We set off for Trinity College, where a young Fellow named Isaac Newton was, with luck, about to make an appearance.
Cambridge was every bit as wet and dreary as I thought it would be. I shivered inside my cloak as we picked our way carefully along Trinity Street, easing our way through the crowds. The place was packed as students, townspeople, tradesmen, and livestock noisily shoved their way along the uneven cobbles.
Eddie was staring around. ‘Do you know, I think the Tourist Information Centre might be just down there. One day.’
I didn’t reply. I was picking my way through something pink and blobby. Apparently well ahead of its time, Cambridge had implemented proper street-cleaning services as far back as 1575. God knows what it had been like before, because today we were up to our ankles in piss, rotting vegetables, dog turds, unidentified innards, vomit, puddles of dirty water, horseshit, mud, and things I didn’t even want to think about. Even more alarmingly, packs of foraging dogs roamed everywhere. I wished I’d brought a stick. The town itself had been described, I forget by whom, as lowlying and dirty with badly paved streets and poor buildings. I had no argument with any of that.
Trinity Street, with its inns and merchants’ houses, was handsome enough, but, behind the main streets, a network of squalid alleyways and dirty yards led down to the river. As always, the pod was parked in one of these squalid alleyways. Show me a squalid alleyway – any squalid alleyway – and I’ll point to the pod parked in it.
As we drew closer to Trinity College itself we could see a number of people streaming in and out of the Great Gate. Worryingly, none of them were women.
We stood quietly in a doorway and watched the crowds go past. I wanted to take some time before actually entering the college. There shouldn’t be any difficulties at all with this jump; we were, after all, about to visit one of the world’s premier colleges, not the Battle of Waterloo. But we’re St Mary’s and we have been known to have the odd problem occasionally. Eventually, I gave the nod to a quivering professor and off we trotted.
Eddie went first, neat and respectable and scholarly in black. I was dressed as his servant and also in black. I walked one step behind him at all times, so I could keep an eye on him.
He marched confidently through the smaller doorway in the ornately decorated Great Gate. I looked up at the statue. Henry VIII clutched his sceptre. At some point in History, students would substitute a chair leg. The current whereabouts of the sceptre are unknown.
‘It’ll turn up one day,’ said the professor confidently, following my gaze. ‘You know what colleges are like. It’ll be somewhere, propping someone’s bedroom door open. Or someone’s using it as a poker.’
We knew Newton’s rooms were off to the right, between the gate and the Chapel. A wooden staircase led from his rooms to the enclosed garden and there was no other exit so he had to leave through the front door. We were fortunate not to have to penetrate too far into the college. Accordingly, we looked around for somewhere quiet to tuck ourselves away and wait.
I’d never even visited Cambridge before, far less Trinity College, and I was gobsmacked at the size and scale of my surroundings. It had been called the finest college court in the world and I could easily believe it. The buildings were magnificent. Time to look later. First, we had to park ourselves somewhere out of the way while we waited.
I pulled up my hood and kept a respectful pace behind the professor. I saw no other women on the premises and had no idea whether I should actually be here at all. This is where a too-hasty briefing gets you. However, I’d had what seemed at the time to be a brilliant idea and brought a small mirror so I could stand inconspicuously behind the professor, keep my eyes averted so as not to contaminate any men, and still be able to see what was going on around me.
I don’t know why I ever thought that would work.
We were prepared to wait for several hours, although with luck we wouldn’t have to. We wore stout shoes and warm, waterproof cloaks and could stand all afternoon, if necessary. The air was wet, but it wasn’t actually raining and the afternoon was mild enough for early autumn. Away, in the distance, I could hear crows calling in the still air.
There were plenty of people around – all of them men – mostly dressed in black. Everyone was either wearing or carrying a hat. I saw a variety of wigs, mostly of a dull brown colour. The grey afternoon leached all colour from the scene, but, even so, I doubted it was ever a riot of colour. They walked to and fro in small groups, heads bowed, discussing, presumably, the secrets of the universe. Everything was exactly as I had hoped it would be – quiet, peaceful, and non-threatening.