In Bed With Lord Byron

‘In our day,’ she said, ‘marriage and
children were life. Even if you didn’t like your husband very much you stuck by him. It’s different now. People won’t settle for second best. People want to get more out of
life.’ She’d said it as though my generation were terribly selfish. Well, maybe we
were
, but wasn’t that better, to squeeze the best juices out of life? Wasn’t that
the spirit of this age, wasn’t that why there were so many articles yelling ‘TEN PLACES TO GO BEFORE YOU DIE’? Wasn’t 2005 about seizing the day?
    And I wasn’t really all that convinced by Anthony’s broody streak either. He was far too work-obsessed. I reckoned he just liked the fantasy of it all.
    As I turned out the light, I decided: no relationship, no Anthony, no babies.
    My head had won.
    A few days later, delayed shock suddenly hit me. It was my lunch break; I stepped out into the road and a taxi came hurtling past, missing me by inches. I stumbled back, my
heart pounding. Images swam before me: sand, teeth, the lion roaring towards me. I sank down on to the kerb, holding my head in my hands, provoking passers-by to ask if they needed to call 999.
    Back in the office, my hands were shaking so much I couldn’t even use my computer keyboard. I ended up having to take the afternoon off.
    If luck or God or fate hadn’t been on my side, I told myself, stroking the cat, if I hadn’t run from that lion just in the nick of time, then Lyra would have now been without an
owner. And how long would it be before trips in the time machine did kill me? Every era was fraught with danger. It was like playing Russian roulette.
    And that was when I made a promise to myself never, ever to risk using the time machine again.

Chapter Five
    Al Capone
    You can get a lot more done with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone.
    A L C APONE

i) Dressing up
    I was late meeting Anthony. As I raced up the escalator at Oxford Street Tube station, I spotted him with grimly folded arms, curses pinched into the corners of his lips.
    Anthony was extremely punctual. He tended to get worse when he was working very hard – it became a sort of angry nervous tic.
    ‘Anthony!’ I panted. ‘No . . .’ I had to stop him from telling me off. ‘I really do have a good excuse. Oh God, Anthony, Sally wants a divorce! And my mum’s
totally freaked out and it’s a big family crisis and everything’s a total MESS.’
    ‘Shit!’ Anthony looked appalled. ‘Oh Luce, I’m so sorry. Here.’ He pulled me in for a tender hug. ‘Come on, let’s go get you a good strong mug of
tea.’
    We weren’t meant to be stopping for tea. On Saturday morning we would be setting off for Suffolk; Anthony’s father was celebrating his sixtieth birthday with a 1920s theme. But our
costumes were forgotten as we sat down over two steaming mugs and I poured out the whole story. Of course, I’d seen the divorce coming; the signs had been there. Sally’s tiredness. Her
boredom. Her restlessness. But still, it was a shock. My sister had always been rather smug about her supposedly fantastic marriage, and though it had irked me, I had secretly admired her for
it.
    ‘And what about Adam, will he live with Sally?’ Anthony asked.
    ‘I don’t know. I guess. For now he’s with Mum. Sally says she needs some space to think.’ I saw a flicker of hurt on Anthony’s face and bit my lip; given his own
history, his protectiveness towards Adam was understandable.
    ‘But look, he has two parents who love him like mad, he’ll be fine,’ I said quickly, before sinking into grey glumness again. ‘It’s just depressing, that’s
all. I mean – they’ve only been together seven years. And I thought they were different. That’s naïve, I know. I mean, I bumped into a friend from uni the other day, and
she’s only thirty and she’s already been married
and
divorced
and
remarried.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Anthony, his idealistic streak burning bright, ‘some people damn well need a car sticker that says, “Marriage is for life, not just for
Christmas”.’
    He looked relieved when I laughed.
    ‘Have you cheered up enough to come and do some shopping?’ he asked tentatively. ‘I mean, are you still OK to come this weekend? Maybe you’d rather . . .’
    ‘God, no,’ I said. ‘I really need to escape. I’m OK. Well, just about.’
    I forced a smile and found it wasn’t so hard after all. Anthony really was the best person to be around in a