Dead Romantic Read online

  “For your information I have driven a member of a girl band in that car, and she shrieked all the way to the O2. Maybe not a Pussycat Doll, but still. You, Cleo Carpenter, are much harder to impress.”

  Rafe wants to impress me?

  “Don’t look so taken aback. I’m not a completely lost case,” he says, hands still on my shoulders. “I’m mortified by how I behaved on Sunday and I’ve been kicking myself. I mean, what kind of moron waits ten years to see a woman and then balls it up in such style when she finally arrives? I wanted to make it up to you.”

  “By driving like a maniac in a red phallic symbol?”

  He releases my shoulders and raises his hands in surrender. “Put like that, it sounds bloody ridiculous.”

  I smile at him. I can’t help it. Behind the hair he’s pushing away from his face, he’s blushing. That’s really endearing.

  “Hey, you’re a pop star. It comes with the territory,” I tell him.

  Rafe raises his eyebrows. “What? Behaving like a knob? I think I’ve been in the industry too long. I knew I’d turn into tosser if I didn’t get out.” He pauses and the smile slides from his face. It feels a bit like the sun has slipped behind a cloud.

  “I should have listened to you,” Alex interrupts, at his brother’s side now and sounding frantic. “You were right,” he continues, even though Rafe can’t hear him. “We did need to have some time out, and we were behaving like spoilt brats. Jesus, I even did that spoilt rock-star thing where I could only have certain candles and linen in my fucking dressing room! Me! A kid from a council estate in Hayes! You were right, Rafe, and I was wrong!” He turns to me, wide eyed. “Tell, him, Cleo! Tell him that I don’t blame him for any of it and I want him to carry on writing. I want him to have his life back – we shouldn’t have both stopped living that day.”

  But how can I say all this? I’ll sound like a maniac. Somehow I will broach the subject, but it will be when I think the time is right.

  “Anyway, it’s getting chilly out here.” Rafe turns the collar of his coat up and gestures towards the house. “Let’s warm up inside and I’ll show you why I wanted you to come over.”

  Leaving Alex shaking his head in despair, I follow Rafe up the worn stone steps and into an entrance hall with a high vaulted roof crisscrossed with huge beams. There’s a tense atmosphere, as though the building is holding its breath to see what kind of mood its owner is in today.

  Rafe lobs his keys onto a table; the rattle echoes around the empty space. Dust falls through the air, dancing in the beams of sunshine that filter through the leaded windows. And yet I know we're not alone. Up in the minstrels’ gallery there’s a swish of velvet skirts, and from the corner of my eye I spot a portly figure in a ruff, who waves at me cheerily.

  “Ignore them,” says Alex, now at my shoulder. “They don’t need you. They like it here – that’s why they’ve stayed. That’s Sir Henry. He built the place, and he’s always about. He’s as sick of Rafe’s moping as I am; says the house is going to rack and ruin.”

  “It’s too big and dusty in here.” Rafe gives me an apologetic look as I follow him through the hall and down a passageway. The house is freezing and the doors to most of the rooms are closed. It doesn’t feel at all like a home. This is a house built to hold a large and noisy family, a house where voices should ring, fires should blaze and wonderful parties should be held for guests to dance until midnight. It’s no place for a grieving man to live alone, and I’m not surprised Rafe’s hit the bottle.

  “I bought it as an investment,” he continues as we progress towards what looks like a dead end. “Thorne were making a fortune and I knew I had to do something with the money.”

  “There are only so many phallic symbols a guy can drive,” I agree, and he laughs.

  Rafe has a nice laugh; it’s warm and infectious. It’s a shame he doesn’t use it more often. I guess he hasn’t had much to laugh about lately.

  “Yeah, and hot tubs full of famous models soon get so boring! I know it isn’t very rock and roll, but our Nan always said that bricks and mortar never let you down. I wanted to buy her council house for her, but Nan wouldn’t hear of it – she was a dyed-in-the-wool socialist – so instead I splurged on this place.” Rafe shrugs. “Aren’t Thames-side mansions the stuff of rock-star dreams? Jagger had one in Richmond and a couple of Beatles have had places near here too, or so the estate agent told me. So here I am, although I rattle around in it a bit. Natasha had big design plans for it, but those vanished about the same time she did. I haven’t had the inclination to do much with it since I bought it.”

  We’re at the end of the corridor now and the gloom is so deep that even though it’s a sunny day outside the thick stone walls, it feels as though it’s the middle of the night. I try to imagine living here alone, and fail. Suddenly I have a real longing to be back in the flat and surrounded by Susie’s clutter and noise.

  “This is the one room I did do up,” Rafe announces as he throws open a door at the end of the corridor. “It’s one of the few rooms I use, although until Monday I hadn’t been in here for over a year.”

  He stands back and beckons me to step past. I follow him into a long room with tall windows that open onto the green banks of the Thames and the glittering river beyond; they’re curtained outside by ivy, which blows gently in the wind. As Rafe steps aside and I cross the threshold I can’t help gasping, not because of the stunning view but because I’ve been abruptly transported from a neglected medieval manor house to a state-of-the-art studio that wouldn’t be out of place in the nerve centre of an LA recording company. There’s a huge sound booth, complete with giant microphones dangling from the ceiling, banks and banks of computers and complex-looking switches, and all kinds of instruments lined up in readiness for somebody to pick them up and play. There are also several squashy black sofas, dotted with sheets of manuscript paper that are scrawled with notes and lyrics in a sloping spidery hand. Half-empty coffee cups are lined up on the low-slung coffee table and there’s an overflowing ashtray balanced on the arm of one of the leather sofas.

  “Horrible habit,” Rafe sighs, seeing me look at this. Striding across the room, he picks up the ashtray and tips the contents into a bin. “It’s weird, but I only ever smoke when I’m writing. Half the time I don’t even notice I’m doing it. Alex always said it was a throwback to being a teenager and hanging out in the garage with the gang.”

  I glance across the room at Alex, who’s been checking out the mixing desk.

  “He’s been writing!” Alex cries, punching the air and in his excitement sending a sheaf of papers fluttering to the ground. “Yes!”

  “I’ll shut the door. It’s bloody cold in here,” Rafe says, scooping up the music and then kicking the door closed with his scuffed Timberland boot. “That’s some draught, too. Have a seat, Cleo. There’s something I have to show you, or rather play you.”

  Rafe seats himself in a swivel chair and begins switching on the computers, opening programs and sliding dials on the mixing desk. Intrigued, I sink into the nearest sofa and curl my legs under me, while Alex perches on the arm and rests his ankle over his knee.

  “After we had coffee I came straight here,” Rafe tells me. His face is bright with the glow of the monitors and that barely contained excitement from earlier. “I didn’t leave the studio for three days. I’ve slept here, drunk gallons of coffee and spent the whole time working.” As he sets up whatever it is that he’s doing, there’s an intensity to him that makes the hairs stir on my forearms. His dark hair falls across his face and he pushes it back impatiently, his attention trained on the recording equipment. “I had a line of music running through my mind and I had to get it down. First of all I picked it out on the keyboard, then I added in a guitar rift and finally I started to hear the lyrics. I played and I wrote and I added and then suddenly nearly three days had gone by. It was like being in a dream.”

  Wow. I’m a girl who’s often accused of being obsessed with her work, but
even I haven’t stayed in the office for almost seventy-two hours. I’m impressed.

  “That’s amazing,” I say.

  Rafe spins around on his chair with such speed it’s a miracle he doesn’t get whiplash.

  “Cleo, it’s more than amazing. It’s mind-blowing. I haven’t written a decent word since Alex died. I’ve wanted to – Christ, I’ve tried enough times – but it was like my ability to write had died with him. That was my punishment for what happened.”

  “Rafe, what happened to Alex wasn’t your fault. It was an accident: a horrible, senseless accident. You didn’t deserve to be punished for it.”

  A muscle tightens in his cheek. “You really think so?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I think!”

  “Yeah, you and my shrinks, but that wasn’t how it bloody felt. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the accident play out over and over again. In my dreams I try to get out of the car and pull him back to safety but I’m always a fraction too late. My fingertips slip from his jacket or I trip, or he’s just too goddamn far away. Then I hear the screaming of brakes and the thud of a body against metal and I wake up. I can never, ever save him.”

  “You couldn’t save me, fam,” Alex says. “It was impossible. Nobody could have. It was an accident.”

  But of course Rafe can’t hear his brother. “I wanted to write about it,” he continues. “That’s always been my way of working things through, but it was like a tap had been turned off. No matter how hard I tried the words wouldn’t come and I couldn’t hear the music anymore. So I started to drink.”

  He pauses and I don’t say anything. What can I say? I lost Mum and I coped with it by working. How would I have managed if even solace that had been taken away?

  “I went a bit crazy maybe,” Rafe continues. His voice is low and filled with sadness. “I even started travelling up to where he died and just sitting there, outside the Tube station, trying to feel close to him. I haunted that place for days. Shit, months even. I was obsessed.”

  I don’t know what to say so I sit quietly and attentively, sensing that he wants to talk now. Maybe he’s wanted to talk for a long time but has never found anyone who’ll just listen.

  Rafe exhales. “It was pointless. I didn’t get any message from him so I hit the bottle even harder – and the rest, well, the rest you probably know. I’m not proud of it. One stint in rehab followed by a phase of spilling my guts to the press, and the next thing I know my agent’s on the phone saying they want me to be a mentor on one of the big TV talent shows. Cleo, I was in such a state I couldn’t even tell you what one it was or what country it was based in. It could have been The X Factor on bloody Mars for all I knew.”

  I don’t watch reality TV but even I’ve heard of The X Factor. Susie’s normally glued to it; last year she ran up a monstrous phone bill voting for her favourite act. I think she’d have said something if Rafe Thorne had been a mentor on the show though, so I’m presuming he didn’t take the job.

  “What happened?”

  “I turned it down. I’d lost my brother and I’d lost my gift.” His voice cracks. “What use would I have been? I couldn’t play. I couldn’t write a word. I couldn’t hear a note. I was finished in every way a person could be. Knowing Alex died hating me is unbearable. How could I ever write again knowing that?”

  Alex turns to me, urgency etched into his face. “Cleo, please! You have to speak to Rafe,” he begs. “I know this isn’t easy for you but, please, you’ve got to tell him I never once hated him. I thought he was being a total cock and I was furious, but I never hated him.”

  I can’t refuse. No matter what it may cost me in terms of looking sane, I know that this message is more important than my own feelings. Gathering up my courage, I take the plunge.

  “Your brother didn’t die hating you, Rafe,” I say gently. “I’m sure he’d be upset to think you believed that.”

  “Too right,” agrees Alex. He’s standing next to his brother now and Rafe shivers.

  “I think somebody just walked over my grave,” Rafe says with a bleak half-smile.

  I don’t smile back. “What happened to your brother was an accident. It wasn’t your fault, Rafe. People argue all the time; it was just really bad luck. I’m sure if Alex was in the room with us right now he’d say exactly the same thing.”

  “Please listen to her,” Alex insists, so close to his brother that their eyeballs are practically touching.

  But Rafe can’t hear him. “Much as I’d love to think you’re right, you weren’t there. We said some pretty ugly things to one another. I told him if he stepped out of the car then he could forget that we were brothers. I said–” His voice breaks. “I said he’d be dead to me.”

  What can I add to this? Any comfort I try to offer will just sound like a platitude.

  “I couldn’t write, I couldn’t think, I could hardly get out of bed in the morning,” Rafe finishes quietly. “Sometimes I had the bleakest thoughts – so bleak that they scared me. There didn’t seem to be any point in going on. Alex was dead, Nan was dead and I couldn’t write, so why bother?”

  I’d felt like this after Mum died. Often I’d lain in my narrow bed in the university accommodation block watching the ceiling fan whirling round and round in endless circles, wondering how I would ever summon the energy to drag myself into a sitting position, let alone get showered and dressed and off to the dig. The traffic would buzz outside the thin walls and the sunlight coming through the blinds would tiger the walls, glancing off the white plaster and making my eyes ache. The lightweight cotton sheet had felt leaden across my legs, and the effort required to move it had seemed too much to contemplate, let alone execute. Only knowing that somewhere out beyond the city, buried deep beneath the shifting desert sands, slumbered secrets that my grandmother had longed to uncover had prompted me to move. If it hadn’t been for my work, who knows what might have happened?

  Our eyes meet and there’s a jolt of mutual understanding.

  “I’ve been there,” I whisper.

  Rafe leans into the leather back of his chair, which creaks in sympathy.

  “I haven’t written a note, haven’t composed a lyric, since Ally died,” he continues quietly. Then, rising to his feet, he fetches a guitar. He hesitates for a moment. His hands stroke the instrument tentatively, before he glances at me, smiles shyly and starts to strum. A flurry of melodies fills the room.

  Eventually, the music ceases and he lifts his gaze back to my face.

  “Then I meet you again,” Rafe says, “and it’s like something in me has been unlocked. I can’t explain it but suddenly there was this tune in my head, where before there’d been nothing but silence. Almost before I knew what I was doing I was opening up this room and picking up instruments I hadn’t touched for ages.”

  He’s smiling as he speaks, but as much as this lights his face it also highlights the exhaustion and strain he’s been under.

  “And once you started you found that you couldn’t step away,” I finish, because I understand completely. After all, how many times have I worked into the small hours or been chased out of my office by the morning cleaners?

  Rafe nods slowly. “You’ve got it. I had to write. I couldn’t not write, and I certainly couldn’t stop until I’d nailed the final note and scrawled the last word onto the manuscript.” He looks down at his notes and then back at me, bashfully and through the thick locks of hair that fall across his face. “This probably sounds crazy, but I think it’s been meeting you again that’s been the key.”

  “Of course it is!” Alex cries, but I’m not convinced. I met Rafe Thorne a long, long time ago and when we were two very different people. I’m not into music and I can’t really see myself as some kind of muse.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing to do with me,” I say.

  But Rafe shakes his head. “It has everything to do with meeting you again.”

  “It certainly does,” Alex agrees. Turning to me he adds, “See, Cleo? I told you that
you were the key to it all.”

  I’m totally confused. None of this makes any sense. Actually, nothing’s made any sense since I hurt my head all those weeks ago. If this were one of Susie’s chick-lit books I’d wake up in hospital soon and find that it had all been a dream.

  “You’ve made me realise that maybe, just maybe, my brother could forgive me after all,” Rafe says quietly. “I know it’s a cliché, like something from one of those stupid psychic shows, but I think meeting you is a message from Ally.”

  “Eureka! Now I know how Archimedes felt!” cries Alex, slapping his forehead and leaping around the studio like a demented creature. Sheaves of notes and manuscript paper flutter to the floor, but Rafe is far too busy studying my face for a reaction to notice the strange breeze that’s come from nowhere.

  “You probably think that sounds insane, don’t you?” he asks.

  Prior to my accident this is definitely what I would have thought. Today, though, life has a very different complexion.

  “This will probably sound absolutely crazy,” Rafe continues, putting the guitar down and sitting back in his chair. “Cleo, you have every right to get up and walk out of here and write me off as a lunatic, but there was an interview a few years ago in Music Mad where I was talking about the song I wrote about you.”

  “The Christmas one?” My heart does a crazy fluttery thing. It seems I no longer find that song as mournful or as irritating as I once did.

  Rafe scoots his chair across the room until he’s facing me. Leaning forward, he takes my hands in his. “That’s the one. I poured my heart and soul into that one, Christmas Girl.”

  His hands are cool and strong, and his long musician’s fingers lace with mine. Has the drum machine got a life of its own, or is that my heartbeat thrumming in my ears?

  “So what was the interview about?” I ask, desperate to try and sound normal. I fail: I sound like Orville.

  “You.” Rafe is still holding my hands in his. “I can’t remember it all exactly, but at the end Alex said something about finding you for me if he could.” He shrugs. “Do you know, I haven’t thought about that interview for years, but that afternoon when you and I had coffee I came home and found that exact issue lying face up in the kitchen. I can’t understand how it came to be there. I didn’t even know I still had it.”