In Bed With Lord Byron

and strolled into the living room. He pointed to the TV and my remote control, whose plastic case had been ripped open, coloured wires poking out like
worms.
    ‘What the hell is
this
?’ he asked. ‘Your age simply isn’t as I envisaged; the machines all appear to be utterly pointless.’
    ‘Byron, can you please just tell me how on earth you got here?’
    Byron flopped down on the sofa with an elegant sigh, twiddling his cravat.
    ‘I’m rather tired from my journey and I could do with a little tea and opium, but yes, I shall tell you. You paid 1813 a visit yesterday, I believe, with a small boy. I spotted your
metal carriage and ran along behind you, yelling, but I don’t believe you heard me. I leapt after it, and much to my surprise I found myself passing through metal and in the back of your time
carriage.’
    ‘But . . . but that’s so weird,’ I mused. ‘I mean, you must have slipped in just as the machine was suspended between past and present. Perhaps in that transitional state
the metal became malleable.’
    ‘And then,’ Byron went on, looking terribly pleased with himself, ‘I hid in the back of the carriage and waited until you’d retired to your chamber. I spent the night on
your chaise-longue –’ he pointed to the sofa ‘– which, I must say, Lucy, needs some serious embroidery if you want anyone to think you have any style. In the morning, I hid
behind it as you performed your morning toilette.’
    I froze, recalling how I had run through the sitting room in my blouse, trying to pull on my panties and brush my hair at the same time.
    ‘Great,’ I yelped. ‘So you saw me . . .’
    ‘I saw a beautiful forest which bewitched me with its dark density,’ Byron said in a very naughty tone, his smile curling into a seductive smirk.
    Too seductive. I felt something pull in my stomach, then turned away, resisting his amorous magic. My head was spinning. I just kept thinking: I can’t handle this. I wanted to wash my
hands of the time machine once and for all, and now
this
. Things were out of control. I couldn’t have Lord Byron, of all people, hanging about my flat. I had to deal with Anthony, and
work, and – and whatever would the neighbours say?
    ‘I can see why Sir Anthony has fallen for you,’ Byron murmured. ‘It seems I was wrong to let you go, Lucy. I do hope you can forgive—’
    ‘What?’ I cried, spinning round. ‘What did you say? What did you mean by that? Has Anthony been round?’ Oh God, no, please no.
    ‘He, er, sent a verbal letter through your . . . your . . .’ Byron nodded in confusion at my phone. ‘That
thing
. He wrote that he wanted to see you.’
    ‘A verbal letter,’ I giggled. Euphoria rippled through me. Anthony had called, he had called, he had called.
    ‘I told him not to bother,’ Lord Byron added. ‘I told him that you were far too busy making love to me.’
    ‘You said what!’ I screamed. ‘We’re not having sex!’
    ‘Not yet we’re not!’ Lord Byron said, with a glint in his eye.
    ii) Not having sex with Lord Byron
    After I informed Lord Byron, very firmly, that we were not having sex, he threw a terrible sulk.
    He slumped on the sofa, borrowed a biro and my phone notepad and scribbled lines of poetry. I asked if he wanted a cup of tea and he ignored me; then, when I made him a mug and put it by him, he
took a few sulky sips, as though he was doing me a massive favour by drinking it at all, and then muttered about it tasting like ‘cant’. I felt prickles of irritation in my stomach. He
was behaving like a five-year-old in a twenty-five-year-old’s body, and I began to wonder what I had ever seen in him. It seemed strange to think that this man, who had written poetry that
had survived for several hundred years, dissected and adored and torn apart by some of the greatest minds in our country at some of the highest institutions, could behave like such an imbecile. But
just because people produce great art it doesn’t make them great people, I realised.
    I suddenly thought of the end of
Middlemarch: For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been,
is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs
. Then I thought of Anthony, doing his mundane computer business, but still making his contribution to
the world in the sweetness and generosity and thoughtfulness of his