Page 30 of Love and Other Paradoxes

He tucked his phone into his pocket, smiling. He couldn’t help but be pleased with his progress.

Chapter Eleven

Diana was as good as her word. They met up again the next week, and the next, at which point she blessedly got tired of torturing him and started performing the poem herself. He had longed for the sublime experience of hearing his muse read the words she would inspire, but the reality was more odd than transcendent. Her approach to the poem baffled him: she lingered on words he would have passed over, made up her own rhythm completely at odds with his, skipped over the best parts in a breathless rush. He pushed back, tentatively at first and then firmly, heeding Esi’s advice.Treat her like a person.And as he did, as he lost the urge to spontaneously combust every time she looked at him, he came to a disconcerting revelation: she wasn’t really his type.

It wasn’t how she looked. She was undeniably gorgeous, and anyway, his type had never been a set of physical attributes. He tended to go for girls who shared his sense of humour: self-deprecating, always ready to flip from sincerity to absurdity. Diana was funny, but in a dry, cutting way that knocked the breath out of him, leaving him powerless to respond. And when she was in earnest, it was deadly: she took herself and her art seriously, and upbraided him whenever he failed to do the same.

It troubled him. Why wasn’t he falling for the great love of hislife? When would he start feeling the way the poems described him feeling? The preoccupation dogged him as he crossed Magdalene Bridge on his way to meet up with Esi. Their hunt for her mum was going about as well as his romance with Diana. So far, they had attended meetings of the Law Society and the Engineering Society. Esi had spent most of her time being talked over, Joe had jumped to her defence and just made things worse, and they had left with no further leads on the award.

He looked over his shoulder. The time travellers who had been following him had stopped on the bridge. One had thrown a white rose after him, petals splayed wetly on the pavement. At the head of the group was Vera, wearing her usual tabard and an unusual look of concern. He didn’t stick around to see what was bothering her. He crossed the road, hurrying up the hill until she and her group were out of sight.

Esi was waiting outside Kettle’s Yard, a safe distance from the half-mile boundary. The sight of her made him smile: she was playing Snake on her phone, oblivious. He tapped her shoulder. “Ready to search some colleges?”

“Joseph Greene!” She turned to him, beaming. “Soready. Look what I found on Burleigh Street.” She pointed at her hoodie, which saidCAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITYin huge letters. “Instant student, right?”

He shook his head. “Only tourists wear those. It might as well say ‘I don’t go to’ along the top.” She looked crestfallen. “It’s fine. We’ll just pretend you’re a super-keen prospective student.”

“Prospective student?” She made a face. “Pretty sure I’m older than you.”

He hadn’t thought about it since they’d met. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“So will I be, in a month.” A thought struck him. “When were you—when will you—will you have been—” He gave up. “What is your year of birth?”

She smirked. “2023.”

“Okay, so you’re...” He did some quick mental arithmetic. “Minus eighteen. An anti-adult. That definitely makes me older.”

She sighed theatrically. “Are we going to stand around all day doing time maths?”

“No, you’re right. We should get going. The hill colleges are pretty far out of town.” She was hiding a smile. “What?”

“Nothing. Just, whenever you say ‘far out of town,’ it meansfifteen minutes’ walk.” She shook her head. “It’s cute how you think Cambridge is a city.”

“What do you mean? It has a cinema!”

“Mmhm.” Her smile faltered as she looked ahead up the hill. “So when you saysearch some colleges, what does that mean exactly? Are we going door-to-door?”

He caught an edge to her words. “Would that be a problem?”

“Yeah. I don’t want her seeing me.” With a jolt, he realised it wasn’t just concern in her voice. It was fear.

“There’s no need to go door-to-door,” he reassured her. “The Porters’ Lodge of each college has pigeonholes with all the students’ names. We just need to check if hers is there.”

“Okay.” Her stride lengthened, her shoulders relaxing. She was always happier when she had a plan. He didn’t want to ruin her mood, but he did need her advice.

“So there’s something I wanted to ask you,” he began. “As a romance expert.”

She looked at him with strange tension. “Yeah?”

“How long does it take to fall in love?”

Her smile burst out. “Really fall in love? Months, at least. Years. For the right two people, I don’t know if that’s ever finished.”

“Right. But—how soon are you supposed to know?”

She tilted her head, considering. “I mean, if you really like someone, you pretty much know right away.”

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