Page 21 of Love and Other Paradoxes

He awoke on the morning of Valentine’s Day in Diana Dartnell’s bed.

Really, he was half-in and half-out of it. In her sleep, she had sprawled diagonally across the single mattress, consigning

him to a precarious strip on the edge. One of his legs had dipped to the floor, and the other was cramping.

He sat up, stretching until the pain faded. He was naked, and his muscles ached, and his stomach was churning with a strange

unease. Other than that, he didn’t feel fundamentally different: a night with his muse hadn’t magically transformed him into

someone else. Esi’s words came back to him, cold and bitter. You think sleeping with one out-of-your-league woman is going to turn you into a version of yourself you actually want to

be?

The churning in his stomach intensified. He should tell her: he owed her that much. He reached for his phone, abandoned with

his jeans on the floor. She still hadn’t replied to the message he’d sent her nearly three weeks ago. He typed:

You don’t have to worry about the future anymore. Diana and I are together.

He stared at the screen for some minutes after sending, waiting for her to reply. What would she say? Thanks ? Good for you ? Enjoy ? Each option seemed more absurd than the last. But the idea that she wouldn’t respond, that their relationship would end

with angry words and a string of unanswered messages, seemed the most impossible of all.

When it became apparent she wasn’t going to reply anytime soon, he dropped the phone and turned to Diana. She was still sleeping,

mouth open in unfamiliar abandon. At the base of her neck, he spotted the purple bloom of a love bite. A memory rushed back—his

mouth on her throat, unsure if he was being passionate or just trying to act like someone passionate. Either way, she had

seemed to enjoy it.

He pulled on his clothes, then went to the sink and washed out his mouth, smearing some toothpaste around with a finger. He

couldn’t imagine Diana Dartnell wanting to kiss someone with morning breath.

He sat back down on the bed, intending to gaze at her adoringly until she woke up. Five seconds later, the fire alarm went

off.

She bolted upright, hair over her face, eyes half-open. “Oh God. What time is it?”

“Half ten,” said Joe, who had hoped for his first words of the morning to be more poetic. “Uh—the fire alarm’s going, should

we—”

“Ignore it. They test it every Tuesday.” She leapt out of bed, in delightful disregard of her nakedness, and crossed the room

to the sink. She splashed water on her face and started brushing her teeth.

He hovered behind her, not sure where to look. “I was wondering if I could take you out for breakfast,” he shouted over the shrilling alarm. Belatedly, he realised he probably couldn’t afford any breakfast place she would want to be taken to.

She spat into the sink. “That’s a lovely idea, but I’m afraid I’ve arranged to meet my fellow actors for brunch. It’s tradition

on show days. We get together and drown our nerves in Buck’s Fizz.” She looked critically at her reflection, spotted the love

bite, and efficiently applied concealer until it disappeared.

The alarm cut off, leaving behind a loud silence. He watched regretfully as she got dressed. “I could come with you?”

She did something with her hair that miraculously transformed it from a tangled mass to a neat bun in the space of ten seconds.

“They’re not really your sort of crowd, Joseph. You’d be terribly bored.” Seeing his face fall, she tutted and came over to

him. “My poor puppy,” she said, stroking his cheek. “Don’t worry. This is not me shamelessly using you for inspiration and

then dropping you like last week’s news. Although God knows, enough of your lot have done that to their muses over the centuries.”

She kissed him, soft and lingering. “Let yourself out. I’ll see you tonight.” She blew a kiss over her shoulder and left.

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 knock on 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 the rooftops. 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 at it 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

what is to come—

but this, this:

there is nothing after this

if this is love

then douse me in it:

set me aflame, set me spinning

out in the universe,

bearing

only the memory

that we were this:

a once-burning thing,

so bright it kept them staring

long after it all went dark.

A pause, a breath; her eyes closing, her head dipping, as the theatre detonated with applause.

Not the polite golf clap that had greeted the other poems: this was real, a thunder of roars and whistles, two hundred people’s de light and wonder and surprise, and it was all for him. But he barely heard it. As the words of the poem sank through him, his mind went wild with images: lights cutting through smoke, the sea crashing against a winter beach, the taste of tangerines and honey. You’ve known it, haven’t you? Love, the burn and pull of it, the feeling of being caught in a moment you never wanted to leave—but it wasn’t his night

with Diana that he was remembering. It was Esi: her hands, her mouth, her smile, her laugh. Her kiss.

The shaking, stomach-churning uncertainty that had filled him all day transmuted into perfect clarity. He loved Esi. He wanted

to be with her, even if it was temporary, even if it was doomed. He wanted to taste every moment they could possibly have

before it was over.