Dead Romantic Read online

  I think I need more than rest if I’m having long conversations with imaginary men.

  “The false memories are a symptom of the concussion,” my brother continues smugly. “The doctors have told us all about it. Confusion is to be expected, they said.”

  Tolly’s lucky I’m bedbound, otherwise I’d probably bop him on the nose. Then he could see for himself just how confusing a head injury is.

  I close my eyes wearily. I know what I saw. Only minutes ago Alex Thorne was sitting on my bed and chatting to me, every bit as real as my family or the busy nurses.

  “He was here,” I insist. “I really did see him.”

  Dad drops a kiss onto my forehead.

  “Try to get some sleep, Cleo,” he says softly. “Things are bound to be a bit confused. You just need to rest.”

  I’m too weary to keep arguing but I know I’m not confused. Alex Thorne was here sitting on my bed and he was with me when I had my accident. It’s not my memory that’s the issue here – it’s everybody else’s! I know what I saw.

  What on earth is going on?

  Chapter 6

  I’ve had it with hospitals. I want my life back. I’m through with people clucking round me, shining lights in my eyes and telling me I need to rest a bit more. How can I possibly rest when I’m so behind with my work? I’ve spent the last few days begging Dad to bring in my laptop but I may as well be talking to the wall.

  I need my work. Don’t they get it? I’m going mad in here with nothing to do except watch endless property shows and flipping Christmas adverts on daytime TV. If I don’t escape soon I’ll be forced to take knitting lessons from the old lady in the bed next to me. Seriously, does she ever give up? All day and half the night she’s been at it, clicking away with those infuriating needles until the tapping seems to be right inside my skull. I keep asking the nurses if they can get her to stop but they don’t seem worried, preferring to take my pulse or tend to the rest of the patients. They’ve completely ignored her, poor old soul. It’s just as well I’m here to chat to her. I guess Susie was right when she once told me that there’s no time to care in the caring profession.

  Where is Susie, anyway? She’s supposed to be coming over, hopefully to take me home if I can find someone to discharge me.

  “Are you all right, pet?” asks Knitting Lady, peering at me over a tangle of cat-sick-yellow wool. “You look at bit peaky.”

  “I’m fine, just a bit tired.”

  I can’t really tell her I’m exhausted from listening to her clicking needles all night and I certainly can’t mention how I keep seeing things out of the corner of my eyes. If the doctors get so much of a whiff that I’m having visions they’ll never let me out, and so far I’ve done a sterling job of pretending I feel fine. I’ve even laughed off thinking I saw a man at the foot of my bed when I woke up. “Ha! Ha! As if!”, “In my dreams!”, “I should be so lucky!” etc., etc., which I think has just about convinced them.

  But Alex was so real, just as real as Knitting Lady smiling at me over her needles or as the elderly doctor who walks up and down the ward all day and night, only pausing to pore over the charts that hang on the foot of each bed.

  “Excuse me!” I call. “Can you discharge me?”

  But the doctor ignores me, as he has done for every lap of the ward. Charming.

  “Don’t mind him, dear,” Knitting Lady sighs. “He doesn’t mean to be rude. He’s obsessed with making sure he doesn’t miss anything important. It worries him that he could make another mistake.”

  “It worries me I might be stuck here forever,” I mutter.

  “There are worse places,” she smiles.

  I’m sure she’s right but I’ve got so much work to do. I managed to get Susie to liberate my laptop, so that’s something. Simon’s phoned twice and updated me on the preparations for the exhibition and offered to come and visit too. I haven’t taken him up on this; I may have had a wallop on the head but the memory of him seeing me in my red and white spotty pants is mortifyingly fresh. Where’s a nice spot of amnesia when a girl needs it?

  “Cleo, babes! How are you feeling?”

  It’s Susie, stomping across the ward in platform boots.

  “I feel much better,” I tell her. “I’m hoping to go home today.”

  Susie’s brow crinkles. “Is that a good idea? You’ve had–”

  “I know, I know; a really nasty bump on the head. But I’m going crazy in here, Suse! I need to get home. There’s only so much daytime telly a girl can watch.”

  “There is?” Susie looks amazed, but then she would. Phil, Holly and Jeremy Kyle are practically her best friends.

  “Suse, do me a favour?” I say, leaning across to my bedside cupboard and delving for my clothes. “While I get dressed would you be an angel and grab that old doctor for me? I’ve been calling him for ages but he keeps ignoring me. I think he’s a bit deaf actually.”

  “What doctor?” Susie screws up her eyes and scans the room. I wish she’d stop being so vain and admit she needs glasses. Not only is her short-sightedness bloody annoying but it also makes driving with her a hair-raising experience on a par with anything offered at Alton Towers.

  “He’s over there at the end of the ward, by the nurses’ station?”

  Susie shakes her head. “Where?”

  “She can’t see him, dear,” pipes up Knitting Lady.

  “Susie needs glasses,” I sigh. “But that doctor does too because he’s ignored me all morning.”

  Susie whips round. “What did you say?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you; I was talking to her,” I say, nodding at my fellow patient.

  “Who?”

  Blimey, I hadn’t realised just how bad Susie’s eyes have got. Once I’m better I’m dragging her down to Specsavers because this is ridiculous.

  “The lady next to me? Bloody hell, Suse, you need to sort your eyes out. Especially,” I lower my voice, “if you can’t see that bright yellow wool!”

  “I can’t see her, Cleo,” says Susie slowly, “because there’s nobody there. The bed’s empty.”

  Click, click, click go the needles. Knitting Lady shrugs. “They can’t all see us, dear. You must have the gift.”

  “I don’t have a gift! I just have good eyesight!” I snap. “Stop messing about, Suse.”

  Susie is staring at me with eyes like saucers. “Shall I get a doctor, Cleo? Does your head hurt?”

  “No!” I snap. “But you’re doing it in! Stop winding me up; it isn’t funny.”

  “Babes, I’m seriously not winding you up. You’re scaring me.” Susie plops herself onto the bed and lays the back of her hand against my forehead. “There’s nobody in that bed. Honestly.”

  Shaking off her hand I open my mouth to apologise to Knitting Lady – and then close it abruptly.

  The bed’s empty. The skeins of eye-wateringly loud wool are nowhere to be seen and the overblown roses that have been dropping petals on the floor have gone. The sheets are tucked tightly against the bed and the pillows are plumped in readiness for the next poorly head.

  Oh dear Lord. I’ve lost it.

  “Head trauma is a serious thing.” Susie is in nurse mode now. “You may well experience changes in smell and vision.”

  Changes in smell and vision I could handle. Having conversations with imaginary people I cannot.

  “But she was knitting all night! She drove me mad!”

  “Hallucinations,” says Susie wisely. “It’s not uncommon.”

  Hallucinations of knitting grannies? I work with mummies, for goodness’ sake. Couldn’t I hallucinate something a bit more exciting, like a chat with Tutankhamun? No, there has to be a rational explanation. There’s always a rational explanation for these things, isn’t there? Maybe she slipped out of bed and the nurses tidied up while I wasn’t paying attention?

  “Bollocks,” says Susie bluntly when I offer this explanation. “Total bollocks. Your mind’s playing tricks on you, babes. It’s not unusual after a h
ead injury.”

  “My mind doesn’t play tricks,” I say through gritted teeth. “My mind is rational. I have a PhD. I publish in academic journals. I do not imagine things. Ever.”

  Susie holds up her hands. “OK! OK! Don’t get upset; it isn’t good for you.”

  I swing my legs out of bed. “I’m going to settle this right now. Then we’ll see whether or not I’m hallucinating.”

  My feet touch the floor – which is a little sticky actually, a detail that would send Tolly into orbit – and suddenly I feel very weird. The room rocks like a Tube train passing a bumpy bit of track and I sway before Susie clutches my elbow in alarm.

  “Take it easy!”

  “Yes, take it easy,” echoes a nurse, shoes squeaking on the floor as she scuttles across the ward to propel me back into bed. “We’re not ready to get up yet! What are we thinking?”

  If I didn’t feel so sick I’d tell her I’m twenty-nine, not nine, but unfortunately I’m too busy retching into a kidney bowl to say anything. Several doctors and bowls of vomit later, I’m safely back in bed and pinned beneath the stiff sheets like one of my mummies.

  OK. Maybe I’m not as well as I thought I was.

  “Be a good girl and stay in bed,” says the nurse firmly, opening the curtains and revealing that the bed next door is indeed empty. “You need to rest.”

  I close my eyes in defeat. I’m seeing things – so it’s a shrink I need, not rest. If, that is, I was seeing things? Maybe my accident has bumped the bit of my brain that processes space and time? That’s likely, isn’t it?

  “What about the old lady in the bed next to me?” I ask. “Where’s she gone?”

  I open my eyes again, just in time to see Susie and the nurse exchange a look.

  “Babes,” Susie says gently, “I already told you: the bed was empty.”

  “But I saw her! I was talking to her!” I turn to the nurse in desperation. “You must know who I mean? She’s an old lady? Talks a lot? And she knits non-stop? Those clicking needles were driving me mad, actually, because she knits all night.”

  The nurse looks surprised. “Why, that sounds just like Mrs Collins. She knitted all the time with the brightest yellow wool I’d ever seen.”

  “That’s her! The wool was gross! I told you, Suse, I’ve been talking to her for days.” Relieved beyond belief I turn back to the nurse. “Have you moved her? Where’s she gone?”

  “I don’t know how to tell you this,” the nurse says slowly. “It’s going to be something of a shock.”

  I think I know what’s coming but it won’t shock me. I’m the girl who spends every working minute thinking about the deceased. OK, so they’re thousands of years dead rather than minutes, but it’s the same thing. A chemical process in the brain stops and the body ceases to function. It’s all perfectly natural and, although unbearably sad for those left behind, nothing to be frightened of.

  “She died, didn’t she?” I say. I touch my stitches tentatively and smile. “I’m starting to realise just how much of an injury I’ve had. Don’t worry, I won’t freak out. I guess I just got a bit muddled with when things were happening.”

  But the nurse has turned very pale. “Mrs Collins did die but it wasn’t today.”

  I must be more muddled than I thought. “Was it yesterday?”

  She shakes her head. “Mrs Collins didn’t die yesterday. She died three weeks ago and in that very bed. There’s no way that you could have met her, no way at all.”

  Susie’s mouth is hanging open. “A ghost?”

  The nurse shrugs. “A lot of nurses see things in hospitals. The night staff often say they see old Dr Andrews. He gave a patient the wrong drugs and killed her by mistake. He couldn’t cope with the guilt so he hanged himself in the locker room.”

  Susie’s hand flies to her mouth. “How tragic!”

  “They say he walks up and down the wards checking the charts, just to make sure no one makes the same mistakes that he did,” finishes the nurse. “Poor man. Doomed to haunt the NHS for all eternity.”

  My hands are gripping the metal bed frame. If my stomach wasn’t so empty I think I’d vomit again.

  I don’t believe in ghosts! It’s all rubbish. Ghosts are for the credulous and the uneducated; they’re just tales to add excitement to boring lives or add atmosphere to stately homes. Ghosts don’t exist and I don’t believe in spirits or spooks of any description. Full stop.

  There’s no such thing as ghosts!

  So in that case what on earth is happening to me?

  And who or what is Alex Thorne?

  Chapter 7

  “Are you sure you’ll be all right?” worries Susie, tucking the duvet round me and handing over the remote control. “I don’t like leaving you on your own when you’ve been so poorly.”

  I laugh. “I’ll be fine. I’ll just sit here and watch telly. I might even have a lovely hot bath.”

  Susie looks worried. “I’m not sure having a bath’s a good idea. What if you pass out or something? You only came out of hospital this morning. Maybe I should cancel my shift and stay in with you?”

  “Don’t be silly. I was there for over two weeks. They wouldn’t have let me out if there was anything to worry about, would they?”

  The last thing I need is Susie flapping around like a mother hen. All I want to do is flip open my laptop, hook up to the Internet and get stuck in to some work, which definitely won’t happen if Susie stays in. I’ll be doomed to an evening goggling at drivel like Totally Spooked while she watches me carefully for signs of head trauma. As if anyone who watches and believes in Totally Spooked is in a position to comment on my head trauma!

  “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.