screaming, or both. Everyone knew Don Miller. He’d run the local post office for the last fifteen years, not to mention heading the Frant Neighborhood Watch Committee.
Now it was Don that the neighborhood had come to watch. Stark naked, whooping for joy, he tore around the cricket pitch, screaming. “She did it! She bloody did it!”
“He’s flipped his lid.”
“I don’t believe it. Don Miller!”
“That’s put me right off me sausages, that has.”
“Where’s Sue?”
A few moments later Sue Miller’s solid, dumpy figure could be seen waddling toward the growing crowd of spectators, most of whom were now cheering loudly. The last time Don had felt compelled to take all his clothes off had been the night of his twenty-second birthday when England had beaten the All Blacks at Twickenham. It was a sight Sue would never forget, and one she’d hoped she’d never have to see again. Don, however, was clearly having the time of his life, playing to the crowd with a series of pirouettes and other improvised ballet moves. His plié left nothing to the imagination.
“I’m sorry about this, everyone.” Sue Miller smiled sheepishly. “I’m afraid Don’s gone rather off the deep end.”
“No kidding!” Bob Carmichael wiped away tears of laughter. “It’s his birthday, isn’t it? Is he drunk?”
“Not yet, but he will be. We just heard.” Sue’s smile turned into a grin. “Sasha got into Cambridge.”
Three hours later, Don Miller was in bed, snoring loudly. The combination of the excitement, Sue’s homemade chocolate fudge birthday cake, and at least a bottle and a half of the best red wine the Abergavenny Arms had to offer had finished him off, poor man.
“I knew you’d do it. I jush knew it!” he told Sasha repeatedly as he staggered upstairs, leaning on her for support like an exhausted boxer. “You’re going to be the greatesht scientist this country’s ever prd’ced. My daughter. You’re gonna change the world. I knew it.”
“D’you think he’ll be all right, Mum?” Sasha closed the bedroom door.
“Don’t worry about your father,” said Sue. “It’s the rest of the village that’s going to need counseling. Post-traumatic shock, I think they call it. I’m used to seeing your father’s wedding tackle swinging in the wind, but poor Mrs. Anderson. She looked like she was about to have an aneurism. I mean, she is ninety-two, the dear old stick.”
Sasha got ready for bed in a daze. She’d had a few drinks herself, but that wasn’t the reason. In the last few hours, her life had changed forever. She called Will to tell him the good news as soon as she got back from the pub.
“Great, babe,” he yelled over pounding music. Evidently the party at Chittenden was still in full swing. “Cambridge is miles nearer than Exeter. That means I can still play rugby on Saturday afternoons once the season starts, then drive up and take you out for dinner. Wicked.”
If it wasn’t quite the reaction she’d hoped for, Sasha tried not to be disappointed. I can’t expect him to understand. He’s not academic. He has other qualities. And at least he’s making plans to come up and see me. That has to be a good sign, doesn’t it?
Pulling on a pair of scratchy cotton pajamas she’d had since she was fourteen, Sasha turned out the light and crawled under the covers of her single bed. Above her, a solar system of glow-in-the-dark stickers shone a comforting green. It was a child’s bedroom, and Sasha loved it. But I’m not a child. Not anymore. I’m a Cambridge undergraduate! I’m Will Temple’s lover! She hugged her excitement to her like a priceless treasure. I don’t want to fall asleep. I don’t want today to be over.
Outside, the church bells struck midnight.
The day was over.
Sasha Miller slept.
CHAPTER TWO
PROFESSOR THEODORE DEXTER was having a wonderful day. The sun was in the sky. Cambridge, ever beautiful, had looked particularly lovely this morning as he cycled along the Backs into college, its spires and turrets bathed in early autumn sunlight. His rooms, the most beautiful in St. Michael’s, had been newly cleaned and filled with vases of fresh flowers. (Professor Dexter’s housekeeper was more than a little in love with him. But then, who wasn’t?) And waiting in his bed was Clara, a German postgraduate student with the sort of oversize jugs rarely seen outside of specialist porn mags and a mouth that God had clearly created for the purpose to which she was now so gloriously putting it.
“That’s right, sweetheart. Nice and slow.”
The blow job was so good it was almost painful. Clara was an average physicist, but thanks to her extraordinary oral abilities her PhD thesis on galactic anisotropy was rapidly edging its way to the top of the class. Trying to prolong his pleasure, Professor Dexter moved higher up the bed so that he could see out the window. His rooms in First Court looked out over St. John’s Street and the splendid redbrick portcullis of Trinity College. Trinity was larger and more prestigious than St. Michael’s, but St. Michael’s was consistently voted the most beautiful college in Cambridge, with its wisteria-clad medieval courts, romantic formal gardens, and exquisite, walnut-paneled Tudor hall. It also had far and away the best reputation in astro-and particle physics. Which was why so many of the faculty were astonished when Theo Dexter was offered the fellowship there.
To the world at large, Theo Dexter was a brilliant scientist. He’d published two books with titles that no ordinary mortal could understand (his debut, the catchy Prospective Signatures of High Redshift Quasar HII Regions, sold a very creditable five hundred copies), he had a first from Oxford and a PhD from MIT, and he was still only thirty-five. To the physics faculty at Cambridge, however, he was an amateur. A mere dandy. Not only were his ideas rehashed versions of other people’s research. But the man dyed his hair for God’s sake. He wore Ozwald Boateng bespoke suits—in Cambridge!—and was even rumored to undergo regular facials, whatever those were. Female students flocked to his lectures to catch a glimpse of that rarest of all known mammals—a sexy scientist—when just down the hall, infinitely more brilliant and innovative minds were being ignored. A combination of envy and intellectual snobbery had made the golden boy of Cambridge physics deeply unpopular among his peers. Being offered the St. Michael’s fellowship was the final nail in Theo’s coffin.
Not that he cared. At least, that’s what he told himself. I’ve got the cushiest job in Cambridge, rooms that any other junior fellow would kill for, and a revolving door of willing, educated pussy at my beck and call. Not to mention a
lovely wife and a pretty house off the Maddingley Road. What more could a man ask for? And yet despite his smugness, lack of scruples, and almost limitless physical vanity, deep down Theo Dexter did want to be taken seriously by his fellow scientists. One day, he vowed. One day I’ll show them all.
Feeling himself building to a climax, he reached down and grabbed Clara’s hair, forcing himself deeper into that heavenly mouth. Instinctively she pulled back, but as he started to come Theo held her head firmly in place. If you want top marks for your crappy dissertation, angel, you’re going to have to swallow. Afterward he watched her get dressed, physically lifting each of her enormous breasts into her bra. Beautiful. He’d been worried he might not be “up to it” for today’s preterm tryst with his student. Theresa, his wife, had pounced on him earlier that morning, waving a positive ovulation stick like she was trying to bring a plane in to land. It was sad, really. The doctor had told them that their chances of conception were low to nil, but Theresa couldn’t let it go. For his part, Theo had never understood the big deal about kids. Sleepless nights, dirty nappies, the mind-numbing boredom of the playground. Who in their right mind would sign up for that? Then again, he was by no means sure Theresa was in her right mind. She always seemed to be away with the fairies these days, so lost in her Shakespeare that she barely registered his presence—or lack of it. But Theo Dexter was not a man to look a gift horse in the mouth. Tomorrow was the first day of Michaelmas term. That meant a new year, and a new crop of nubile, naive young freshers, all of them in search of a mentor. If there was one thing Professor Theodore Dexter prided himself on, it was his ability to mentor. Just look how far dear Clara had come.
Fifteen minutes later, Theo was on his way to Formal Hall for lunch. Two shags in six hours had left him ravenously hungry, and the smells of garlic and onion wafting up the stairs from the college kitchens were like a siren call to his stomach. Only about half the St. Michael’s fellows ate in Hall on a regular basis, but Theo Dexter went every day. Partly out of cheapness (meals in college were free), but partly because he had yet to find anywhere he preferred to dine over the dark Tudor splendor of St. Michael’s. Everything about it, from the rituals of the Latin grace and standing to welcome the master to high table, to the strict rules about the passing of wine and water, gave Theo a deep and abiding thrill. To eat in college was to become part of history. It was to claim one’s place among the chosen ones, the privileged few whose intellect set them above the rest of humanity. Theo Dexter had grown up in a nondescript semi in Crawley. But he had made it to the table of the gods, and he relished every second.
“Morning, Dexter. Off to enjoy the condemned man’s final meal? Depressing, isn’t it?”
Professor Jonathan Cavendish, head of history at St. Michael’s, was in his late fifties. A handsome man in his youth, one of the university’s most successful rowing blues, he had long since run to fat. Renowned as a bon vivant, Jonathan wore his paunch with pride and didn’t seem remotely concerned by his thinning hair or his fattening arteries. Everybody at St. Michael’s loved him. Everybody except Theo Dexter. Jonathan Cavendish made Theo’s skin crawl. Why the hell doesn’t he go to the gym? Can’t he see he looks like Friar Tuck?
“I don’t know what you mean, Johnny.”
“The bloody undergraduates coming back, of course. Don’t tell me you’re not dreading it. Tomorrow morning they’ll be crawling all over college like vermin.” Professor Cavendish shuddered. “I suppose one shouldn’t complain. They are our bread and butter after all. But really, it’s so difficult for college life to run smoothly with so many drunken children underfoot. And to do one’s work.”
Theo was silent as the two men crossed the cobbled bridge that led into Second Court. He was aware that most of the fellows at St. Michael’s shared Johnny Cavendish’s view of undergraduates as an inconvenience, a necessary cross to be borne. But Theo Dexter didn’t see it that way. Just the thought of all those earnest eighteen-year-olds in cheap miniskirts, away from home for the first time, was enough to put a spring in his step and a song in his heart.
Dressed in their long, black academic robes, the professors filed into Hall like penguins on the march. Theo looked around at the familiar faces as grace 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 the 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, and particularly on the West Coast where Theo had spent most of his undergraduate 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 putting him on. 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 vigor 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.
CHAPTER THREE
SASHA MILLER SAT in the backseat of her parents’ old Volvo, gazing out 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 toward 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 rapeseed fields cutting a garish yellow swath through the landscape. But Cambridge itself was adorable, a medieval, redbrick wonderland with charming cobbled streets and alleyways all tumbling down toward 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 Sash’s college. But at last they did get there. Sasha sprang out of the car like a shot.