Page 80 of Love and Other Paradoxes

He looked her in the eyes. “I won’t.”

Her voice was wry as she walked away. “You sound very sure, for someone who believes in infinite possibilities.”

He turned to watch her go. He wanted to say something, a finalline of the unfinished poem they had been writing together, but perhaps this was how it was supposed to end: her shape receding into the woods, her fate left open.

He had meant to sleep in the next morning, but his exam-tuned nerves woke him at half past eight. He lay for half an hour trying unsuccessfully to get back to sleep. Then he sighed, got dressed, and went downstairs, going out of habit into the post room.

In the doorway, he stopped. For the past two weeks, his pigeonhole had been empty. Now it was full again.

He crossed the room and sorted through the contents with trembling hands. A white rose. A snow globe of Paris. A scribbled note. He unfolded it.Joseph Greene. Thank you for teaching me about love.

He dropped everything on the floor and ran to the front gate. He opened the door a crack, peering out into the street. There they were, in their usual spot: Vera and her tourist huddle, craning anxiously towards the entrance.

He pushed the door closed and backed away, his guts churning. What did it mean? Was Diana right? Were the two of them inevitable? Or was he going to live out the same love story, write the same poetry, about someone else? Both possibilities seemed completely insane.

“Greeney!” Rob came out of the Porters’ Lodge, beaming. “Incredible news. Just spoke to my mate who’s on the May Ball committee, and he told me Darcy’s going to be attending. Guess Trinity was too pricey for her.”

Joe blinked at him. “Her?”

Rob looked confused by his confusion. “What, you assumed she was a man just because she has a male pseudonym? It’s 2006,Greeney. Women can be soulless killers too.” He rubbed his hands together. “She thinks she’s getting the PhD, but my black hole’s going to get her first.”

“PhD?”

“I told you,” Rob explained with exaggerated patience. “Paranoia Hardened Death-Master. The award you get for winning the Game twice.”

“Award?” He felt like a radio tuning back in, static shrieking into coherence. “Sorry. When’s the Ball?”

“A week from now. Twenty-third of June.”

It all came together in his mind, like a clump of inexpert stitches knitting into a black hole. Darcy, short for The Deadly Mr. Darcy.Mum was into period romance.Rob’s number one rule of the Game.Make yourself hard to find.The sympathy card he’d found in Efua’s pigeonhole, a few days after Darcy had been “killed”: an Assassin friend’s idea of a joke.

He reached into his pocket for the picture he’d ripped out of the book. Mechanically, he unfolded it and showed it to Rob.

His roommate looked up at him, puzzled. “Why have you got a picture of Darcy with Diana?”

He put the picture back in his pocket. He knew what the award was. And he knew how to stop her from winning it.

“Greeney?” Rob was watching him with concern. “You okay?”

“Sorry. Got to go,” he said, and sprinted out of the gate.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

He was heading for the coffee shop when he realised the time travellers were following him. He cursed and changed course, careering down Tennis Court Road. By the time he came out at the other end by the chemistry department, Vera and her crew were far behind. Still, he played it safe, weaving through a maze of backstreets that confused even him until he finally found Mill Road almost by accident. He turned in a circle to reorient himself, ran in a weaving zigzag through the pavement crowds, and burst into the café, heart pounding.

Esi wasn’t there. Standing behind the counter was Shola, her colleague and now housemate.

“Hi, Joseph Greene.” She was looking at him with strange familiarity, as if she knew more about him than he knew about her. It didn’t make sense. Shola wasn’t a time traveller. Then he realised the more obvious explanation: Esi had talked to her about him. The thought was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.

“Hi. Uh—is Esi here?”

She shook her head, setting her beaded earrings swaying. “It’s her day off.”

Friday. “Shit. Do you know where she might be?”

“Try our house.” She pointed out the window. “Cross the road, second left, end of the street. Blue door.” She winked at him. “Try not to get run over.”

A little disturbed, he thanked her and followed her directions to a narrow house at the end of a terrace. He rang the doorbell. After a few minutes, Esi opened the door. She looked sleepy and vulnerable, in Shola’s Homerton MCR T-shirt and her own silk headwrap—the same headwrap, he realised now, that he’d seen her mum wearing, faded from red to peach. He tingled with the strangeness of it. It was easy to forget she was a traveller from a place that wasn’t on any map, a place she would soon be returning to.

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