Page 61 of Love and Other Paradoxes

He stood motionless, as if all his energy had left with her. He was shaking, still nauseous, and he didn’t know why. He and Diana were together; he had taken the first step on his path into the future. So why did he feel so utterly lost?

As he was pondering the answer to that question, a muffled sob came through the wall. He froze, listening. Diana’s neighbour was crying.

It wasn’t the first time he had overheard someone falling to pieces. It was part of the texture of Cambridge life, like punting or Formal Hall or black-uniformed men appearing out of nowhere. But that didn’t make it any easier to listen to. Should he knockon her door, check if she was all right? Walk away, leaving her to have her breakdown in peace? He was still frozen in indecision when the crying stopped. A moment later, he heard something else: quiet at first, then rising and strengthening until it vibrated through the wall. She was singing.

The tune was familiar somehow. It stuck in his head as he descended the stairs and came out onto Trinity Street, the cold wind chasing away the afterglow. He checked his phone. No reply from Esi. Did she resent him for sleeping with Diana? Was she judging him for not telling his muse the truth? Each imaginary reason made him angrier, until he was so furious with the Esi in his head that he started talking to her out loud. “You can’t be annoyed with me for doing exactly what you wanted,” he muttered, as a woman walking past shot him a puzzled look. “You’re the one who kept saying I had to—”

A bike bell rang, high and piercing, right by his ear. He turned to realise he’d narrowly escaped being run over.

He stepped back, nerves jangling like an echo of the bell. The predestined bike accident. He had forgotten, but it was still coming, pedalling inexorably towards him over Cambridge’s cobbled streets, bound to hit him at some point between now and the summer. He rubbed his right leg with an anticipatory grimace. He’d have to hope Diana was into scars.

The churning in his stomach followed him, past Indigo café, where he and Esi had first made their deal, through the market square to the pavement where she had dropped the book, back to the river where she had watched him drift away, his future in his hands. Finally, resignedly, he headed back to college. The grey day was turning greyer, the invisible sun already sinking behind therooftops. Something was missing, and he couldn’t put his finger on what. It was only when he reached the gate that he realised.

He turned, scanning the street behind him. No time travellers. No Vera. He had been walking out in public for most of the day, but he hadn’t seen a single visitor from the future.

A chill passed over him. He tried to reason it away. Maybe Vera was on holiday, or the wormhole was having some scheduled maintenance. But the absence of his future fans, on this of all days, felt like a bad omen.

He went on up to his room and checked his email. A message from Dr. Lewis, blank, the subject line a question mark. He swore and checked the date: he had missed his weekly supervision. He sent a quick reply telling her he was ill. Guilt prickled at him, but he dismissed it. No use regretting what couldn’t have been otherwise. He would get started tomorrow, and the 2:1 would follow as it was written.

He got dressed in the clothes Esi had picked out for him, that day in the charity shop on Burleigh Street, her eyes lighting up with surprise as he stepped out from behind the curtain. He stood in front of the mirror and carefully applied goop to his hair, trying to mimic the way her fingers had teased him into a better version of himself. When he was finished, it almost looked right.

“Thank you,” he said, not to her, but to her absence, following him about like an accusing ghost. He peered into the mirror, seized by the uncanny feeling that he was looking at two people: Joseph Greene the poet, brilliant and in love and a bit of a nozz, and Joe, unsure and heartbroken, trying his best to look the part.

He started out of his room, then doubled back. He opened the drawer where he had dropped the book, intending never to look atit again. Now, with the time travellers gone, he needed his future with him. He slipped it into his coat pocket and left.

As he came out of the staircase, he almost bumped into someone. Dr. Lewis stepped back, eyebrows raised in surprise. “You’re looking well,” she said mildly. “Going somewhere nice?”

Her words were painfully neutral, but he could see the disappointment in her eyes. “Yes. All better. Sorry,” he mumbled, and fled.

At the ADC, he was directed backstage. Actors were clustered in one wing, and poets in another. As the compere strode out and the show began, Joe looked apprehensively out at the audience. Surprisingly, the room was packed: poetry didn’t usually draw this kind of crowd, but no one could resist a love-themed event on Valentine’s Day. In the front row was Rob, so overdressed in a bow tie and tails that he seemed to belong in another universe. Joe scanned the crowd for Esi, but of course she wasn’t there.She never liked your poetry, said a bitter voice in his head, but his heart knew that wasn’t why she was avoiding him. She had told him, the last time they had met.I’ve spent enough of my life wanting something I can’t have.He felt again the rush, somewhere between wonder and terror, when he had understood what she meant. A trail of tiny moments, leading to nothing spoken: only a kiss that should never have happened, and a longing he had seen in her eyes, even as she told him to stay away.

“And now we have ‘A Taste of Stars’ by Joseph Greene, performed by Diana Dartnell.”

She swept out from the opposite wing in a burgundy dress that fell off one shoulder, swathing her body in silk. At the sight of her, he lost his breath. He couldn’t believe he had shared her bed,woken to see her dishevelled and unguarded, brushing her teeth naked to the jangle of the fire alarm. That Diana had been a person, flawed and vital. This one was an idea, blazing and perfect, untouchable as a mirage. Applause greeted her entrance: not the rapturous ovations that awaited her in the future, but a smattering of whoops from her small circle of fans.

The room fell silent. She cleared her throat. In the glare of the spotlight, the love bite he had given her last night was obvious. He felt his cheeks flame. Had she forgotten to reapply her concealer? Then her fingers self-consciously brushed her collarbone, and he realised: she hadn’t forgotten. She wanted the audience to see it.

She cast a glance sideways, meeting his eyes. Her smile would have felt like a secret, if she hadn’t been bathed in lights with two hundred people staring at her. He remembered what she had said, standing inches from him, shoulders bare, lips parted.I think I figured out what’s missing.She was using their night together as material for her performance. For a moment, he was indignant. What had happened between them was private: what right did she have to share it with the world? Then he realised with uncomfortable recognition that he was no different. In the future, he had already cut her into fragments, reassembled their moments together into boasts of his own brilliance. How could he blame her for doing the same?

Besides, it was working. She read the poem beautifully, with a conspiratorial intimacy like she was alone with every single person in the room. Listening, he felt his self-consciousness fall away. He wasn’t the poet, agonising over what people would think: he was inside the poem, in a way he never had been before. He closed his eyes and let himself feel it.

this:

my mouth

and hers, no words,

no sight, no light, just heat—

her tongue, a dart, a star, a catalyst

a kiss we cannot

live inside, a house

already on fire, embers

filling our mouths, igniting

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