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designed to make a statement, not to match the weather. Freddie hated tutorials with her. He found her absence of self-doubt unnerving.
    “You know what I think,” she said, crossing her slender legs in a provocative fashion. “That Miranda is a stuck-up cow, saying like to Caliban, ‘I pitied thee, took pains to make thee speak’ and Caliban goes, OK, you taught me language and ‘my profit on’t is I know how to curse.’ Oh really? That might have been true at my school where ‘fuck’ was the first word kids learned.”
    Cheryl never let anyone forget she once attended a Hackney comprehensive where English was a second language for most pupils. The way she emphasised her rough upbringing was a tiresome form of reverse snobbery. In a topsy-turvy world it had become fashionable to have common roots.
    Freddie frowned. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
    “If Caliban had been taught to speak by Miranda he’d have a posh accent and no swear words at all. More to the point, do you think Caliban did it with her?”
    “Obviously not, Prospero accuses his slave of seeking ‘to violate the honour of my child’ and Caliban admits he was prevented from doing so.”
    “But if he didn’t shag her,” Cheryl persisted, flicking her russet hair out of her eyes and smiling at him, “why tell Caliban he ‘deserved more than a prison’ when attempted rape wasn’t even an offence in those days.”
    It was a fair argument. When he conceded this, she wanted to know whether Miranda had been playing sex games with Caliban. Girls do that sort of thing, she told him.
    “I was at this party and a guy comes up, I could tell he fancied me, and he goes, want to go upstairs? And I say, no way, the store is closed and ...”
    Freddie couldn’t help blushing. “That’s enough, Miss Stone, too much information. What’s the point you’re making?”
    Cheryl shook her pre-Raphaelite curls. “Simply this, Dr Freddie Brett, a girl isn’t as innocent as her dad would like to think, even when he can immobilise the phallic sword with magic dust.”
    He was beginning to wonder whether there was a pornographic version of the play. “Getting back to the question I raised. Does Prospero use Caliban’s attempted rape as an excuse for enslaving him and colonising the island?”
    Cheryl snorted dismissively. “Of course it’s a colonial text. Prospero cosies up to Caliban to learn the secrets of the island before employing magic to subdue and control, just as white settlers used the magic of superior technology to pacify natives in the New World.”
    A clock struck the hour on Lovell Buildings. It came as a merciful relief.
    “We’ll have to stop there, Miss Stone. We’ll discuss your request to change your Ph.D thesis at our next meeting.”
    “Couldn’t we discuss it over a drink,” she asked, eyelashes fluttering.
    “No, that would be most improper,” he replied, wondering whether he really meant it.
    His graduate student had just left when the phone rang. It was the Master’s secretary. “Sir Alan would like a word with you. Can you come over to the Lodgings?”
    This was an invitation he couldn’t refuse. He had been half expecting the call. A summons from the Master of Beaufort meant one of two things – either a reprimand or praise for his TLS review. Freddie hoped it might be the latter. At a recent cocktail party Sir Alan had expressed contempt for ‘time-serving academics’ who ‘cash in on the Bard.’
    The Lodgings formed part of the college’s Gothic extension, a large and unlovely building tagged onto the chapel which had a depressing effect on all who entered it. A scout showed him into a fussy looking reception room where the Master’s wife bore down on him.
    “Sir Alan will be with you soon,” Lady Dorothy said in her shrill, high-pitched voice. “In the meanwhile, perhaps you will partake of a glass of sherry and sit over there.”
    She pointed to a badly sprung Regency sofa with purple