One Perfect Summer

mysterious Klaus, no doubt. I hope the poor man wasn’t up too late cleaning away after us.
    ‘Morning.’ Emily appears. ‘I’m starving. What are we having?’
    ‘Pancakes,’ Jessie replies.
    ‘Mmm, my favourite!’
    ‘ That ’ s the reaction I was expecting.’ He gives me a pointed look.
    ‘I’m sorry, I’m not hungry.’
    ‘What did you have for dinner last night?’ Emily enquires.
    By the time I’ve finished telling them, their mouths have dropped open.
    ‘Who the hell is this guy?’ Jessie exclaims. ‘Prince fucking William?’
    I smirk. ‘Not likely.’
    ‘You didn’t have a good time?’ Emily asks.
    ‘I did, but . . .’
    ‘What?’ they both ask eagerly in unison.
    ‘It ended a bit strangely.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ That was Emily.
    ‘I . . . I don’t know. I don’t really want to talk about it.’
    ‘Did he do anything?’ Jessie demands to know. From his tone of voice, he means ‘anything bad’.
    ‘No, he didn’t do anything.’
    And, although I hate to admit it, therein lies the problem.
    The next few days pass with no sign of Lukas. In fact, it’s not until Saturday, a week later, that I see him at all. I’m halfway through a late-morning tour when I spot him up ahead, perching on the stone wall at the end of Trinity Bridge with yet another textbook. I decide the most professional thing to do is to press on with my tour and ignore him. Then it occurs to me that he might ignore me and I feel slightly sick. But for all my attempts to avoid eye contact, we end up looking straight at each other. He manages a shaky smile. I carry on regardless, regaling my passengers with tales about Trinity. He stands up as I approach the bridge, and by the time my boat has passed through to the other side he’s standing in the middle of the bridge.
    ‘Alice,’ he calls.
    ‘Yep?’
    ‘I need to talk to you.’
    ‘I’m a bit busy right now.’
    The next thing I know, he’s walking on the grass outside the Wren Library, a few metres away, keeping pace with my boat.
    ‘Have lunch with me,’ he says.
    ‘I can’t,’ I reply, too distracted to tell my passengers about A.A. Milne’s manuscripts of Winnie-the-Pooh . I think they’re finding my conversation with this gorgeous undergraduate far more exciting. Did I say gorgeous? I didn’t mean to.
    ‘Please,’ he persists.
    I shake my head, trying to ignore the eager stares of twelve sets of eyes. And then I’m rounding the bend in the river.
    He reaches Magdalene Bridge before I do, but thankfully he waits until all my passengers have disembarked before making his presence known.
    ‘You know,’ he says with a raised eyebrow as I step onto the jetty, ‘it’s not actually true what you told your passengers about Trinity.’
    This statement makes me feel even more cross with him than I already was. But curiosity gets the better of me. ‘Which part?’
    ‘One can’t walk all the way from Cambridge to Oxford on land owned by Trinity.’
    ‘I don’t tell them that it’s true, I tell them: “it has been said by some . . .”’
    ‘But it’s nonsense,’ he says.
    ‘It’s not nonsense,’ I snap, even though I know that it probably is. ‘Anyway, it makes for a more interesting tour.’
    ‘I think there are plenty of other fascinating facts that aren’t based in fiction.’
    ‘Do you, now?’ I fold my arms across my chest. ‘Like what?’
    ‘Like the fact that Lord Byron kept a pet bear when he was a student at Trinity.’
    ‘I’ve heard that one,’ I say with a roll of my eyes. ‘He allegedly did it to spite the no-dog rule. That sounds like nonsense to me.’
    ‘It’s not. He wrote it in a letter to Elizabeth Pigot in 1807.’
    ‘Who the hell is Elizabeth Pigot?’
    ‘Come for lunch with me,’ he pleads again. ‘I’ll tell you all about her,’ he adds with a grin.
    ‘Ooh, that sounds like an invitation I can’t refuse,’ I say sarcastically.
    He grabs my arm and spins me around so I’m looking at him.
    ‘Please, Alice.’ His smile has vanished. Now he looks so sincere that I hesitate. ‘I owe you an explanation.’
    I regard him for a long moment and then I nod.
    The restaurants we pass are heaving, so Lukas suggests we eat at Trinity.
    ‘Isn’t it really formal?’ I ask worriedly. ‘Don’t you all wear gowns and dine in a big hall?’
    He smiles. ‘Students only wear gowns if they wish to go to Formal Hall, later at night. Lunchtimes and the early dinner sitting are casual.’
    Formal