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bear it. But now he knew it just made it more depressing. The only thing that helped him was his work.
    Towards the labs he pedalled on amid the parting families. Under a Venetian-style bridge linking a pair of venerable college walls, a woman in a leopardskin coat and aubergine hair was theatrically hugging a girl with a bright pink fringe. A man with a beard, sunglasses and a grey woolly jumper waved from beside a nearby Dormobile covered in CND symbols.
    Beside the gates of St Alwine’s, a tall, beautiful but impassive-looking boy was clashing cheekbones like rock ledges with an elegant woman and distinguished-looking man.
    ‘Bye, darling,’ the woman cried as they climbed into their shiny black car. The doors shut with an expensive clunk and the growl of an expensive engine followed. As the boy raised a hand in farewell, his signet ring glittered in the sun.
    The atmosphere was one of carnival almost; every pavement seemed full of smiling, waving people, car doors slamming, engines starting, people hurrying back and forth with bags and boxes. Richard was unable to suppress a wave of misery so powerful it made his knees shake.
    He changed gear and cycled faster, as if the physical effort would offset the dread suspicion that he had done the wrong thing in coming here at all. Perhaps he should have turned down Branston. He almost had, but at the last moment, after a particularly miserable New England weekend as the end of the summer term approached and when the sunshine, flowers and general golden youth had almost been too much for him to bear, he had got on a plane and gone to the interview.
    England – why not? A change of scene would do him good; a change of continent even more so. Branston, in addition, enjoyed a location close to the internationally famous neurology department where his real interests lay.
    The college, so glad to have him interested, had readily agreed to his terms, which were that he was there first and foremost as a research scientist. They could put him on their masthead, website and brochure if they wanted, but he would remain essentially uninvolved in the domestic and pastoral business of the college. After all that had happened, the last thing Richard wanted was to be hosting tea parties for undergraduates. Not least because, in the past, that was something Amy had loved.
    At the ghastly drinks reception, some college heads had blithely described the lunch and dinner parties they gave regularly for their students. ‘We aim to provide a family atmosphere,’ one Master had cheerfully said about his teacake-and-toasting-fork gatherings in front of a roaring fire. Richard had shuddered. A family atmosphere was the very last thing he would be providing. Nor would he be spearheading attempts to drum up money, which, according to many college principals, was what they spent most of their time doing. ‘We’re basically just fundraisers,’ one had said. Well, not him, Richard vowed. What money Branston needed, it could raise itself.
    Admittedly, Branston had never mentioned such a thing. Nor had it said anything about teacakes. And the final point in its favour – the most important point of all, in a sense – was that the college had an almost unbelievably horrible garden, all dark trees and bald lawns, litter and weeds, positively emanating neglect and abandonment.
    A garden, in other words, that could not remotely remind him of his wife. Amy had been a passionate plantswoman. It wasn’t just that her fingers were green, every other bit was too. She had spent every spare minute in their garden at home. Selling the place after her death, he had held out for the right people, and had taken a lower offer because he could tell the buyers would look after Amy’s back yard. She had particularly loved English gardens and at various points over the years he had trailed after her as she paced excitedly past Stowe’s temples, through the white beds at Sissinghurst, by the fountains of Hampton Court,