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‘What? Liar. Not even a snog?’
‘Stop it, you’ll make me pee. Honestly. We talked. That’s all.’ She lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘Marcy, he offered me an E! I think he was trying to be, like, cool or something. Down with the kids, you know?’
‘Fuck! That’s mental! Did you take it?’
‘I took a bit, yeah. I thought with him being more experienced it would be, like, OK.’
‘But he’s a professor for fu— Oh my God!’
‘I know, I know.’ Samantha crosses her legs. She really does need to pee now. ‘But he’s not … he’s not stuffy. I know he’s, like, forty or something, but he doesn’t seem it, you know? Except for in all the good ways. Like he’s got an old record player and he listens to jazz and classical music and stuff from the nineties, he’s got a wine cellar actually in the actual cellar and he’s … he’s making waffles. For breakfast.’
‘Bloody hell, that’s proper grown-up. Jacob buys me a Starbucks if I’m lucky.’
‘I know! And he’s taking me to see him lecture. In the car. You know,thecar.’
‘Oh my God, you got a ride in the Studmobile?’
Samantha laughs. ‘Don’t call it that.’ She gasps, lowers her voice again to a whisper, covers her mouth with her hand. ‘It’s not like that. He didn’t even try and kiss me. He didn’t try anything. I know we thought he was a bit of a player, but he’s the opposite of a predator, the absolute opposite.’
Peter appears at the door. He raises his eyebrows and points in the direction of the kitchen.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she says hurriedly into the phone. ‘I’ll text you later.’
At eleven, Peter drives them to UCL. As they weave through the London traffic, Samantha texts Marcia:
Breakfast = home-made waffles, home-made granola, Greek yoghurt and honey. Freshly ground coffee from a place in Covent Garden!!!!!
Marcia replies:
Stobbit!A GIF follows: a woman waxing orgasmic over a strawberry sundae. Samantha laughs.
‘You don’t mind me being here,’ Peter says, ‘while you’re on your phone, do you?’
His tone is light enough, but Samantha apologises and slides the phone back into her bag.
He parks on Gordon Square, ushers her to the lecture hall; she feels his hand at the small of her back as they step through the door. Once inside, they part like lovers: he to the lectern; she to the front row, smiling occasionally at him as his students file in. From his bag, he produces a pair of black glasses, which he puts on. They suit him; he almost looks better in them, and the way he gazes at her is so direct, so intimate, it almost feels like they are doing something they shouldn’t. For those few seconds, she feels the room recede, leaving her in a kind of void. Then the contact breaks, and her surroundings return in all their chattering aromas: charity-shop clothes and coffee, last night’s gig, roll-up cigarettes and stale alcohol. Two girls pass in front of her. They nudge each other, glance sideways at Peter before exchanging a smirk. As they take their seats beside her, Samantha wonders if their excitement is real or whether she’s projecting; whether she’s falling prey to the mythology, the aura, the cult of Professor Bridges.
Peter, she thinks, her insides folding over. Peter, now.
At midday on the dot, he looks up from his notes. The room falls into an immediate silence.
‘Amazing how the numbers swell when you put sex in the title of a lecture,’ he says.
An easy laugh.
‘Caravaggio was a cad and a bounder,’ he announces from his pulpit with an ironic widening of eyes. ‘A death-dodger, a cheap slut, a brawler, a murderer and a drunk. He was a genius, a fugitive, a master of chiaroscuro, an innovator and an enduring influence on the Baroque, on world-famous painters such as Rembrandt, Benini and Rubens.
‘This morning I want to look at the psychological realism often praised in his work, and how his dissolute life might have given him the edge over …’
Peter, who less than twenty-four hours earlier was merely Professor Bridges, no substance beyond his youthful appearance, his clean-cut style and his iconic car, continues for an hour: pacing, pointing, raising his voice, lowering it, polished as a stand-up comedian. And like a stand-up, he makes it look as if he’s making it all up there and then, as if these informed observations have come to him only now. Watching him, Samantha thinks about the night they spent together, how differently it played out from how she’d imagined. This private side of him, known only to her, thrills her like a secret, especially here in the packed, public lecture hall.
He talks without notes, his thumb deft on the remote. Behind him, paintings bloom on the screen. Under his analytical commentary, the sacred historic scenes come to life: blood oozes from Holofernes’ throat as Judith slits it, holding her poor victim at arm’s length while her maid cowers behind her; when he introduces a painting calledSaint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, she thinks of that bag of pills and allows herself a childish smile; and then, into the rapt silence, comes the disembodied head of the Medusa.
‘Caravaggio used his own face, as you can see.’ Peter gestures loosely at the screen. ‘Which creates a kind of hermaphrodite, grotesque grimace, framed by the famous writhing snakes of hair. This is the gorgon caught in the terrible instant of self-recognition. Look at that horror. It is the moment the monster realises who he – or she – actually is.’
Samantha feels a chill pass through her. She looks about her to see if any of the others feel it too, but Peter is off again, leading her through Roman streets with nothing but words: pungent ale sloshing in the taverns of the Via Margutta; the raucous hullabaloo of the brothels; violent brawls on the slimy cobbles. He transports her, transports all of them, to the Eternal City at the turn of the seventeenth century, a time of murder, rape and danger.
‘If you ever get the chance to visit,’ he says at thirty seconds to one, ‘make bloody sure you do.’
