Page 10 of Love and Other Paradoxes

“Okay,” said Joe with exaggerated patience, “how far in the future are you from?”

“Ten minutes.” Rob took the last flight of steps two at a time. “I’ve come back to tell you the starter wasdelicious.”

They headed into the college dining hall, where the long tables were lined with dripping candles and grinning pumpkins. Joe sat opposite Rob at the edge of their group of friends. Two of them asked about his costume, and he answered mechanically, barely hearing himself over the poetry singing wildly through his head.

Some time later, Rob clapped his hands in Joe’s face. “Greeney, you’re miles away. What’s up?”

Through the haze of wine, Joe focused on his friend. He wanted to tell Rob. He was desperate to tell Rob, because Rob was the person he talked to about important things, and this was by some orders of magnitude the most important thing that had ever happened. But Rob was also a physicist. Joe didn’t know much about physics, but he suspected that if he opened the conversation with the fact that time travel was real and he had the proof under his pillow, Rob would have trouble getting past that to discuss the vastly more interesting topic of Joe’s future poetic greatness.

He had to tell Rob. There was no way in a million years he could tell Rob. He hovered, torn between two incompatible compulsions, until his mouth opened of its own accord and an inarticulate noise came out.

Rob leaned across the table. “What?”

He could test the water. Pitch it as a hypothetical, then decide on the basis of Rob’s reaction whether to make it true. “Could time travel be real?”

Rob gave him a warning look. “Do you really want to get into this? You’ve had most of a bottle of wine.”

He was offended. “You saying I can’t keep up?”

“I’m saying nothing. I’m just reminding you that last time I tried to talk to you about physics, you hid under the pool table and sang The Proclaimers until I went away.”

He let that pass. “I mean it. I want to know.”

Rob’s face lit up. “Okay, so, general relativity allows for closed timelike curves. And the most intuitive solution that gets you a space-time with CTCs is a traversable wormhole of some kind...”

He tried to listen, but the technical jargon paled to the wonder of having seen his future, printed in black and white. He imagined what his and Diana’s house in London would be like. Huge, probably: she was a successful actress, andMeant to Bemust have sold a fair number of copies. No one went into poetry for the money, of course, but love was very marketable, and he prided himself that the poems were written in plain, unpretentious language, accessible without being dumbed down. He would be a poet of the people, opening the genre up to a whole new audience. Young poets from underrepresented backgrounds would write to him, thanking him for making their art possible.

Rob was still talking. “So to make a traversable wormhole, you’d need some amount of negative energy, which is a challenge because, at least at the moment, that’s a purely hypothetical construct...”

Joe’s attention drifted up the room to the dais, where the Master and Fellows sat with their guests at High Table. Famous alumni were sometimes invited back to dine. He imagined himself and Diana up there, exchanging witty repartee with his former professors. “Mr. Greene was, of course, the first student from his school to be admitted to Cambridge,” the Master was saying as Dianaaffectionately squeezed Joe’s arm, “making his achievements all the more remarkable...”

Rob’s voice rose in excitement. “But if you ask me, the only model that makes any actual sense is Deutsch’s account, which relies on the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics...”

They would probably both get OBEs. Or Diana would be a dame, and he would get a knighthood. He didn’t approve of the British Empire or the Royal Family, but he was pretty sure he would sell out on his principles if it meant he got to be called Sir for the rest of his life.Sir Joseph Greene.He mouthed it silently. It had a ring to it, but it did mean he’d have to go by his full name from now on. “Joe” was right out.

“...Does that answer your question?”

He snapped back to the present. Rob was looking at him earnestly.

“So you’re saying,” he said, working more from Rob’s tone than from his words, “that if someone discovered time travel, it would be big news. Physics-wise. Like—folk who are into physics would want to talk about it.”

“Are you kidding?” Rob laughed. “They’d never want to talk about anything else.”

His heart sank. “Okay.” He tipped back the last of his wine. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

“No problem.” People were starting to leave, drifting towards the bar for the party. “Since when have you been interested in this stuff?”

He flailed for a lie. He gestured at Rob’s conspicuous lack of a costume. “I was wondering if Future Rob could ever pay us a visit for real.”

“What are you talking about? Future Robisreal. I’ll prove it.”He put a hand to his temple, closing his eyes. “I have come back from the party to tell you that they’re about to play ‘Thriller.’”

As they left the dining hall and descended the steps towards the bar, a familiar bassline started up. “Wow,” said Joe, with drawn-out amazement. “Sorry I ever doubted you.”

In the bar, the party was already in full swing, the tidemark of sweat rising up the walls. Vampires, devils, and a sexy Magna Carta were tearing up the small square of carpet that passed for a dancefloor. He made a half-hearted effort to join in, but he was too hot in his jumper, and, more importantly, his brain was on fire. He pushed his way out of the bar and stood at the side of the court, staring up at the slender moon. His soul itched with impatience to fast-forward the present and land cleanly in the future.

Someone collided with his shoulder. Rob, sweaty and euphoric, surrounded by a gang of their friends. “Greeney! You’re coming to the Kambar. No arguments.”

The Kambar was the least terrible of Cambridge’s collection of terrible clubs, in that it played indie instead of endless loops of “Build Me Up Buttercup,” and also had beanbags. Joe tailed Rob and his friends up Bene’t Street, lagging farther and farther behind until he was alone. Laughter drifted back to him like radio signals from a distant planet. He visualised the next few hours: going through the motions of enjoying a night out, pretending to exist in the moment when his entire being was straining beyond it.

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