Sheba's Husband
Sheba's husband is understandably upset and hurt to discover Sheba's affair, but as well as being hurt he is also repulsed that his wife became intimate with a teenage boy who is also her student. This is very ironic because he met Sheba because she was one of his students at art school. His disgust at the abuse of her position as a teacher is ironic and hypocritical.
Sheba as the Student
As Sheba tells Barbara about her life and the circumstances of meeting her husband, it becomes apparent that Sheba is aware on some level of the change her choices made to her life in terms of fulfilling her own potential and of becoming a successful artist. It is therefore ironic that, in conducting the same kind of relationship with one of her students, she does not see the correlation and the possible effect an affair with a teacher might have on his life, especially in terms of notoriety and media attention.
Sheba Needing Barbara
Barbara tells the reader that it is obvious Sheba cannot function without her. This viewpoint is ironic because it is clearly Barbara who cannot function without Sheba. The friendship has taken on obsessive importance to Barbara, who feels that she should be a priority in Sheba's life, and finds Sheba's lack of contact during the school vacation an affront of epic proportions. The friendship also serves to make Barbara feel needed and wanted, as well as giving her an identity that she has not felt able to give herself before Sheba's arrival in her life.
Barbara Trying to Make Sheba Look Bad
Early in their acquaintance Barbara questions Sheba about her decision to privately educate her children, implying that the choice makes her a snob and a hypocrite. This ironically has the opposite effect as Sheba tells Barbara that the private school her son attends is actually for children with Downs Syndrome, and rather than giving Barbara the high moral ground makes her look like a rather unkind bully.
Irony of Sheba and Connolly's Relationship
Because of their positions as teacher and student the relationship casts Sheba in the role of predator and Steven in the role of victim when ironically Steven's behavior was predatory and insistent and Sheba was the one being pressured and pursued. Although this shifts and Sheba becomes the one doing the chasing, it is not in a predatory manner but in a desperate one, and Connolly retains the upper hand throughout their affair.
