Page 10 of Love and Other Paradoxes

He surged to his feet. “Wait. I’m sorry. I just—You hit a nerve, I guess.” She stopped, but her eyes stayed fixed on the door.

The conviction came to him before he understood it. “You don’t really want to leave.”

She turned on him in frustration. “What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t say threshold .”

She rolled her eyes, as if he’d caught her out on a technicality. Slowly, she came back to the table and sat down. “Sorry

I called future you a nozz. I only said it because you really don’t seem like one now. And sorry about—that,” she added, gesturing

at the door. “It’s what I do. I run away.”

“Oh, me too,” he said lightly. “When I was ten, I made it as far as the harbour before I ran home.”

She hiccupped out a laugh. “I made it halfway across London.”

He stared. “You’re serious?”

“I was twelve, not ten. But yeah.” She picked up another beer mat and started drilling a hole in it with a pencil someone had abandoned on the table. “I wanted to get away from myself. So I walked, and walked, till I figured out I couldn’t walk myself into being someone else. Then I called my dad to come and pick me up.” She slid one beer mat somehow inside the other, pulling it through to make a three-dimensional star. “He was so angry. He kept saying he couldn’t believe I’d done it. He didn’t think I was that kind of person. I said I might not have been that kind of person before Mum died, but now...” She shrugged expressively.

He imagined a young Esi pacing across the sprawling map of London, trying to outrun herself. His heart contracted. “Your dad...”

He searched for the right words. “He didn’t mean you were a bad person. He was just scared for you.”

She turned the star in her hands, lost in the future past. “I guess. He was always so protective, especially after what happened

to my mum.” She dropped the star and looked up, eyes falsely bright. “Anyway. The best way to fix it is to make sure we never

have that conversation, because I’ll never have run away in the first place. You were saying something about societies?”

He thought about asking if she’d talked to her dad before deciding that the best way to resolve a conflict was to make it

un-happen. Then he remembered it was none of his business. “Can you think of anything your mum might have been into? Music?

Rowing? Bell-ringing?”

She shook her head. “I told you. She was really academic.”

“I mean, this is Cambridge. There are some pretty nerdy societies.”

She sighed. “Okay. Do you have a list?”

“There’s one on the university website.” He finished his beer and stood up.

She looked at him in confusion. “Where are you going?”

“To my computer. How else are we going to look at a website?”

She looked down at her phone with comic despair. “Right. How else?” Before she followed, she doubled back to pick up the beer

mat star from the table.

He led her up the staircase into the living room, where Rob was writing TEN TONNE WEIGHT on the side of a cardboard box.

“This is Rob. He’s my roommate.” His brain went on, This is Esi. She’s a time traveller. He decided to forgo that side of the introductions. “Rob has this thing where he pretends to kill people,” he added, by way

of explanation.

“Assassins. Yeah, I used to play it with my cousins,” said Esi, like it was a completely normal thing to admit to. She offered

Rob her beer mat creation. “Want this? You could use it as a throwing star.”

Rob looked up at her with delight. “Legend. Thanks.”

They went through to Joe’s bedroom. Self-consciously, he removed Meant to Be from the bed and straightened the covers. “Sorry. I’ve only got the one chair.”

“That’s fine,” she murmured, sitting down on the bed.

He closed the door and pulled up his desk chair. He started typing “Cambridge University student societies,” then paused.

“Hang on. I’m overthinking this. What’s her name?”

“Efua Eshun. And you’re underthinking this. I’ve already searched her name. Trust me, nothing comes up.”

“Not even her MySpace? Or a GeoCities page she made when she was thirteen?” He registered her expression. “I sound like a

wizard muttering spells right now, don’t I? What I mean is, it’s weird. Is she a spy?”

She shrugged. “Dad always said she was just a really private person.”

“Exactly what a spy would tell people.” He opened another website. “I can try the facebook?”

“The...?” She appeared to be fighting a laugh. “The facebook?”

“It’s like—a book of faces. They opened it up to Oxford and Cambridge last year.” He searched. A few Efuas popped up, none with the right surname.

Esi leaned over his shoulder, her breath warm on his cheek. “No. No, no, no.”

“Okay. Guess we’re back to societies.” He brought up the list and turned the laptop towards her.

She peered comically at the buttons under the trackpad. It took her a while to figure out how to scroll. “Some of these academic

ones, maybe. Chess Club. Student Community Action—is that volunteering?” He nodded. “The African Caribbean Society. The Christian

Union.” She scrolled back up, then down again. “Honestly, the rest of them seem—not serious enough.”

“Well, make a list of the ones you think are worth checking out. I’ll find out when their next meetings are so you can crash

them.”

“Crash them? How?”

“They usually happen in colleges. You can just walk in. No one’s going to stop you.”

She smiled a too-bright smile. “You sure about that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I already tried walking into a random college to look for her. The porters stopped me. When I couldn’t show university ID,

they told me to leave or they’d call the police.”

He couldn’t believe it. “Why would they stop you? You look like a student.”

She shook her head, gesturing at him. “You. You’re what a student looks like, according to this time and place.”

He felt like he had in the ADC bar: conscious of his sameness, guilty that it had taken him so long to notice. He had always

been so focused on the ways he didn’t fit in that he hadn’t thought about all the ways he did. “Okay. Then I’ll come with

you.”

She laughed. “What, act as my white male shield?”

“Sure. Then we can lurk around asking about awards until someone kicks us out.” He shrugged. “It’s the least I can do. You

helped me with Diana.”

She looked at him sideways. “But if I was always meant to help you, then it’s not like I had any choice.”

“Then I don’t have any choice either.”

She smiled, brief and incandescent. For a moment, they just looked at each other. Then she coughed and stood up. “I should

go.”

“Threshold?”

“Threshold.” She touched Meant to Be where it lay on his desk. “Good luck with her tomorrow. Not that you’ll need it, obviously.”

A thought struck him. He opened the book to the page with the photographs. “What if I show her?”

She looked at him like he had gone insane. “The book of all your future poems about her?”

“No!” He pointed at the picture of her mum with Diana.

She shook her head. “Too risky.”

“What’s the risk? We’re not sticking her face up all over town. We’re showing it to one person, who clearly already knows

her.” He looked up at her earnestly. “It’s our best lead. We’d be idiots not to use it. If they’re still friends, Diana can

lead us right to her. If not, we can still narrow down which college she’s at.”

He saw her waver, the conviction that had led her this far softening under his words. For an uncertain moment, he wondered

if he was doing the right thing. “Fine,” she said. “Ask if she knows her. But don’t tell her why you’re asking.”

He nodded. “I’ll be careful.”

She tapped the door frame, ducked her head, and left.

“So,” said Rob, waggling his eyebrows as Joe shut the living room door. “I’m assuming that was Diana?”

Joe stared at his friend, completely thrown. “What?”

“Diana,” Rob said slowly. “The girl you wrote the poem about.”

“No. No, that was...” He stared at the door, wondering how Rob could have got the wrong idea so completely. “That’s Esi.

She’s—we’re...” He didn’t know how to describe what they were. Friends? Acquaintances? Reluctant coconspirators? “She’s

not Diana.”

“Okay,” said Rob, in the voice that meant Whatever you say, Greeney . “Well, she makes a mean throwing star.” He flicked it in Joe’s direction.

In an uncharacteristic display of reflexes, he caught it. He turned it in his hands, thinking about Esi as she made it, her

look of intent concentration. The way she felt unrooted, in his world but not of it. “Don’t get too attached,” he said, wondering

who he was talking to. “She’s not sticking around.”

The next morning, he stood outside the gate of Whewell’s Court, agonising over the most poetic way to tell Diana he was here.

Finally, he settled for:

Here

Across the street, the Great Gate of Trinity was thronged with tourist crowds. Among them was a group of time travellers who

had followed him from college. Vera was corralling them together, ushering them back towards King’s. He was wondering why

when he remembered the terms and conditions. Time travellers may not follow the target into any private premises. Shame, that they wouldn’t get to witness his historic first rehearsal with Diana. Maybe later, he could arrange a special outdoor performance just for them.

The gate buzzed open. He slipped into the sudden quiet of the court, then climbed the staircase labelled F and knocked on the fifth door.

As he waited, a painting on the neighbouring door caught his eye. A forest of golden lines grew sideways through shades of

black, varied and subtle as a monochrome rainbow. He wasn’t sure what the picture was meant to be. The longer he looked at

it, the more possibilities he saw: a sideways lightning strike; a reef of branching coral in a dark ocean; hundreds and hundreds

of paths, branching out from one initial step.

Before he could work it out, the door in front of him opened. Diana, in a crisp white blouse and fitted skirt, her eyes cool

and assessing. “Train Boy!”

He winced. “Am I ever going to live that down?”

“That depends. Can you impress me enough to make me forget?”

Her attention made him feel like the most important person in the universe. What should he say? Yes would be too arrogant, no too self-deprecating. He searched for a third response that would strike the perfect balance and also make her laugh, but

too much time had passed, and he had to settle for mysterious silence.

“Well?” She was holding the door open. “Are you coming in?”

He stepped inside. He had hoped the room would impart something of her essence, but he just saw a mess: books in tottering

piles, clothes in silky heaps, copies of Vogue Paris spilling out of the blocked-up fireplace. In defiance of college regulations, the walls were covered with photographs from

ADC shows and clippings from the theatre pages of Varsity . The muffled sound of a woman singing drifted through the wall. He was about to jok ingly ask her if it was the muse when she said, “I’d like to start by hearing you read the poem.”

His heart plummeted. “Me?”

“No. The ghost of Lord Byron, who is standing directly behind you.” He actually turned to look before he realised she was

joking. “Of course, you. How else am I going to understand your poetic intent?”

But I don’t know my poetic intent. He focused on the more immediate problem. “I’m not an actor.”

“No. You’re a poet. And if you’re serious about being a poet, you need to learn how to perform your own work.” She sat down

in an armchair, making a get on with it gesture.

There was no way out. He cleared his throat, focused on a neutral patch of carpet, and started reading. He tried to feel the

words as he spoke them, but her attention was a searchlight, burning everything else away. When he reached the word mouth , he felt a blush rise up his throat. By the time he got to the word tongue , the blush had consumed his entire face. He cursed his past self for choosing this poem, when he could have picked a nice,

safe one about beauty and moonlight. He stumbled through the last stanza, tripping over the words in his eagerness for it

to be over.

When he dared to look at Diana, she was covering her eyes. “Can I ask you something?”

Joe, whose brain was at this point one long scream, nodded.

“Did you actually write that poem?”

He froze. The last time she had asked him, he had avoided a direct lie. But if he kept dodging the question, she was bound

to get suspicious. “Yes?”

She clapped her hands like a gunshot. “Then act like it!” She came to stand next to him. “This is you right now.” She hunched in on herself, arms hanging like noodles at her sides, and mumbled nonsense syllables into the floor.

He stared at her, appalled. “Fuck.”

“Indeed.” She straightened up, grace flowing back into her body. “We need to sort out your posture first. Shoulders back.”

She jerked him upright like a malfunctioning puppet. “You have nice arms. Shame not to show them off. And when you speak,

project. Your voice needs to come from down here.” She touched his lower belly with a light caress that made the blood rush

from his head. “And try not to look so embarrassed , for God’s sake. You’re a grown man, and you’re acting like a preteen boy who accidentally read a romance novel.” She settled

back into the armchair. “Now,” she said, with a flourish. “Try again.”

He had been imagining this moment since the message from Love Poems for Tomorrow had landed in his inbox. He had pictured

himself bathed in golden light, watching his muse perform and falling desperately in love with her. Instead, he felt like

his soul was being fed into a blender. He tried again. This time, he managed to keep his head up, but he was focusing so hard

on what his shoulders were doing that he forgot how to say words. “...longaf— long after it all went dark,” he finished, sweaty and exhausted.

“Better,” said Diana, rising from her armchair. “But given where you started, that’s not saying much.” She circled him, fascinated.

“It’s extraordinary. I’ve never seen anyone so uncomfortable in their own skin that they’re actively trying to crawl out of

it.”

He felt horribly seen, like a corpse cut open on a table. He wondered uneasily if this was love, and if so, how he could make

it stop.

“Anyway. Progress,” she said brightly. “Let’s do this again next week.”

She was already turning away; he hadn’t expected to be dismissed so fast. He fumbled in his pocket for the picture he had carefully ripped out of Meant to Be . “I wanted to ask. Do you know this girl?” She turned, eyebrow raised, and glanced at the picture. “Her name’s Efua Eshun,”

he added.

Her eyes showed no recognition. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“She has her arm around you,” he pointed out.

“A lot of people put their arms around me, Joseph. I can’t always keep track.” She tapped herself in the photograph. “I remember

that dress, though. Very 2003. This picture’s from first year.” Her eyes met his. “I’m sure you met plenty of people in first

year you couldn’t place now.”

“Do you at least know which college she’s at?”

“One of the hill colleges, maybe?” She headed for the mirror. “Now, if amateur detective hour is over, I have a show to prepare

for.”

He left her room feeling like a steak that had just been tenderised. Still trembling, he took out his phone and texted Esi.

Showed Diana the picture of your mum. She says she doesn’t recognise her.

what

I mean it’s one thing if she said they’re not friends any more

but not recognising her? isn’t that weird?

It hadn’t seemed weird at the time. But then, Esi hadn’t met Diana. She hadn’t heard the airy unconcern in her voice when she talked about anything that wasn’t her art. He decided to stick to the facts.

She thinks she’s at one of the hill colleges. That narrows it down to three.

good detective work, Joseph Greene

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