Page 69 of Love and Other Paradoxes

Rob chuckled. “Yeah, Greeney, it was obvious.” He reached into his bag and took out the throwing star Esi had made, turning it admiringly in his hands. “And I don’t blame you. Nothing more attractive than a woman who can craft a weapon.”

“She also wiped the floor with me at Laser Quest,” he said miserably. “It was really hot.”

“Oh, mate,” said Rob, as if he’d witnessed a bereavement. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He took in a long breath. Talking to Rob didn’t stop it hurting, but it made the hurt cleaner, like exposing a wound to the air. He blinked back tears, feeling stupidly grateful for his friend, who didn’t know anything about his future, but had come to his show anyway because he wanted to support him. “I never asked. What did you think of the poem?”

Rob paused. “Do you want me to be honest?”

He felt a lurching terror. “Go on,” he said lightly.

“It wasn’t very—you.” Rob wrinkled his nose, searching for the words. “It was like you were trying to be someone else.”

That’s because Iwassomeone else.Will be. Would have been going to be.It was just as well he couldn’t tell Rob the truth: verb tenses weren’t really up to it. “Aye,” he said. “I think you might be right.”

They fell silent, staring out into the fog. A group of blazered drinking society types passed behind them, talking loudly about the lucrative finance jobs they were going to walk into after graduation. Dr. Lewis again, resonating in Joe’s mind.I see too many students here who think they know the future.

He had thought he was so different. But his future as a poet had never been something he had really questioned. He had always thought it belonged to him by right, even in the days when it seemed the world didn’t want him to have it. He had never considered the possibility that it might not happen, not because of any great injustice, but because of a hundred arbitrary reasons, fate and chance and chaos and simply not being good enough.Why should you be entitled to it, just because you had it before?The words Esi had thrown at him in the darkened coffee shop, the words he hadn’t been ready to hear. Now they unfurled inside him like a bruise, painful but right. The world didn’t owe him anything. He owed back the sum of what he had been given: the chance to be here, to strive, to try.

He apologised to Dr. Lewis. He poured himself into his degree, both because he had a future to salvage and because he hoped the dry, abstract work of poring over philosophy would help him to stop thinking about Esi. He was coming out of the faculty library, his rucksack weighed down with books, when he saw someone familiar lurking behind one of the building’s concrete stilts.

He stopped dead, his heart in his throat. He must have been mistaken. But he wasn’t, because it was Vera, out of her official tabard, lounging against the pillar with her arms crossed.

He stared at her, not bothering to hide his astonishment. Any minute now, she would drop his gaze and hurry away. But she didn’t. Instead, she walked right up to him. “Hello, Mr. Greene,” she said. “Think it’s time we had a chat.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“A chat,” he said slowly, to buy himself time to figure out how she could possibly still be here.

“Yeah.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Mind if we walk and talk? I’m on a deadline.”

He looked down at his leg. “As long as we can walk slowly.”

She led the way through the car park, watching him limp after. “So how much do you know about what’s going on here?”

He snorted. “I know your leaflet’s a load of shite.”

“Leaflet?” A wave of alarm crossed her face, followed by a wave of resignation. “You’ve seen the book.”

He had to be careful. He couldn’t risk sending her after Esi. But she was hardly the only time traveller who had broken the rules. “One of your clients left it in my pigeonhole. Under a mug with my face on.”

Vera buried her face in her hands. “Uggh. This is really not a one-person job. I keeptellingthem that, but they’re all likeopening wormholes is expensive, Vera, and I’m likewell, maybe you shouldn’t be opening so many of them, and then they saybut we need to maximise our return on investment, and you do such a great job—” She sidestepped to avoid one of the plane trees that erupted out of Sidgwick Avenue like inconvenient giants. “I knew somethingwasn’t right. You were off your expected pattern, almost from the start. You weren’t in the places you should have been, and then youwerein all these places you never should have gone...”

His mind boggled. “How do you know my past to that level of detail?”

“Because it’s my job. Anyway. After I saw you hanging around outside Whewell’s Court, I started to worry. Lucky I was on my own when I saw the two of you out punting together. Imagine if I’d had a group with me. Joseph Greene and Diana Dartnell getting cosy on a boat when they’re not even supposed to be a thing yet? Makes it hard to maintain that wholecan’t change the pastline.”

He latched onto one word, glinting in the midst of her tirade like a star through the darkness. “Yet?” He limped to catch up with her. “So on the other side of the wormhole, me and Diana still get together?”

She frowned, as if she didn’t understand the question. “Of course.”

“Right. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” The implication blossomed in his mind. His future was still possible. It might not be guaranteed anymore, but Vera’s presence meant he could still get there by another path.

“I mean, if you ask me, I always thought she was wrong for you. I’ve got to know you a bit with all this following you around, and to be honest, she doesn’t seem like your type.”

“Really,” he said distantly.

“Not much of a fan of the poems either. No offence.”

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