Scandalous

by Tilly Bagshawe

  “Wow.” It was like stepping to a scene from Brideshead Revisited. Young men in rugby shirts and college ties 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 Kodak Theatre, Hollywood, and an Herve Leger 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 good-bye 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 that 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 apologized. “Not what you need on your first day at St. Michael’s.”

  “Local thugs 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 Maddingley 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 overexcited puppy chasing a butterfly.

  “You all right, T? Can I help?”

  Jenny Aubrieau, Theresa’s next-door neighbor 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 extracurricular 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 midlife 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 tires 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 C, shall we, and better luck next time? God, I hate teaching.”

  “No you don’t.” Jenny chucked the files on the backseat of Theresa’s Fiat 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 Amelie 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 a dreamer. A hopeless romantic who couldn’t help but see the good in everyone, she appeared to have nothing in common with the worldly, ambitious, self-confident young Englishman whom she first met at a friend’s wedding in Dublin five years ago. Nor could she believe that anyone as handsome and brilliant as Theodore Dexter, by then already in his last year at MIT and sporting a mid-Atlantic accent as fake as his gold Rolex, would be interested in her. Theresa had always considered her life to be an endless series of lucky accidents—the acceptance into grammar school and later to Cambridge; her achievement of honors in English literature; and now her soon-to-be marriage to the most eligible man in academia. She never believed herself worthy of the wonderful things that kept happening to her. Still less could she accept that she herself was responsible for them.

  But Theo Dexter did love Theresa. He loved her wild, Celt
ic beauty, her white skin and fiery red hair. She was artistic and sensitive, two qualities that he utterly lacked but was capable of admiring in others, particularly women. She was passionate, terrific in bed, and most important of all, she worshipped the ground he walked on. Other physicists might be reluctant to take Theo Dexter seriously. But Theresa O’Connor was never in any doubt as to his genius. Sleeping with her, just being around her, was like plugging himself into an inexhaustible ego-recharger. Those who thought that Theo Dexter’s ego couldn’t possibly need recharging did not really know the man. His arrogance and his insecurity had always gone hand in hand.

  They were married in Cambridge, in the ancient Holy Trinity Church on Bridge Street. Theo would have liked a more lavish affair, but they couldn’t afford it. Theresa would have been happy in a registry office in Slough, so great was her joy at becoming Mrs. Dexter. She wore a plain white dress from Next for the service, teamed with flat ballet slippers (Theo hated her in heels; they made him look short). Despite her simple attire, or perhaps because of it, the bride couldn’t have looked more radiant. At the reception, a simple affair at the Regent hotel, Theo’s best man, Robert, made a joke about how much the happy couple had in common.

  “Theresa loves Theo. And Theo loves Theo. They’re a perfect match!” Theo laughed thinly, but the rest of the guests roared. “The only two people in Cambridge who think Theo’s cleverer than Theresa are Theo and Theresa.” More laughter. “Here’s hoping the kids have Mum’s looks and Mum’s brains.”

  Theo thought: Note to self: drop Robert Hammond as a friend.

  Theresa thought: I wonder how long it’ll be before I get pregnant?

  “Polycystic ovaries.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Poly—cystic—ovaries.” Dr. Thomas, Theresa’s Harley Street consultant, sounded irritated. A gruff, bullying man in his sixties with overgrown caterpillar eyebrows and a pink bow tie, Dr. Thomas was a brilliant gynecologist. But he had the bedside manner of a Stalinist general. “Your ovaries produce fewer eggs. In addition, in your particular case, the quality of those eggs you do produce is extremely poor.”

  “I see.” Theresa bit her lower lip hard, trying not to cry. My life is perfect. What right do I have to blub over one tiny setback?

  “So what do we do from here? IVF? Donor eggs? What’s the next step?” Theo spoke brusquely, trying to sound in control. Deep down he was overwhelmed with relief that the problem wasn’t on his side. Not that he wanted kids; far from it. But no man liked the idea that he was shooting blanks.

  “I would give IVF a very low chance of success in your wife’s case.”

  Theresa swallowed. “But there is some chance?”

  “Less than five percent. You’d be wasting your time,” said Dr. Thomas brutally. Despite herself, Theresa felt her eyes well up with tears.

  Theo asked, “We can still try naturally, though, can’t we?”

  “You can try,” Dr. Thomas shrugged. “Otherwise I would steer you towards considering adoption.”

  Theresa’s eyes lit up, but Theo shook his head firmly.

  “No. Not for us, thank you, Doctor. I’ve no interest in raising another man’s mistake.”

  On the long drive back to Cambridge, Theresa stared out the car window in silent misery. As always in times of trouble, her mind turned to Shakespeare:

  “The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.”

  I will not give up hope. I will keep trying.

  She’d been disappointed by Theo’s hostility toward the idea of adoption. But then why shouldn’t he want a child of his own? After all, she did. It was her fault they couldn’t conceive, not poor Theo’s. Suddenly she was seized with panic. What if he left her? What if he left her because she couldn’t have children?

  “Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed.”

  I can’t let the fear defeat me. I have to believe. We will have children. Somehow. We will.

  By the time Theresa got to the new English faculty building on West Road she was fifteen minutes late. Running across the car park, she felt sweat trickling down the back of her neck and an unpleasant wetness spreading under her arms and breasts. Panting from the exertion, she pushed open the door of the lecture room.

  “Sorry everyone. Terrible traffic. I’m afraid I’ve had a bit of a disaster with…” She looked up. Three faces looked back at her.

  “Where are the others? Is this it?”

  Mai Lin, a sweet Asian-American girl from Girton, said kindly, “Maybe they got stuck in traffic too?” But all four people in the room knew this was a lie.

  Theresa knew the dropout rate for her seminars was high. Students complained that they were too chaotic, that they strayed too far from the parameters of Part II Shakespeare and the topics that they needed to cover for finals.

  “But there’s more to life than exams!” Theresa pleaded with the head of the faculty. “Where’s their soul? Where’s their passion? How can they possibly expect to cover something as breathtaking as Macbeth in two one-hour sessions?”

  “Because if they don’t, my dear, they won’t cover the rest of the tragedies and they’ll fail their degrees. You must stick to the syllabus, Theresa.”

  “But I thought teaching was about inspiring people?”

  “Oh, my dear.” The head of English doubled over with laughter. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  Still, Theresa thought glumly, looking around the empty room, I can’t inspire them if they’re not here. If only I had a vocation for teaching, like Theo. His lectures are always packed to bursting.

  Depressed, she opened her notes.

  “Right, well, for those of you who have made the effort. Let’s get started, shall we?”

  Sasha’s first week at St. Michael’s went by so fast, and there was so much to take in, it was like being in a particle accelerator. She was tiny. Cambridge was huge. And everything was moving at light speed.

  Her room was a bit disappointing. A small, featureless box in the only ugly part of the college, a concrete seventies accommodation block that had apparently won loads of architectural awards despite looking like the multistory car park in Tunbridge Wells, it was hardly the ivory tower of Sasha’s fantasies.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.” Georgia, a drop-dead-gorgeous blonde architecture student from across the hall, told Sasha cheerfully, helping herself to the last of the homemade biscuits Sasha’s mum had left. “You’re not going to be spending much time in your room.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” said Sasha, thinking of the physics library and the Cavendish labs.

  “Course it’s true. The dorm bar doesn’t close until midnight, and there’s always a party somewhere afterwards.” Georgia bounced up and down on Sasha’s bed with excitement. “Have you joined any societies yet?”

  “Societies?”

  “Yes, you know. Like the Union or Footlights.”

  “God, no.” Sasha shuddered. The Cambridge Union was a debating society and the Footlights a comedic dramatic club. The very thought of speaking in public under any circumstances made Sasha break out in hives. How anyone could sign up for such a thing by choice was incomprehensible.

  “Well what sort of things are you interested in?” asked Georgia.

  “These biscuits are delicious, by the way.”

  “Thanks.” Sasha smiled. “I’m interested in physics. Radiophysics, cryophysics, physics of phase transitions and magnetism.”

  Georgia’s eyes widened. Sasha went on.

  “You know, all of it really, quantum optics, semiconductors and dielectrics…”

  “So not a big cookery fan, then?”

  “Cookery?”

  “That was a joke.” Georgia looked at her new friend with a combination of admiration and pity. Clearly she was going to have to introduce Sasha to the concept of fun. “Look, I get it. You’re Einstein.”

  “Oh, no.” Sasha was mortified. “I didn’t mean to imply…I’m nothing special. Certainly not by C
ambridge standards.”

  “Bollocks to Cambridge standards,” said Georgia robustly. “You’re obviously an evil genius or you wouldn’t be here. You’ve probably got a laser in your room. Do you have a laser, Scott?” She put on her best Dr. Evil voice but it went right over Sasha’s head. “Never mind. The point is, we’re at St. Michael’s now.” Grabbing Sasha’s hand, she dragged her over to the window. Outside, the college’s picture-postcard courts and bridges lay spread out below them like a wonderland. “Our mission is to have the time of our fucking lives,” said Georgia. “Are you with me?”

  Somehow Sasha knew instinctively that this was a rhetorical question. Georgia Frobisher was a force of nature. Sasha was with her whether she liked it or not.

  From that day on the two girls were inseparable. The outgoing, flirtatious blonde and the quiet, mysterious brunette were the talk of freshers week. Party invitations flooded into Georgia’s and Sasha’s mail slots—all the third-year Casanovas had bets on who would be the first to get one of them into bed—but even Georgia found that she had less time for partying than she’d hoped, what with all the paperwork and reading lists, seminars, supervisions—which were one-on-one meetings with professors—and of course, exploring Cambridge itself.

  “It’s an architect’s paradise,” sighed Georgia, wandering from college to college, where exquisite Gothic buildings huddled cheek by jowl with some truly stunning modern architecture. Treasure troves that they were, there was more to Cambridge than the colleges. There was Kettle’s Yard Gallery and centuries-old pubs like the Pickerel with its low beams and roaring log fire. There were the grand museums on Downing Street, and Parker’s Piece, and the teashop at Grantchester that let you moor punts in the garden. There were quaint cobbled alleys, magnificent churches, precious pink-painted cottages, and outrageous neoclassical mansions. And it was theirs. It was all theirs.