Despite, or perhaps because of, his irritation with Oscar’s early arrival and at a loss as to what to do with him, Mr Willis had reluctantly agreed to allow Oscar access to the Wren Library, a privilege usually granted only to members of the College. Every morning after breakfast, Oscar gathered his notebooks and his folders and walked over Magdalene Bridge and up Trinity Street to the cobbled sweep in front of Trinity’s Great Gate, on top of which, in the eighteenth century, the University’s first astronomical observatory had been built. Every morning he stepped through the archway with its heavy oak door and walked across the great grand sweep of Great Court, past the fountain and the chapel and the Great Hall, and through the arch to Nevile’s Court. Every morning it took his breath away. It was on the stone flags of the north cloister that Isaac Newton had stamped his foot to time the echoes and determined the speed of sound. Oscar set his feet into the dents worn by centuries of feet and in the sunlit air the weight of history turned slowly, like columns of dust.
