Dead Romantic (7 page)

“I suppose not,” Susie says reluctantly. “It’s really late notice for Giraffe Ward to get a bank nurse. Are you sure?”

“Of course I am.” I nod like a creature deranged, which I suppose I am – deranged by everyone fussing over me, that is – and cross my fingers under the duvet. “I’ll watch a bit of telly then have an early night.”

“OK.” Susie checks the thermostat and then blows me a kiss. “Everything’s warm and toasty here, I’ve made you a flask of tea and the phone’s on the arm of the chair. If you don’t feel well call me straight away. Understood?”

“Yes, boss,” I laugh.

“If anything,” she pauses awkwardly, “if anything
strange
happens then call me at once. Promise?”

I roll my eyes. “Susie, we’ve been through this a hundred times. Nothing strange happened at the hospital. When I was floating in and out of consciousness I must have overheard the night staff telling ghost stories and chatting about their patients. That’s all. I got all muddled.”

“But you knew all that stuff about Mrs Collins!”

Poor Susie. She’s so desperate to believe in the paranormal that she’ll clutch any straw, however feeble. I’ve had a lot of time to mull over my strange experiences and to talk to the doctors about the side effects of head injuries, and of course there’s a logical explanation for what I’d
thought
I’d seen. I just hadn’t realised how bad my injuries were, that’s all.

“I was concussed, Suse. You said I wasn’t well enough to be discharged that day and you were right. It was all nonsense.”

“Mmm,” mutters Susie, still looking worried. “I guess so.”

“I know so.” I’ve got to be firm here or she’ll be swinging crystals and dialling the telephone psychics before I know it. Thank goodness I didn’t tell her about seeing a mystery man called Alex Thorne! She’d be trawling the hospital records at once and buying me a crystal ball. “Now get to work, Nurse Maxwell, or you’ll be late.”

Once I hear the door slam, followed by the thump, thump, thump of Susie thundering down the stairs, I count to twenty before slowly exhaling.

“Right, Freddie,” I say to Freddie, Susie’s fat white Birman cat. “Time for me to have some fun!”

I spend the next hour wallowing in a delicious milk-and-honey bath that wouldn’t have been out of place in my namesake’s palace. I slap on a face pack, deep condition my hair and shave my legs until they squeak. I’m going to go into work tomorrow and I’ll probably see Simon, so it won’t hurt to look my best. I need to try and make up for that last excruciating time he clapped eyes on me.

Feeling weak with mortification I try to distract myself by summoning up all the things I like so much about Simon – but for some reason every time I try to picture his face I see instead the face of my long-ago Christmas stranger, the young guy with the guitar who’d held me close, whose kisses had promised so much, and who’d vanished without a trace.

I must have hit my head extremely hard to be brooding over
him
. For years I’ve succeeded in blocking him out
.
I haven’t wanted to think about him; I didn’t want to remember how my limbs melted when I kissed him or how the hard contours of his body felt as he pulled me close. It sounds foolish, but in spite of all the time that’s passed since that chance encounter my pulse still quickens at the memory and I can almost feel the coldness of the snowflakes on my upturned face. How can one stranger, one stranger who never got in touch, still have this effect on me? Why on earth am I thinking about him again after all this time, when I’m going to see Simon tomorrow?

I screw my eyes shut and try to focus on Simon, but no matter how hard I try to conjure it up his face just dissolves away like the snowfall in my memory and I see instead the wide violet eyes and sharp cheekbones of my Christmas stranger. All I can feel is the croissant softness of his mouth on mine and the way his hands cupped my face so tenderly…

I’m not dwelling on him. It’s ancient history. Where have all these thoughts come from? Honestly, since I bumped my head I’m not myself at all. It was just a Christmas kiss between two total strangers on a deserted railway station. I never even found out his name because Dad arrived then and I was swept away into the horror of losing Mum. I scrawled my number onto an old till receipt but I never heard from my Christmas stranger again. It was as though he’d vanished into the snowstorm, and after the funeral was over there was nothing for me to stay in England for. I need to put him out of my head once and for all. A real guy can never measure up to a dream.

Wrapping myself in a snug bathrobe I make a detour into the kitchen, where I pour a large glass of white wine and tip Susie’s flask of tea down the sink. Back in the sitting room I light a scented candle before curling up on the sofa with the cat and my duvet, and scrolling through the Sky menu. The room is warm and cosy, the wine is slipping down a treat and for the first time since I hurt myself I start to relax.

With one eye on the telly and the other on my computer I spend a happy half an hour deleting all the spam from my email folder, catching up with Facebook and browsing eBay. Then I open up my folder on Aamon and study the CT scans and notes until my eyes grow heavy in the warm vanilla-scented room and I end up typing nonsense. Yawning widely I click out of the folder and back to my home page, where I Google “head trauma” and terrify myself by reading about the horrendous side effects that I may soon be suffering from. Personality change, loss of sex drive, trouble with memory, delusions… The list is endless and very, very depressing.

Note to self: stay away from Wikipedia. My next search will involve some serious research papers on the subject.

I wander to the kitchen and slosh more wine into my glass. Is alcoholism another side effect? I don’t seem to remember reading that as I worked my way down the list of doom. Then again, neither do I recall seeing that hallucinating about men called Alex Thorne is common either – and that certainly happened.

Settling down again on the sofa I balance the laptop on my knees and idly type
Alex Thorne
into the search engine. Without thinking twice I click on the first link and gasp when the screen fills with that achingly familiar face. Green eyes hold mine, dark floppy hair falling over them, and his head is thrown back as he laughs.

My hallucination is pictured large as life on the screen of my Mac. He exists. He really exists.

I lean away from the laptop. My heart’s racing and for a moment I think I’m going to pass out. This isn’t possible. There’s no logical explanation; I’ve never heard of Alex Thorne before.

Reaching for my drink I lean forwards again and read the entire wiki page almost without breathing, not stopping until I’ve absorbed every detail about Alex Thorne. Apparently he was in a band called Thorne
and died a tragic death in a hit-and-run accident just outside Museum Tube station.

Hang on, that rings a bell. Museum Tube is where I was nearly attacked and where my would-be assailant claimed to see me with a young man. I laugh aloud at the absurdity of all this. It’s clearly some head trauma I have, to be getting this confused. I must be mixing up all sorts of details and making myself believe them: that’s it. The human brain is an incredibly sophisticated organ, after all. It contains tens of billions of neurons, so who knows what it can do when pushed or jolted?

OK, so I may
think
I haven’t heard of Alex Thorne before but that could well be my brain playing tricks. Perhaps subconsciously I’ve caught sight of a headline or maybe heard a song. Maybe I even read about his death somewhere. That’s plausible, given that he died only minutes away from where I work. Is that why I imagined seeing him in the hospital?

My head is really hurting now. I take my glasses off and rub my eyes. None of this makes any sense. I’d never even heard of
Thorne before.
I was in Egypt when they were taking Britpop by storm, and now that I have heard of them Alex is dead and the band is finished. Maybe I do need to see a head-trauma specialist.

My hands, resting on the computer keys, are chilly and stiff. The tip of my nose feels cold too and my breath is making clouds. The heating must have gone off or something. Maybe the electric’s up the creek again? The TV seems to be on the blink too: ITV2 has vanished in a snowstorm of static. I burrow deeper under the duvet and stare at the computer screen, where a guy stands on stage, arms raised in salute as he grins at the camera. That’s him. No doubt about it. Alex Thorne. The guy who saved my life.

Or rather, the guy I
imagined
saved my life, since Alex Thorne is nothing more than a figment of an imagination I never even knew I had.

Oh God. I am going mad; that’s the only explanation. How can I conjure up someone I’ve never even heard of unless… unless…

“No way,” I whisper. “It’s impossible.”

“No it isn’t. It’s perfectly possible.”

Alex Thorne, dead rock star and invention of my troubled mind, is sitting in the armchair by the window, grinning at me. One leather-trousered leg is crossed over his knee, and hair as dark as molasses falls across his pale face. The cat leaps up from my lap, hissing and spitting at Alex before tearing from the room.

“I never really was a cat person,” says Alex.

“You’re just a figment of my imagination.” I say slowly. “I bumped my head and this is a side effect. It says so on Wikipedia.”

“Total bollocks,” he says airily. “Besides, everyone knows wikis are a crap source of information. Someone as brainy as you really ought to know better.”

I search frantically for a logical explanation. “This is my memory playing tricks on me because of the injury. There’s no way I can see you because… because…”

I trail off miserably. There is no logical answer. For the first time in my life I’m well and truly at a loss. Thank goodness Susie isn’t here.

“Go on, you can say it. You can’t see me because I’m dead? It’s OK. I’m over being upset about that now. I won’t say it isn’t annoying because it bloody well is, but I’m kind of used to being a ghost.” Alex’s eyes crinkle and a dimple dances in his cheek. “We have all kinds of fun.”

“But ghosts don’t exist!”

“Obviously they do, Cleo, otherwise you and I wouldn’t be chatting now,” says Alex reasonably. “Pinch yourself if you think you’re dreaming.”

Obediently I pinch myself very hard on the arm. “Ouch!”

“I’m still here,” says Alex while I rub my arm. “Please don’t self-harm any more on my account. Can’t you just accept it?”

“No, I can’t!” I snap. “It’s impossible. When you’re dead, you’re dead. Life’s just a chemical reaction.”

He looks amazed. “Surely you don’t really believe that? Life’s far more than chemical reactions.” He leans forward and fixes me with a bright emerald stare. “Why couldn’t I have attached myself to some nice dippy hippy like your flatmate?”

“Yes, why me?” I ask, pulling my duvet up to my chin because the room’s icy cold now. “Hypothetically speaking, of course, since I know this is just a hallucination.”

Alex rubs his forehead with the heels of his hands and sighs. “If I told you, you’d never believe me.”

“Try me,” I say.

“Maybe you’re a psychic? That’d explain it.”

I laugh so hard at this that my head hurts even more. “Hardly. I don’t believe in ghosts, remember?”

Alex shrugs. “And? That wouldn’t matter if you were naturally psychic. Even if you didn’t believe in us, you’d still have the ability to see ghosts.”

I think about Mrs Collins in the hospital and that poor pacing doctor. How had I seen them? Me, a psychic like that lunatic Lilac Delaney? Surely not?

Alex’s jade eyes narrow and he leans forward. “You
have
seen other ghosts, haven’t you? I knew it! That bump on the head has woken you up to your psychic skills.”

“Oh please,” I say. “You sound like Susie. And anyway,
you
found
me
, remember?”

“I was drawn to you,” Alex agrees. “And there’s a reason for that. A really good reason.” He stops, looks for a moment as though he wants to say more, and then just pulls a face. “Enough of that. Were you a Thorne
fan?”

I take a sip of my wine. It’s chilled now, a bit like the rest of me. “I hate to break it to you but I’d never heard of Thorne
until this evening.”

Alex places his hand over his heart. “Well, that puts my ego neatly in its place. Five Brit Awards and two Grammys, Cleo. We were a little bit famous?”

“Good for you,” I say.

“Oh well, you don’t look like the kind of girl who listens to pop music so I shouldn’t really be surprised. Anyway, music isn’t what links us. It goes back further than that. Cleo, I’ve been searching for you. How do you think I recognised you at Museum Tube station?”

“For me?” My head is a carousel of confusion. I wait for him to elaborate but Alex is suddenly quiet, as though he’s already said enough.

“Go on,” I say encouragingly, and he sighs.

“It’s kind of complicated, so if it’s all right with you I’ll start with a Saturday night several weeks ago. Do you remember that evening when you were alone on the platform at Museum Tube and a strange man with a scar made his way towards you? He looked like he was going to sit down, didn’t he? But then he started talking to thin air and moved on?”

“And later on he attacked a girl outside the station,” I nod. “He claimed he left me alone because I had a man with me.”

“You did,” says Alex simply. “Me. I sat there and put my arm around you and I prayed with every fibre of my being that he’d see me. It must have worked.”

“I smelt a citrusy scent,” I recall. “And I can smell it now.”

“CK One,” says Alex proudly, with a wink. “Drives girls wild.”

I’m intrigued. “How come a ghost can smell of aftershave?”

He grins. “What am I supposed to smell of, rotting flesh? It’s eau de toilette, to be precise. And anyway, why does it matter to you? You don’t believe in me, remember?”

I’d almost forgotten that minor detail. In fact I’m starting to forget a lot of things since Alex reminded me about the strange incident at Museum Tube station.