Dead Romantic

by Ruth Saberton

  Alex is standing behind his brother, shaking his head like he’s got water in his ears. It’s very disconcerting. I ignore him. Alex wanted me here, and here I am. If he doesn’t like it, well that’s just tough.

  “My name’s Cleo Carpenter,” I say softly, “but you won’t know that, of course, because I never told you. We met a long time ago. At the station?”

  Rafe Thorne doesn’t say anything and I feel myself start to turn red. So much for writing the definitive Christmas love song about me, his one who got away. He hasn’t a clue who I am.

  “Take your hat off,” Alex says hastily. “He’s hung over to shit, it’s bloody dark in here and you’re all swaddled up. It looks like Scott of the Antarctic’s rolled up and barged into his house. He’ll remember you, I promise!”

  I reach up and pull off my green bobble hat so that Rafe can see my hair. For nearly thirty years being a redhead has been one of the first things people notice about me. Surely he’ll remember my hair? But there’s still no response. I’d think he’s passed out again if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s staring at me. I can see myself reflected in the dark eyes. I look petrified.

  “You were waiting for a train?” I prompt hopefully. My stomach is twisting into knots under that intense violet gaze. “I was waiting for a lift? It was Christmas Eve. I was crying and you…” I can’t speak for a minute because the memory still moves me, “you comforted me.”

  Rafe remains silent. How can he not remember? I’m floored with the disappointment. Now that he’s just a heartbeat away from me the past ten years have evaporated – so how can it be that he doesn’t feel the same? Was it all in my imagination?

  “It was a while back,” I say awkwardly. “Maybe you’ve forgotten?”

  “He hasn’t forgotten!” Alex insists. He looks distraught. “This is much worse than I thought. He’s given up with everything. I’ve left it too late.”

  The room is still. I hear a clock ticking somewhere. The blood is rushing in my ears. Then Rafe’s hand slips from my shoulder and reaches out to touch my cheek. His other hand loosens its grip on my wrist and slips down to weave my fingers with his. I hold my breath, everything in me poised to flee because he feels dangerous, as though he could combust at any moment. One forefinger skims over my face and down to my lips, where it brushes over my mouth as softly as his lips did all those years ago. In spite of all my layers and my fear, goosebumps ripple all over my body.

  “It’s you,” Rafe says slowly, looking at me with those shadowed eyes. “The Christmas girl. Jesus. Just how strong was that whiskey?”

  “It’s not the whiskey,” I whisper. “It’s really me.”

  We stare at each other. The world seems to halt on its axis and beyond the window even the waters of the Thames slow their pace until I’m nineteen again. For the briefest of moments, I think he’s going to pull me close, wrap his arms around me and kiss me like he did back then. I feel dizzy with longing. How could I ever have thought I was attracted to Simon? He’s never made me feel like this. Nothing even close…

  But Rafe exhales slowly, like a man who’s come to the end of a long and exhausting journey. His hand slides away and falls to his side. It looks as though he’s struggling to find the right words.

  Then he shrugs. “It’s too late, Christmas Girl. Way too late.”

  “No it isn’t!” cries Alex, hopping up and down with impatience. “Come on, bro! I’ve brought her to you like I said I would. Of course it’s not too late. Don’t be a knob!”

  “What’s too late?” I ask Rafe.

  “Everything. You. Me. You coming here now.” Rafe’s words are bleak, and the expression on his face is hard to read; it’s oddly aggressive, as though he’s fighting some huge internal battle. “If you came here hoping for a reunion then you’ve wasted your time.”

  I stare at him. Does he really think that?

  He clambers to his feet, staggers to the mantelpiece and leans against it. He passes a hand over his red-rimmed eyes and the scans the room. “Christ. I need a drink.”

  “You bloody well don’t,” says Alex. As Rafe sways across the room, homing in on a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s like some kind of booze-seeking missile, his brother rounds on me. “This isn’t what’s meant to happen.”

  “What did you expect?” I say sadly. “That we’d fall into each other’s arms and live happily ever after while you go into the light?”

  Alex’s face falls; of course this is what he’d hoped for, my poor, dead romantic.

  From the look of him Rafe Thorne could teach Lord Byron a few things about being mad, bad and dangerous to know. He’s certainly not about to declare undying love for me anytime soon. Not that I’d want him to in any case, I remind myself sharply. I’m only here to get Alex off my back and my life returned to normal.

  “Great plan,” I say to Alex. “Any more bright ideas?”

  Fortunately Rafe is far too busy sloshing Jack Daniel’s into a glass to take much notice of me talking to thin air. He’s probably still drunk.

  “Christ,” he says again to himself before necking the shot and pouring another. “What’s the point of anything now? It’s all too late. It’s all too fucking late.”

  “What is?” I ask him.

  “Just about everything, Christmas Girl–”

  “Cleo,” I interrupt. Since I hate the festive season, Christmas Girl is not a moniker I wish to be saddled with. “My name is Cleo. Cleo Rose Carpenter.”

  Rafe swirls the amber liquid in his glass and raises it to me. His wide, sexy mouth curls into a sneer. “Well, to you, then, Cleo Rose Carpenter. To the millions and millions of pounds you made Thorne. That song makes a lot of people, including my accountants, very happy, even if it’s way too late for me. Or you. Here’s to our ‘One Christmas Kiss’.”

  Alex is standing beside him. I can see Rafe’s breath, but he’s too busy downing his whiskey to notice the peculiar cold. Rafe Thorne, I’m fast discovering, doesn’t pay attention to much apart from drink. His face is unshaven, the strong jaw sprinkled with several days’ worth of stubble, and his thick dark hair falls over the collar of his shirt. He’s too thin for his frame, which is made to be broad and strong; even his high-cheekboned face is gaunt. For once the British tabloids haven’t been exaggerating.

  “What do you mean, it’s too late?” I ask. “I don’t understand. Too late for what?”

  Rafe fixes me with a long hard stare and in the depths of his eyes I see such raw pain that it takes my breath away.

  “For everything, Cleo Rose Carpenter. It’s too late for me. For you. For my brother. Everything’s changed.” He tips the drink down his throat and slams the glass onto the table before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and pouring another. “The person you met back then, that boy with the guitar and the dreams? He doesn’t exist anymore. He’s not existed for years. He’s gone for good, and if you’ve got any sense you’ll get the hell out of here and forget all about him, because if you came here looking to find that person then you’re in for a big disappointment. You need to go home, Christmas Girl. Some things are better left in the past. You’re too late now. If you wanted to find me then you should have come before.”

  “I couldn’t come before,” I say softly. There’s a tight knot deep inside me, which feels horribly like grief. But what am I grieving for? A lost chance? A life that never was? A Sliding Doors moment? I take a deep breath because I want to get this right and make him see. “Rafe, my mother died that night and afterwards I went abroad for ages. I didn’t know who you were and I had no way of finding you again. In fact I’ve only just found out who you are.”

  Rafe laughs. It’s a harsh, joyless sound that scrapes the quietness.

  “Oh, I get it. And now you do know who I am it seems like a good idea to check me out, does it? What do you want? A share of the royalties? A cheque? Well, I’ve got news for you, sweetheart, there’s no cash waiting here for you. Thorne’s legal team have got that all tied up. Jesus!�
� He shakes his head and his lips curl into an ugly sneer. “And to think I ate my fucking heart out over you for years. You’re as bad as the rest of them. You just want cash. Well get in the queue, darling, because that’s all everyone ever wants from me. That or a good story.”

  “I don’t want your money!” I leap to my feet and, hands on hips, glare right back at him. Of all the cheek! He seriously thinks I’ve come here for money? “I’m only here because–”

  I just manage to stop myself in time. If I tell him that I’m only here because his dead brother wants me to pass on a message, he’ll go berserk. Rafe’s wired with the kind of energy that speaks of too little sleep and too much booze, and he’s teetering on the brink of desperation. One tiny shove will send him plummeting over – and then who knows what will happen? I don’t know Rafe Thorne. I never knew Rafe Thorne. He could be violent. He could be dangerous. He could be all manner of things. I’m suddenly very aware of my own vulnerability being alone with this volatile man.

  “He’s drunk,” says Alex bleakly. “There’s no getting through to him when he’s like this, and it’s getting worse. He’s nothing like this when he’s sober. I promise.”

  I’m unconvinced. The Internet was brimming with lurid stories about Rafe Thorne’s behaviour since his brother was killed. I need to leave.

  “So, if you don’t want money then what do you want?” Rafe demands when I don’t rise to his insults. He glares at me; any earlier sympathy I may have felt between us has totally vanished. The violet eyes glitter dangerously. “Come on, Cleo. Don’t hold back. Is it blackmail or have you been paid for a story? Is that it? Are the fucking red tops swarming again?”

  He swallows the drink and reaches for the bottle again. It’s empty, and with a savage and despairing cry, Rafe sweeps it from the table and onto the hearth where it shatters into thousands of lethal pieces. I step back in alarm. The stories of his drinking and black moods haven’t been exaggerated.

  “Get out,” he hisses. “Get out and don’t come back.”

  “I’m so sorry,” says Alex, turning to me. His shoulders sag and he looks utterly defeated. “This was a stupid idea. I’m so sorry I ever involved you.”

  “I’m not sorry I came,” I say.

  “Well you should be,” snarls Rafe. “You should have stayed in the past. I don’t need you and your pity. I don’t need anyone at all. Not anymore. So just remember that.”

  He turns his back on me and I can tell by the way his shoulders tremble that he’s overcome with emotion. Alex stands helplessly beside him and my eyes fill with tears. I know all about grief and anger and shutting yourself away, but until today I never realised quite how much damage all that could do. Suddenly I can’t wait to get away from this place and find my father.

  “I want to help you,” I whisper. And I do, I really do.

  Rafe wheels around to face me. His eyes are colder than the frosty ground outside and his expression is taut. “Get out. I don’t need you here. And help? Christ. How do you possibly think you could help me? You haven’t got a fucking clue. Go on! Get out. You know where the door is.”

  The words are fierce and I flinch. Guilt is eating Rafe Thorne up, devouring him from the inside out like a powerful acid.

  “Get out!” he hollers when I fail to move. “Get out!”

  I don’t wait to be told again. I turn on my heel and flee via the terrace, pausing only to retrieve my rucksack. It’s only when I’m down the path and back on the lane that I realise I’ve left my hat inside the house – and, of course, I left Alex behind too. I’m shaking from head to toe.

  “I did my best, Alex,” I say out loud. My voice is trembling as well. “I tried, OK? So now will you please leave me alone?”

  But there’s no answer, only the calling of the crows in the skeletal trees edging the river; the only sign I’ve even spoken at all are clouds of my breath in the air. Blinking back tears I turn away from the house. I’m determined to leave Rafe Thorne firmly in the past where he belongs.

  Chapter 17

  “Cleo Rose! Come in, come in! What a wonderful surprise!”

  I strongly suspect my father means “shock” rather than “surprise”, as it’s unprecedented for me to show up on his doorstep unannounced like this. To be fair I’m pretty surprised myself: since Mum died I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve made it back to the family home.

  “Sorry to turn up on you at such short notice,” I say, sliding my rucksack from my shoulders as I hop up the two steps into the porch and follow him inside. It smells the same as it always did and my stomach lurches because I still expect to see Mum come striding out of the study, glasses sliding down her nose and gabbling away excitedly about her latest research project. God, this feeling of barbed wire being dragged through my insides is unbearable. How is it that I still feel like this ten years on? Is this what Rafe Thorne feels like all the time?

  No wonder he drinks.

  “Sweetheart, you don’t ever have to apologise. This is your home,” my father says. He takes my rucksack and stows it under the stairs, exactly where I chucked my school bag every weekday afternoon for years. I don’t even need to poke my head into the messy cupboard to know that it will still be full of ancient wellies, old coats hanging like weary bats from pegs, and even the skeleton of an elderly pram – just as I know there’s a hole in the sitting-room carpet just out of sight beneath the hearthrug, and a creaky floorboard at the top of the stairs. This ordinary-looking Victorian terrace in genteel Taply-on-Thames is as much a part of my history as pyramids and grave goods are a part of ancient Egypt’s.

  Is it my home? It doesn’t feel like it, but then nowhere really does. Is home the flat I share with Susie, or is it my office? That’s certainly the place where I feel the knots in my shoulders loosen and where I can always breathe easily – but a home? No, not really. Maybe it’s time to face the fact that at the grand old age of almost thirty I don’t have a home as such. I have letters after my name and I’ve written papers that academics refer to, but apart from those I don’t have much at all. Who would want to drown their sorrows in Jack Daniel’s if Cleo Carpenter fell off the face of the earth?

  Visiting Rafe Thorne has had a very bad effect on me, that’s for sure. Where has all this introspection come from all of a sudden? I have a strong urge to flip my laptop open and get stuck into some work, or maybe call the museum and have a chat with the Prof about my application – Simon should have delivered it by now. If only I’d brought my laptop with me rather than left it behind. While Dad chats away about Tolly’s latest flash car and what antics his GCSE history class have been up to, I sneak a glance at my watch. Four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Hmm. Even the Professor will have gone home by now. Drat. It’ll have to wait.

  “So what brings you here?” My father is asking as, bag and coat safely deposited, we head for the kitchen. “Not that I’m not thrilled to see you,” he adds hastily, just in case I might feel unwanted and take flight. “I’m delighted to see you, darling, but it’s a little out of the blue. I know how busy you’ve been at work.”

  “I’m being haunted by a dead pop star and he wanted me to bring a message to his brother, which I’ve just cocked up in spectacular style. And by the way, this brother just so happens to be a guy I once kissed on a railway platform and have never forgotten,” I say.

  Except I don’t say this. How can I? It would sound totally deranged. It is totally deranged; Dad would think I’d got an even more serious head injury than anyone had realised, and I’d be whipped into the nearest shrink’s office before you could say straightjacket.

  “No reason really,” I shrug, as he fills the kettle. “It was a bit of a last-minute decision.”

  Abruptly, my father stops what he’s doing and spins around to look at me. Water sprays everywhere.

  “What’s going on? Is there something you haven’t told me?” Concern twists his lined face. “Are you sick? Has something happened? Is it the accident?”

 
; He looks so stricken, and I feel awful. Of course Dad’s alarmed. I never, ever do things on the spur of the moment, do I? Or rather, the old Cleo Rose Carpenter never used to. The new me, however, is a little too fond of being impulsive.

  “I’m fine,” I promise him. “I was just in the mood for some time off work.”

  Now my father looks even more worried. It’s fair enough. After all, I am the girl who lay in her hospital bed and demanded her laptop.

  “I’ve just finished the Aamon project and applied for the position of Assistant Director of the department, so things will be pretty quiet for a few days,” I explain as I fetch a tea towel and steer him to a seat at the kitchen table. While I mop up the water and busy myself with making tea, I explain that I was owed a couple of days off work and wanted to catch up with some old friends. If my father is stunned to learn that I have any old friends in Taply then he keeps it to himself, but the look on his face speaks volumes. I’d bet all my qualifications that the minute I’m out of earshot he’ll be on the phone to my brother to discuss my weird behaviour. Thank goodness he doesn’t know the half of it.

  The PG tips still live in the tartan tin in the cupboard above the sink, and it’s frightening how easily the old routines return to me. I locate the mugs, teaspoons and biscuits as though my brain is on autopilot. Any minute now my mother will emerge from her study, screw up her nose at the builder’s tea and start hunting for the Earl Grey. Despite being a woman who could find long-lost artefacts, she was regularly defeated by the layout of her own kitchen. It was just as well she had Dad on hand. Suddenly her absence feels as ragged and as raw as it did the day she died, and panic starts to claw at my chest. My God, I really do understand why Rafe Thorne is drinking. If somebody came along and offered me a whiskey right now I think I’d down it in one.

  Since my earlier flight from Mellisande, Rafe Thorne has been haunting my thoughts every bit as effectively as his brother has been haunting my day-to-day existence. I’d sprinted up the lane with Rafe’s bitter words still ringing in my ears, humiliated by the way he’d spoken to me and for mistakenly thinking he was hurt. Had there been a part of me that had been secretly hoping he’d be over the moon to see me again? Was that what had come of sharing a flat with a girl who owned a mountain of pink novels? I must have absorbed Susie’s romantic streak by osmosis or something.