reproachfully, as if they’d known she was an upstart American and suspected that she was way out of her league.
A couple of Claire’s privileges struck her as whimsical, indicative of the idiosyncratic character of a four-hundred-and-fifty-year-old institution. She had the right to order wine for her own private reserve. It would be kept in Trinity’s extensive wine cellars, rumored to be vast beyond measure. And, unlike students or tourists, she was allowed to walk with impunity on the often patchy but highly regarded grass that grew in the college’s courtyards. Other benefits, however, were rich with promise. The fellows’ key, or F key as it was commonly known, was presented to Claire soon after her arrival by the junior bursar, who informed her that the F key unlocked doors and gates to places thatwere off-limits to students, such as the Fellows’ Garden and the Fellows’ Bowling Green, and an unknown number of other sites, both interior and exterior, that were hidden amongst the hallowed stone buildings, arched doorways, leaded glass windows, and creeping ivy of Trinity’s medieval environs. Places, he seemed to hint, rendered almost magical by their secret, restricted nature.
But her most enjoyable perk so far was the simple pleasure of going into the Combination Room—that veritable bastion of school (male) tradition, with its wing-back chairs, dim green-glass lamps, and neatly pressed copies of the Times —to help herself to a cup of tea from the coffee, tea, and sherry service always at the ready. The tea was served in a china cup and saucer, and stirred with a silver spoon; here one would never find modern atrocities such as Styrofoam cups or plastic stirrers. Tea, Claire learned, was one of the more hospitable aspects of an often chilly country and could always be counted on to provide warmth and comfort.
At present Claire was in need of both, for she had just given her first lecture.
“Underwhelming,” would be a nice word for it; a “flop” was probably more accurate. There’d been a grand total of one student in the room, and even he had arrived late, mumbling something about Boat Club tryouts as an excuse: hardly a propitious beginning to Claire’s Cambridge career. As soon as she had finished, Claire had fled the lecture room and made her way downstairs to the faculty meeting room on the second floor, where she was dismayed to discover that the hot water dispenser was out of order.
Behind her, a throat cleared. “You have to strike it,” a woman said.
Claire turned around. The woman nearest her sat on a sleek leather couch, reading a copy of the latest English Historical Review. More academic journals were stacked on the coffee table: Past & Present, Continuity and Change, Early Science and Medicine . No doubt each one of them contained an article or two by members of the history faculty. On the wall above the woman’s head hung a bold, colorful example of Expressionist art, possibly the only painting in the entire university less than two hundred years old. Indeed, the meeting room resembled aspread from an IKEA catalog, incongruous when compared to the rest of Cambridge but in keeping with the architecture of the Sidgwick Site building. In a university town where most college structures were made of stone and dated as far back as the fourteenth century, it seemed a fluke—or perhaps it was purposefully ironic—that the Cambridge history faculty was housed in a modern glass and steel building designed in the 1960s. At the far end of the lounge, floor-to-ceiling windows offered a dizzying view of a small car park and, beyond that, a rather glorious vista of the gently curving River Cam.
The history fellow seemed so engrossed in the journal that at first Claire wasn’t certain she had spoken. Then the woman raised her right hand and made a fist to demonstrate. “You have to hit it,” she said, briefly glancing over the top of her half-frame reading glasses. Duly instructed,
A couple of Claire’s privileges struck her as whimsical, indicative of the idiosyncratic character of a four-hundred-and-fifty-year-old institution. She had the right to order wine for her own private reserve. It would be kept in Trinity’s extensive wine cellars, rumored to be vast beyond measure. And, unlike students or tourists, she was allowed to walk with impunity on the often patchy but highly regarded grass that grew in the college’s courtyards. Other benefits, however, were rich with promise. The fellows’ key, or F key as it was commonly known, was presented to Claire soon after her arrival by the junior bursar, who informed her that the F key unlocked doors and gates to places thatwere off-limits to students, such as the Fellows’ Garden and the Fellows’ Bowling Green, and an unknown number of other sites, both interior and exterior, that were hidden amongst the hallowed stone buildings, arched doorways, leaded glass windows, and creeping ivy of Trinity’s medieval environs. Places, he seemed to hint, rendered almost magical by their secret, restricted nature.
But her most enjoyable perk so far was the simple pleasure of going into the Combination Room—that veritable bastion of school (male) tradition, with its wing-back chairs, dim green-glass lamps, and neatly pressed copies of the Times —to help herself to a cup of tea from the coffee, tea, and sherry service always at the ready. The tea was served in a china cup and saucer, and stirred with a silver spoon; here one would never find modern atrocities such as Styrofoam cups or plastic stirrers. Tea, Claire learned, was one of the more hospitable aspects of an often chilly country and could always be counted on to provide warmth and comfort.
At present Claire was in need of both, for she had just given her first lecture.
“Underwhelming,” would be a nice word for it; a “flop” was probably more accurate. There’d been a grand total of one student in the room, and even he had arrived late, mumbling something about Boat Club tryouts as an excuse: hardly a propitious beginning to Claire’s Cambridge career. As soon as she had finished, Claire had fled the lecture room and made her way downstairs to the faculty meeting room on the second floor, where she was dismayed to discover that the hot water dispenser was out of order.
Behind her, a throat cleared. “You have to strike it,” a woman said.
Claire turned around. The woman nearest her sat on a sleek leather couch, reading a copy of the latest English Historical Review. More academic journals were stacked on the coffee table: Past & Present, Continuity and Change, Early Science and Medicine . No doubt each one of them contained an article or two by members of the history faculty. On the wall above the woman’s head hung a bold, colorful example of Expressionist art, possibly the only painting in the entire university less than two hundred years old. Indeed, the meeting room resembled aspread from an IKEA catalog, incongruous when compared to the rest of Cambridge but in keeping with the architecture of the Sidgwick Site building. In a university town where most college structures were made of stone and dated as far back as the fourteenth century, it seemed a fluke—or perhaps it was purposefully ironic—that the Cambridge history faculty was housed in a modern glass and steel building designed in the 1960s. At the far end of the lounge, floor-to-ceiling windows offered a dizzying view of a small car park and, beyond that, a rather glorious vista of the gently curving River Cam.
The history fellow seemed so engrossed in the journal that at first Claire wasn’t certain she had spoken. Then the woman raised her right hand and made a fist to demonstrate. “You have to hit it,” she said, briefly glancing over the top of her half-frame reading glasses. Duly instructed,
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