The Ways of Paradox by Narya

---

Entr'acte

---

“It definitely said 'erotic unicorns'.”

“It did not!”

I glanced up from my book at Rosie and Theo, who were lounging on the rug and bickering.

“Well, what do you think it said?” Theo demanded.

“I don't know, I wasn't really listening...”

“Exactly!” 

“It's a Disney film; they wouldn't!” She turned wide, pleading eyes on Harrison, who was doing stretching exercises with the aid of a long, thin strip of elastic from the Ninewells physiotherapy department. “What do you think?”

“I'm pretty sure it said 'ceramic'.”

“Thank you!”

From the table, Mark watched the exchange with a politely bemused expression.

“They went to see the late showing of Tangled last night,” I explained. “Apparently some of the lyrics weren't that clear.”

“Seemed clear to me,” smirked Theo.

Rosie sighed and returned to her textbook. “You're such an idiot.”

Mark caught my eye. I smiled at him, shook my head, and went back to my copy of The Midnight.

These group study sessions had become something of a routine. Mark would usually arrive after breakfast – the first couple of times at my invitation, then once at Rosie's, and then after that on the understanding that it was an open offer. I would curl up in the armchair with one of my set texts and a pencil, scribbling in the margins and drawing loops around key passages; he would occupy the table, quietly reading and making notes; the younger three, who seemed to prefer spreading their books and papers all over the floor, would sprawl on the rug, by turns revising, procrastinating and distracting each other.

“It's on Youtube.” Theo flicked through a few screens on his new iPad, then held it out to me. “Here – Claire – you decide.”

“I'm not interested.”

“Mark?”

“I have no wish to involve myself, thank you.”

He put the iPad down. “It definitely said 'erotic',” he muttered.

We'd take it in turns to buy or make lunch, followed by a walk out to East or West Sands. Harrison, Theo and Rosie would go back to the flat to study; Mark and I sometimes went with them, but more often we'd tuck ourselves away in Taste or North Point or The Central. I'd read – for pleasure, this time – and he'd compose. Sometimes I'd forget for minutes or even hours at a time just who I was sitting with – and then the knowledge would rush through me again like wind chasing across the clifftops, and the strangeness of it would hang frozen in the air. For the first time since Pirates, though, he seemed relaxed and at ease, the shadowed look in his eyes fading one day at a time.

In the evenings either Mark or I would cook – an arrangement that cropped up almost by accident. The boys asked me one time too many what was for dinner; Mark intervened before I snapped; a pattern set in. It made a change – my repertoire consisted mainly of soups and pies and casseroles, simple, homely dishes learned at my grandmother's elbow. Mark took more care with his ingredients, choosing three or four things and putting them together in startling ways, so that each one shone. Pasta, I quickly learned, was a speciality.

“Beats flaming spaghetti, anyway,” Harrison grinned, cheerfully mowing his way through his second bowl of an unusual concoction involving spiced sausage and fennel. 

Theo flipped him the finger.

By dinner time the younger three had usually done as much studying as they could stand. When the dishes were cleared we'd settle down with a stack of DVDs – classic horror franchises, old Westerns, black and white romances, anime, French arthouse, whatever we could rent or borrow or pick up from the bargain bins in Tesco. We'd burrow under the blankets (the boiler was still temperamental) and sip hot drinks. Sometimes Mark would join us; on other nights he would sit at the table, scribbling in his manuscript book, only half paying attention. When he did this it was often Rosie who kept him company, sitting opposite him and persevering with her boggly knitting. 

Occasionally he would stay the night in the little box room, but more often he left around midnight. Harrison joked that he had to leave before he turned into a pumpkin. I doubted that – but I did wonder whether he went back to his blank little house, or whether by night he traced the same routes along the coast that we walked as a group by day, remembering.

***

The rest of the exam period passed without incident – unless one counted the addition of cat food to the weekly shop.

“It's cold,” Rosie argued when I discovered it in the shopping bags and objected. “And I don't think she has a home.”

“He,” Harrison pointed out, stacking tins of beans and lentils in the cupboard.

“What?”

“It's very obviously a he.”

“Oh.” Undeterred, Rosie pressed on. “Well, anyway, it's not like we're letting it in the flat.”

I sighed. “We're jointly and severally liable for the stairwell, too.”

Theo closed the fridge. “Jointly and severally what now?”

“Joint and several liability...” I looked at each of the three puzzled faces in turn. “Did none of you read the lease documents?”

Harrison grinned. “Why would we, when we've got you?”

The temperature continued to fall, but the sky remained clear. One at a time their exam papers were ticked off; Theo listed them all on a sheet of A3 paper and blu-tacked it to the kitchen door, then drew a green smiley face next to each module as it was completed. They investigated a trip out to the West Coast to celebrate, but found the logistics too complex once they realised that no amount of begging would entice me to go with them as their chauffeur.

“We'll buy you a bottle of whisky,” Theo offered as a last-ditch bribe.

“Sorry, guys.” I waved my hand at the stack of books on my “to-read” pile. “I have things to do here.”

“People to see, you mean.”

I ignored him.

Instead they booked three days in Glasgow – easily accessible by train, plenty to do and lots to drink.

“I dread to think what they're going to get up to,” I admitted to Mark as we meandered across East Sands one windy afternoon.

He grinned. “Nothing that they wouldn't do in Edinburgh or Dundee on a normal weekend, I'm sure.”

“That's partly what I'm afraid of.”

Ahead, Rosie shrieked as Theo lifted her off her feet and threatened to throw her into the sea. 

I shook my head. “Like children in a playground.”

“Children were behaving like that long before there were playgrounds.” His gaze strayed back to the two of them, now spinning each other around, Titanic-style.

“Theo's taking her out for dinner the night before they leave.” I blew my hair out of my mouth. “We might finally be making progress.”

“Interesting.”

I watched him carefully. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” He gave me a brief smile. “I'm an old cynic, that's all.”

“You don't think she's interested,” I translated, and sighed. “Neither do I, if I'm honest. I don't think she's leading him on deliberately, though; she's just clueless.”

“I agree.” He shrugged. “Well, stranger things have happened.” But his face remained troubled.

“You're still welcome to come for dinner that night, if you'd like. It'd just be Harrison and me, but...”

He shook his head. “Spend some time with your cousin. It isn't as though the two of you get much space.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I can manage for one night.”

***

The evening before they left for Glasgow, Theo and Rosie went to The Glass House, and Harrison and I ordered takeaway pizza. We sat on the sofas with the boxes balanced on our knees, bottles of beer open beside us, and Star Wars on in the background.

“Are you sure you don't want to come with us?” Harrison asked.

“Positive.” I smiled teasingly. “I need a break from you all.”

“But not from Mark?”

There was no malice in his voice – only curiosity, and a little concern.

“Mark doesn't live here,” I answered. “And I don't have to chase around looking after him.”

“No? Then what was all that the other week, with you bringing him back to dinner like a lost orphan, and him falling asleep curled up next to you?”

“Don't.” Annoyance twinged in my chest. “It wasn't like that.”

“Sorry.” He hesitated, then put down the lid on his pizza box and shuffled around to face me. “He told you something, didn't he?”

Startled out of my irritation, I threw him a surprised look. “How did you know?”

Harrison shrugged. “Things are different. He's loosened up, somehow.”

I stared out of the window. The orange glow of the street lamps cast long-fingered shadows down the street.

“You're not going to tell me, are you?”

“I can't.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“No.” The speed of my answer surprised me. “No, not dangerous. Just...sad.”

He nodded slowly. “Then I guess Theo's theory is out of the window too.”

“What theory?”

A smile spread across his face. “Theo thinks he's a spy.”

It wasn't a million miles away from my own initial guesses. I debated, then decided to risk it. “What gave him that idea?”

“Oh, he was going on about some friend of his grandfather's who was behind enemy lines in World War Two, and came back all withdrawn and secretive.”

“It sounds like a movie pitch,” I smiled.

“Mm.” Harrison stretched his left leg out and flexed the ankle. “You're OK with it, though? Whatever he told you?”

I looked at him sharply. “Yes.”

“OK.” He settled himself back against the cushions, watching me.

“What? Spit it out.”

“I'm just worried about you.” It was almost apologetic. “Whatever his story is, the guy's clearly been through some shit, and it's pretty obvious that he...well. He cares about you. I like him,” he added hastily. “I know that last semester I was probably the most wary of all of us, but I do like having him around.”

“But?”

“There's something messed up in there. Maybe he handles it; it seems that way most of the time. And...” He watched me warily. “I know London was tough for you, and that you struggled for a while. I know you act all sorted now, but my guess is that something like that doesn't just go away.”

My mouth curved. “Harrison, what exactly are you planning to do with your Geography degree?”

“Not sure yet. Why?”

“Have you thought about law?”

“Not after what you went through.”

“Or detective work. You've got the instincts for it.”

He grinned. “Must run in the family.”

“Maybe.”

“Anyway.” He pulled the blanket up over his knees. “I know it probably helps, having someone around who's more screwed up than you are, but I don't want it to become one of those things where he pulls you off into some really dark mental place, because he leans on you more than you can cope with.”

He looked like I might tell him off, and I was tempted – but really his protective attitude was quite sweet. “I'm a big girl, Harrison. I can look after myself.”

“I know you can. But you don't always have to.” He smiled ruefully. “Christ, remind me not to let Rosie take me to any more Disney films.”

I laughed. “I get it. Thanks.” I took a deep drink of beer. “Anyway, when did you get so grown up?”

The smile grew mischievous. “I guess around the time I realised that leaping into the North Sea in the dark is a pretty stupid thing to do.”

***

The following day, after seeing them off, I met Mark in Taste. We sat at the same table we'd occupied when he'd offered to play the Pirate King. I was meant to be reading but I quickly got distracted, and instead watched him work. Staffs and staves flew from the tip of his pencil as though they had a life of their own – which, I reminded myself, they very nearly did, or at least they would when he played. Carefully, I studied his face. For the most part his eyes were sharply focussed on the page in front of him, but occasionally his mouth would quirk or his gaze would soften, as though looking at something amusing behind the manuscript.

When he put his pencil down to flex his wrist, I asked, “What's this one about?”

He leaned back in his seat, glanced at the smartly dressed boy at the table next to us, then back at me, an apologetic smile on his lips.

I understood. “Then will you play it for me, when it's done?”

He picked up the manuscript book and tilted it, as though it might reveal more of itself in a different light. “I could play it for you now, if you don't mind that it isn't quite finished.”

I felt a startling, sharp longing to hear him play again, and to give myself over to that sense of wonder and deep magic. “Would you mind?”

“Not at all.”

Younger Hall was almost deserted – no surprise, with most of the undergraduates away, and the postgraduates working on their research proposals.

As you should be, I thought with a rush of guilt. I might have got a headstart on my semester's set texts, but I was nowhere near landing on a dissertation topic, or a title for the PhD I hoped to pursue after my Mlitt. Last semester I'd been so caught up with the joy of being back in an environment I understood and loved – and with Mark, I admitted – that I hadn't looked any further forward than Christmas. 

Mark turned in the doorway of the practice room, the familiar small crease between his eyebrows.

“What?” I smiled quickly. “Let me guess – broadcasting?”

“To an extent.” He held the door open for me.

“I just feel guilty,” I explained – possibly unnecessarily, but it still felt more natural to talk to him properly than through half-formed thoughts and images. “It suddenly struck me that I packed in a well-paying career to do something far riskier, and instead of pushing myself to make a success of it I scraped through last semester, and spent more time worrying about pirate sword fights and hair pins than research proposals and networking.”

“I didn't realise you'd had your results back.”

“Well.” I blushed. “I haven't.”

He lifted his manuscript book from his bag and gave a challenging smile. “Then how do you know you scraped?”

He had a point. I did have a gift for selling an argument, even when my research wasn't as deep as I'd like it to be. It was part of why I'd made a good lawyer.

“But being serious for a moment.” He settled himself on the piano stool. “What you told me the other night...do not underestimate what that does to your mind and body. You needed time to heal.”

I bit my lip, wondering how many times he'd been there, staring over the edge of the abyss.

His gaze grew softer, and he turned to the keyboard. “Bear in mind that this still needs work,” he warned.

The lower part was careful, steady, anchored - and somehow, with his right hand, he was carrying three melodies at once. One reminded me of sunlight on golden wings – a great bird soaring over snow-capped mountains, wheeling on the air currents and crying out with the joy of being alive. One was spiky, curious and yet somehow reticent, hiding itself away behind the first. The third was like a drifting cloud, or sweet green leaves in the breeze, gentle, dreamy, but with its own quiet strength – and familiar. I closed my eyes, now half-expecting the images that rose up and called to me, pulling me in like I was standing in the middle of a film, one so real I could almost taste it. I was in a great walled garden, and deep gold and violet spilled across the sky. Four figures huddled on a delicately wrought bench, the breeze stirring their silky hair. The eldest of them – he looked no older than thirty, but I knew better by now – was dark-haired, wise-eyed and still, and was clearly telling the others a story. A straight-backed, red-haired youth sat between two dark-haired boys. Dream-like, the vision shifted closer so I could see their faces. One of them I knew instantly – the rapt focus, the gentle half-smile, the inquisitive tilt of the head. This was Mark – Maglor – in his childhood. My heart skittered as I realised who the redhead must be – but I wasn't sure of the others. I stared at the older Elf, listened again to the rolling, repeated notes of his theme. White fire like starlight; deep, still water; a smooth, steady cliff face rising up to the sky. It was too...grounded for Fëanor, and the man himself altogether too calm. And the third boy...he was thinner than Maglor, his features more pointed, and he sat a little way behind Maedhros, as though he preferred to remain in the background. 

With a careful, questioning cadence the music ended, and I was back in the practice room. As before when I'd watched him play, Mark stared at the page as though willing the notes to leap out of the score.

I perched on the edge of the piano stool next to him. When he didn't react, I laid my hand on his arm; he covered my hand with his own, the soft skin warm against the practice room's chill – and he turned and smiled. Reassured, I asked, “Who was the other boy?”

“Our cousin, Aranwë.”

I frowned. The name was familiar, but I couldn't place...

“Do you remember the tale of Tuor?”

Ah. “Voronwë's father.” Excitement and satisfaction spread through me. “He was your cousin?” I didn't remember that, although it had been a long time since I'd read the book. 

“The eldest child of my Aunt Findis – my father's half-sister.”

I remembered reading something about this – the characters pushed to the margins, or out of the published Silmarillion altogether. Often women. “Then the man...”

“My grandfather. Finwë.”

Slowly I let out my breath – and then with a guilty start I remembered that for him these weren't characters from a book. I turned my hand over so my palm pressed against his, and linked our fingers together.

“It's alright.” He gave me a reassuring smile. “Ask away; I don't mind.” 

A gust of wind squalled against the sash, making it squeak and rattle. I combed through the tangles of questions and contradictions that had occupied my mind since he told me the truth about his identity, trying to decide what I wanted – needed – to know the most. “Was the world really flat?”

He laughed, the timbre of it startlingly like the steady, lower theme of the piece he'd just played. “What do you think?”

“Well, no. It makes no sense.”

“Of course not. It's a creation myth, nothing more. Just like the idea that one hundred and fourty-four Elves awakened by the bay of Cuiviénen, each one already paired with their soulmate.”

I frowned. I definitely didn't remember that. “I haven't read the Histories,” I confessed. “There's probably loads I don't know, and should.”

“There's no 'should' about it. For you, until a few days ago, it was merely a collection of fairy tales.”

Even so, I resolved to take them out of the library as soon as I could. “So...the Valar lied to you?” I remembered what he'd said – that they weren't quite as the stories described.

His smile took on a bitter curl. “Not about the Awakening,” he admitted. “That tale we invented ourselves. Maedhros used to tell it to teach me to count.”

“Like our rhyme about the man going to St. Ives.” 

“Yes. Very much so.” He rested his fingertips on the piano's keys. “But the Creation, and the Music, and the Discord...” A shrug of one shoulder. “The Valar did not believe the secrets of the universe were ours to know – not that it ever stopped my father, and others, from trying to find them out.” 

“And did he? Did they?”

“To a certain extent. More was discovered after his death – by my nephew Celebrimbor and his folk, by the Dwarves, and much later by Men. Most of it, even now, we can only guess at. Fëanor amassed tomes of speculative notes and theories and figures and diagrams – mathematics, physics, chemistry, philosophy – but of course much of it is lost.”

Excitement stirred inside me like a creature waking from sleep. I thought of the book bound in indigo leather. “Not all, though.”

“No.” Absently he pressed down on the keys, sounding a dominant seventh, the bitterness in his smile softening into satisfaction. “I saved what I could, and have had copies made through the years.”

A smile stole across my face. “You know what I'm going to ask next, don't you?”

“You want to look at them.” His grey eyes were amused. “Yes, I knew you would. Although I'll have to teach you Quenya, if you're to get anything out of it at all.”

“What a shame,” I grinned – and then I felt a dart of guilt, something that really was a shame, or felt like one. “Poor Rosie. She'd kick herself if she knew about all this.”

“Rosie knows far more about quantum mechanics and dark matter and string theory than these books could ever teach her.”

“But there'll always be a piece of the picture missing.”

“That has been the case for everyone who has walked this earth since the beginning of time.” He played the chord again, one note at a time, then shifted it into a C major triad. “Even my father.” A modulation to A minor. “Especially my father.”

I hesitated. “Is that why you're here – doing research, to build on his?”

“In part, yes. Although my father wanted to know far more than one man could ever discover by conventional means – even an immortal one.”

That didn't surprise me. “Why Philosophy, in particular?”

“Why not? It encourages questions. And anyway, when one has studied for long enough, subject divisions become somewhat meaningless.”

I nodded. “I started to find that even when I was an undergrad. My degree was in English, but I ended up reading around in History, Politics, Anthropology, Art, Maths, Classics...you can't help studying all sorts, even though you come at it through a specific lens.”

He smiled. “Exactly. The idea that the Arts and the Sciences are somehow opposed...well, what would Da Vinci say?”

With a start I remembered his words from a few days before.  I was in Italy as Europe dragged itself once again out of the dark ... “I suspect you'd know better than me.”

His eyes flashed. “Oh, very good.”

I added my fingers to the keyboard beside his, painting tentative chords in the instrument's upper register. He improvised a melody to go with them – simple, balanced, articulate. “So why St Andrews? I mean, I know it's a good university, and the town's lovely, but why not Yale, or the Sorbonne? Or even London? Somewhere with better libraries, a bigger community.”

A sidelong smile. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I'm not the one who's allergic to the Internet,” I pointed out.

“I'm not allergic to it. I just don't like the ease with which it can map my location. I prefer not to be too easy to find.”

“Is that why you stay on the move?”

“I don't settle easily, it's true. But it's for practicality as much as anything. Remaining in one place becomes difficult, once people have noticed you don't seem to age.” He changed the theme into something looser and more abstract. “As for your original question...I do better by the sea.”

I nodded, not needing to ask why that was. 

***

Candlemas Semester began. Harrison, Theo and Rosie returned from Glasgow, hungover and exhausted – although the boys brightened up at the news that Les Mis auditions would be held the following week.

“Brilliant,” Theo grinned. “What are you thinking, Claire? Fantine?”

I glanced at Mark, who appeared engrossed in his latest composition. “Maybe.”

“Well, obviously he's going to be Valjean – sorry, Harrison,” Theo added hastily, then turned back to me. “It'd be perfect. You can die dramatically in his arms.”

Mark tensed, and for a moment his pencil froze on the page.

“Pack it in, Theo.” Harrison's tone was sharp. 

Theo struck a pose like an imperious queen, teasing sparks in his eyes. “'What, jealous Harrison?'”

“Wrong show.”

“I know that!”

Bickering and roughhousing ensued. I crossed to the table, where Mark was working again as though nothing had happened – but he didn't lift his head to look at me, and I didn't reach out to touch his arm as I'd half-planned to do.

In the end I tried out for Madame Thénardier, in part because I woke up on the day of auditions with a sore throat, and the idea of trying to produce Fantine's pure, rich contralto with gravel in my voice made me cringe. Besides, I'd enjoyed my comedy turn as Ruth in Pirates.

The audition went as well as it could when my vocal chords were giving me hell. I'd decided against 'Master of the House,' feeling that the signature song of the character I wanted to play was a little obvious, and that everyone else would probably have the same idea. Instead I went for 'Oom-pah-pah' from Oliver! - not dissimilar in range and spirit, but different enough to be memorable. I got a smile out of Xander at the end of it, and saw him and the Union rep (there to ensure fair play) nodding and scribbling before I left.

Rosie was waiting outside. “Well done.” She slipped her arm through mine. “That was great.”

“It was fun; I'm not sure about great. I haven't sung that song since I was at school.”

“How come they make you sing without a piano?”

“To check we can stay in tune. If we get callbacks we'll be singing a specific song, with an accompanist.”

She shuddered. “It all sounds very intense and scary. I'm glad I don't have to do it.”

“Just find me an outrageously low-cut dress to flounce around in, if I get the part.” I coughed. “Preferably red.”

The others had had their auditions hours ago, so we met them at the Whey Pat.

“How did it go?” Mark asked.

Rosie answered for me. “She was amazing,” she beamed.

I shook my head, smiling fondly. “It was fine.”

Harrison's eyebrows shot up. “Good, because you sound like shit now.”

Rosie yelped indignantly and elbowed him in the ribs; I just grinned. “And for that, you get to buy my drink. Oh – hold on.” My phone was vibrating in my pocket; my stomach curled in on itself at the sight of the name on the screen. I sighed, cleared my throat, and pressed 'accept.' “Hi, Xander.”

“Where the fuck was your friend?” 

“What?” I glanced at Mark, Theo, Harrison and Rosie in turn. “I don't know what you're on about.”

“Mark. Our resident genius. We just finished with auditions and he didn't show.”

I held the phone away from my ear. “I assume you can hear this?” I asked Mark.

He shrugged. “I was only helping out last semester; it didn't seem fair to push in again.”

“Wait, you didn't even audition?” Harrison sat up straight. “So who's playing Valjean?”

“You, I assume,” Mark replied.

Harrison shook his head. “Nope. I tried out for Enjolras.”

They looked at each other for a few moments, then both of them began to laugh.

“Shit,” Harrison said. “Who are they going to cast?”

“And finally they get there.” Xander's voice echoed tinnily through the speaker. “Neither of my best singers tried out for the main part. That gives me a bit of a problem.”

My mouth twitched as I tried not to dissolve into giggles too. “Didn't anyone else audition for it?”

“Nobody I intend to cast.”

I covered the receiver and grinned at Mark. “See? He loves you after all.”

“I heard that,” Xander snapped. “Look, since they're both there, tell them I need a decision now.”

“What about the Union rep, and callbacks, and so on?”

Xander explained in great anatomical detail what the Union rep could do with their callbacks and due process. 

I gave a laugh that was half a cough, and looked at Harrison and Mark. “Come on, guys, Xander's having a meltdown. Help him out.”

Mark shook his head, eyes dancing. “It's all yours, Harrison.”

I watched my cousin's face carefully. Harrison sipped his whisky. He glanced at me, and I knew he was remembering the last time we'd all sat at this table together – and what had happened when I suggested Mark play Enjolras. 

“Nah,” he said eventually. “You'll be better. Only if you're up for it, obviously.”

Mark's eyes widened, clearly surprised. “You're sure?”

“He's sure.” Theo whipped the phone out of my hands. “Xander, we're all done here; Mark's playing Valjean, Harrison's playing Enjolras, and if you don't give me Marius and Claire whatever she auditioned for then we're all on strike.”

“Theo!” I protested, laughing.

He grinned and hung up. “Sorted. Now sit down and have a drink; you look like you're about to die on your feet.”

Harrison went to the bar and came back with an assortment of whiskies, and a gin and tonic for Rosie.

“Thanks.” I had to raise my voice over the growing hubbub; my throat stung with the effort, and I sipped my whisky gratefully. “To a successful show – and to next semester.”

“To next semester,” the others echoed, and we clinked our glasses together. 

Outside the sky darkened, and snowflakes drifted in lazy circles from the clouds.