In Bed With Lord Byron

seemed to notice. The shopkeeper, who was about seventy, looked deeply confused.
    Then I took my
very nice
outfit home, feeling strangely despondent.
    ii) Anthony and the time machine
    Well, at least I had a nice dress. I had a party in Suffolk to go to. There’d be food, music, glorious dancing. I could get insanely drunk and blot out all my family
misery. Plus, I would be away from the time machine so I could avoid that temptation.
    I just had Friday to get through.
    And boy, did it drag. The hands on the clock shivered forward, minute by minute, like those of a teasing lover. Finally 4.55 came and I ran out five minutes early, resisting the urge to dance
down the pavement and scream, ‘IT’S THE WEEKEND!’
    And then, on the way home, I got a text from Anthony:
    In yr flat. Got a surprise for you.
    My heart quickened. My walk became skippity as I happily pondered all the possibilities.
    I let myself into the flat.
    ‘In here,’ Anthony called from the living room.
    I danced in. I stopped. I dropped my handbag in shock.
    ‘Uh . . . uh . . . what the hell are you
doing
?’
    Anthony looked up. Ironically, he’d never looked more sexy. His hair was dishevelled and he’d taken off his shirt and there was a smudge of grease licking across his naked torso. He
was holding a screwdriver between his teeth which he now removed.
    ‘Well, you said that having this stupid time machine thingy in the corner of your room was a pain in the neck. So I thought I’d save you the time and trouble and take it apart. That
way it’s much easier to get it to the dump.’
    ‘Oh shit!’
    I ran over, examining the damage. The time machine looked like a building which had suffered the wrath of a storm; chunks and hunks were scattered like windblown blocks around the carpet. But he
had been working from the outside in, so the central section was intact: the seat and more importantly, the time pod. All he had really attacked was the outer shell.
    ‘Oh thank God!’ I cried. ‘We can still save it.’
    ‘But – but . . .’ Anthony faltered, looking disappointed. ‘Luce, you’ve been moaning about how this thing is a waste of time and space and—’
    ‘I didn’t ask you to take it apart, though!’ I wailed. ‘I mean, you could have asked me!’
    ‘So you’re saying you want me to put it all back together?’ Anthony asked incredulously.
    ‘Yes!’ I cried. I breathed out. ‘Yes. Please do.’
    ‘But . . . but . . . why?’ Anthony stared at me with a deep frown. ‘You said it was useless junk!’
    ‘It’s – it’s got sentimental value,’ I said, avoiding his eyes. ‘I’ve grown fond of it.’
    ‘Fond of it? It’s a heap of metal! You’ll be proposing to your washing machine next.’ Anthony’s voice was high and sarcastic, but underneath his jokes I could see
he felt hurt and sheepish at having done the wrong thing.
    ‘Look – can you please just put it back together while I go and make some tea?’ I said and went off to the kitchen.
    As I made the tea, a queasy feeling started in my stomach. I knew that I was going to tell him the truth; I’d been wanting to for so long, and my mouth was pregnant with words aching to be
released. The logical, rational part of me kept screeching at me to stop and think but I knew that I was going to ignore it. I had to tell him the truth. It was now or never.
    Of course, he didn’t really believe me.
    At first he thought I was just joking about. He kept nodding at me solemnly and quipping, ‘Well, I can imagine it’s very handy, Luce, for nipping forwards in time and going to check
on the lottery.’ I didn’t dare tell him about Byron and Leonardo and Ovid so I tried to keep my explanation as neutral and logical as possible. He went all quiet and funny and started
staring into his coffee cup. So then I tried to explain the science behind it again, which wasn’t much help either. Anthony had barely even heard of quantum physics. He was a businessman; his
idea of physics harked back to his school days, to solid experiments that could be scrawled into books with neat conclusions.
    ‘Look,’ I said, ‘remember that years and years ago people thought it was utterly shocking to imagine that the earth was round or that it wasn’t the centre of the
universe? Well, logically, there are things that exist right now that we don’t believe in simply because we’ve been brought up not to. Our boundaries are shaped by society and
newspapers and parents, so