Page 58 of Love and Other Paradoxes

“Poetry and punting. At this rate, I’ll be rich enough to retire by forty.”

She laughed appreciatively. She slopped gin into a paper cup and raised it. “To being carried away in boats by strange men.”

Her tone was undeniably flirtatious. He could laugh it off, but he had learned enough about Diana to know that his natural reaction was rarely right. He needed to confront her, see her bet and raise it. “How does Crispin feel about you getting carried away in boats by strange men?”

With her sunglasses on, he couldn’t tell where she was looking. “He adores me,” she said as they drifted under the low arch of Silver Street Bridge. “Nothing can change that.”

Joe tried to maintain a stoic, manly pose, which was tricky when he had to bend almost double to avoid losing his head. “He doesn’t act like he adores you.”

She scoffed. “Crispin doesn’t act like he adores anything. He’s basically incapable of any external expression of emotion. But he still has feelings. They’re just—buried, under a deep layer of trauma and manly nonsense.”

“Wow.” He straightened up as they emerged into the pale sunshine. “He sounds like a real catch.”

“Very funny.” She took off her sunglasses, draping her arm picturesquely along the side of the boat. “But the point is, Crisp’s not a bad person. He’s just—broken. His parents shipped him off to boarding school when he was eight years old. It’s no wonder he can never really be vulnerable in front of anyone.” Her eyes darted up, and he felt the tingling shock of her attention. “And before you say it—no, I didn’t board, but my parents were so emotionally absent it might actually have been easier if I had. At least that would have been consistent.” A laugh, brittle as lightning. He thought of the dazzling vacancy of her parents’ house in London, a little girl sitting alone in all that empty splendour. “Neither of us has ever really known love,” she mused softly. “So we perform our version of it for each other.”

He let the pole trail in the water, the wooden crossbeams of the Mathematical Bridge receding behind them. “You’re saying you’re both broken in the same way.”

“You and your way with words.” She glanced up at him fondly. “But yes. Maybe that’s not enough for a relationship, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Is it?” He steered them on past Queens’, the wind sending the boat briefly astray. “Wouldn’t you rather be on your own than with someone who can’t be himself around you?”

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Nice idea. But that’s not going to work.”

“Why not?”

“I need to be adored.” She stared across the empty lawn of King’s, fingers clenching unconsciously on her cup. “It’s not something I’m proud of. But it’s a fact. It’s as if part of me is afraid I won’t exist if no one is looking.” She took a sip of gin, wincing. “I suspect that’s the reason I act. Why else would I feel the need to seek the admiration of complete strangers? I was deprived of affection in childhood, so I seek it out elsewhere. Insatiably. Pathologically.” She shrugged. “Simple cause and effect.”

They drifted towards the triple arches of Clare Bridge. He steered left, laughing under his breath.

She eyed him mistrustfully. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Just—do you really think you can explain yourself like that?”

“Oh yes.” Her face was deadly serious. “There’s always an explanation for people like us.”

“Us?”

“Us.” She gestured back and forth between them. “You’re not immune, Joseph. You have another form of the same disease. Pouring your heart out on paper and offering it up to strangers isn’t normal behaviour. Just like my compulsion to be admired. You can always trace it back to something. Usually in early childhood.”

He felt himself adopting a defensive curl. “Speak for yourself. My parents are great.”

“Well, bully for you.” She raised her cup in a sarcastic toast. “But mark my words, there’ll be something. Some way they failed you that you’re not even conscious of.”

Without wanting to think about it, he thought about it. It was easy enough to play her game, point to small moments in his past and diagnose them as the source of something greater. The way his dad had laughed when he’d first said he wanted to be a poet. The poem his mum had hung like an in-joke on the bathroom wall. All the little ways they had undermined his ambition in the hope of shielding him from ridicule, or themselves from disappointment. But he didn’t want to think like that, turning well-intentioned care into damage. “Can’t think of a single thing,” he said breezily.

She crossed her arms. “Really. You’re telling me your dad’s not a classic dour, borderline-alcoholic, perpetually disapproving Scot?”

“Dourrhymes withsure, notshower.” He looked past her down the river. “And no. He’s not even a Scot.”

“Oh?” she said with a flicker of interest. “What is he?”

“English.”

He regretted telling her as soon as he saw her eyes widen. “Aha! There it is.”

He shoved the pole against the riverbed. “Therewhatis?”

“The explanation.” She clasped her hands. “An outsider in your own home, marked out as different, never truly belonging. Bullied and excluded, you—”

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