In Bed With Lord Byron

looked at me
and said, ‘See, Lucy? Chocoholic genes. I rest my case.’ Then he stroked her face with his thumb and I felt a flare of happiness inside. Seeing Anthony become a father has been just as
wonderful as having a baby – the excitement of seeing him mature, of seeing the joyful pride in his eyes whenever he looks at her.
    As for my career – I can assure you that I haven’t neglected it completely. I spent a year trying to work out what I was going to do whilst getting fatter and fatter with pregnancy.
I tried being a landscape gardener; I tried setting up a greetings-card company; I even tried becoming a professional chocolate-taster. Finally Anthony, who was being very patient, sat me down and
told me I ought to just do something I enjoyed. I said that I liked writing, and he suggested I try my hand at a book. So I decided to turn my time-machine adventures into a story, and I recently
decided that
A History of Lucy’s Love Life in Ten and a Half Chapters
might make a very nice title.
    But if it sounds as though my life is perfect now – well, it’s not. I still get restless from time to time. I have to admit that I couldn’t quite bear to say goodbye to my time
machine, so when we were in Paris I called up the hotel and asked them to pack it up for me. The burnt-out remains are now in storage and I am so proud of myself for not having touched it. But I
admit that sometimes I still long to open it up and go off and have a fling with Andy Warhol, or Alexander the Great. Or I’m sitting in a coffee shop and a nice Italian waiter flirts with me
and I feel temptation give a sudden naughty kick. A destructive, almost angry urge comes over me to just take his number, go off and have an adventure with him, carve out another future where
I’m young and free and single and can do whatever I like with any man I like.
    But then I remember Anthony and Ophelia. I stare into my coffee, feeling the steam caress my face, and I picture Anthony at home in the kitchen, wearing his silly apron with ducks on, cooking me
the most sensational meal, occasionally breaking off to pull a silly face at Ophelia in her cot, making her gurgle and smile. And my heart leaps and I have to leave there and then without even
finishing my drink because I just want to be back with him, bursting through the front door and giving him a big hug and a kiss. And then as I hurry home I think of how we’ll eat and chatter
about the day and then wash up together and then put Ophelia to sleep and watch a video, snuggled up like cats, best friends together. And I know that I have made the right decision and have
sacrificed small, selfish pleasures for something much bigger – more scary, yes, – but also far more satisfying in the long run. And I know then we’re going to be all right.
    We’re going to be all right because we’ve made a pact. We’re never going to be bored. We’re never going to stagnate or keep our emotions locked under the surface,
pretending things are hunky-dory when we’re secretly screaming inside. We’re going to travel as much as we can. We’ve agreed that if we get bored of our jobs, we’re going to
jack them in and go off and be scuba-diving instructors or something equally wild. We’re going to live life together, hand in hand, as one big adventure, here to be enjoyed together. And
it’s working. Every day we make an effort to surprise each other. Our most recent game has been notes, little love letters scrawled on scraps of paper, pushed into pockets on the way to work
to pull out and read on the Tube with a secret smile. Yesterday Anthony’s said:
Lucy means the world to me / She is as lovely as can be / And I hope she will forgive me / For being a
terrible poet – as you can see . . . PS But though I’m never going to be Lord Byron, I do love you, Lucy!
    And this morning I tucked one into his briefcase that said:
You’re the best man in the world. You’re my ultimate fantasy. And even if Lord Byron miraculously turned up tomorrow
and tried to sweep me off my feet, I’d still choose you
. . .

Endnote
    1 . For the purposes of relating my tale in a more readable manner, I haven’t
quite
stuck to the speech patterns of 1813, or other time
periods in the book; I felt a little translation into modern English here and there would help.