Laura logged off Outlook Express, with a well-deserved feeling of satisfaction. She had confirmed the lecture hall, she had double-checked that the JCR dining room would be reset for the buffet meal at half past eight and she had confirmed that Dr Gideon Fuller would indeed be giving, in person, the second of the two lectures, on Nietzsche, the controversial German philosopher.
Fuller was an acknowledged Nietzsche expert. She thought about Fuller for a moment. She’d met him once and been highly impressed. She found him very attractive. Despite his good looks there was something haunting in his eyes, a hint of danger that hung over him like a dark perfume. She wondered what she would do if he made a pass at her; she rather hoped he would.
She ticked the last item on her to-do list. Laura was a big believer in lists.
She stood up, stretched and studied her reflection in the antique mirror that was said to have belonged to Ludwig Wittgenstein. Laura doubted this. Wittgenstein was surely more of a Cambridge philosopher, but it was a nice story and it could have happened. If it had, it would be strange to think of the tormented Viennese philosopher being reflected in its polished surface just as she was now.
Laura had long, dark hair and a slim figure, and to her own eyes she looked about fourteen rather than the sexy under- graduate she aspired to be. Only her mouth, full and sensuous, matched her dreams. That and her neck, long and elegant. She took her glasses off and peered at the mirror. She grinned goofily at herself and made her eyes go crossed. Oh, it was hopeless. She may as well face it: people were going to spend the next few years, as they had the last few years, saying she looked really sweet.
It’ll be written on my grave, she thought. Here lies Laura, she was really sweet.
I don’t want to be really sweet, thought Laura. I want to be sophisticated and elegant. Oh well.
She kicked off her shoes, lay down on her narrow bed and picked up her copy of Twilight of the Idols.