Dead Romantic (11 page)

Or at least, he wouldn’t have done before my accident.

“I really do care about you, Cleo,” Simon says, turning and heading for the door. “Just be kind to yourself and get well, please. Your career isn’t nearly as important as your health.”

My head’s pounding. Alex, hands on hips, is looking at me expectantly while Aamon stands behind Simon pulling faces and sticking his tongue out. Suddenly all the anger and fight drains from me and I slump at my desk feeling dangerously close to tears. Oh God, what if Simon’s right and I’m really not well? The evidence is right in front of me, isn’t it? I’m seeing things that can’t possibly exist. In despair, I bury my face in my hands.

“I’m still applying, Simon,” I whisper, my eyes still closed and my temples thudding. “I’m still applying.”

“Then it’s up to you, Cleo. But you know how I feel. You’re unwell and clearly not up to the job. And believe me, if Professor Hamilton and the board ask for my opinion, that’s exactly what I shall be telling them.”

The door clicks shut. When I raise my face again Simon has gone, our lunch date evidently off the agenda, and so have Alex and all the others. The office is suddenly very quiet.

I sit at my desk, all alone, and wonder whether Simon’s right after all. Am I really going mad?

Chapter 11

When Dante was writing his “Inferno” he was careful to include only nine circles of hell. For his readers’ sake, he decided to leave out the tenth and the most terrifying circle of all. Forget pits of fire and demons armed with pitchforks; those are nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the hell that is shopping in the West End on a Saturday during the lead-up to Christmas.

Honestly, I must have had a bigger bump on the head than I realised to have agreed to go shopping in Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon in early December. What was I thinking? I can’t stand shopping at the best of times, and if I do have to buy something then it’s preferably first thing in the morning and on a weekday. It just goes to show how persuasive Susie can be that I’m now squashed onto the Tube, roasting inside my thick duffle coat and with my face rammed into a stranger’s armpit as we wait in the dark tunnel for the signal change. Down here in the city’s intestines nobody can hear you scream; I’ve got no choice but to wait it out.

Susie was rather surprised when I called her earlier to say I was on my way. She wasn’t the only one: I was just as astonished as she was. Normally I’d have made an excuse about being busy with work, so that I could keep myself hidden away in the museum – miles away from fairy lights, crowds and Slade telling me Christmas is here.

But these are not normal times and the problem is that my office isn’t a peaceful haven anymore. Far from it. Since yesterday the delusions have only got worse. I could swear that there are people with me in my office all the time. I hear them and see them so vividly that I have to keep reminding myself that they aren’t real. The place has been so busy that it’s made Oxford Street look like a quieter option.

After Friday morning’s events I’d gone home via the GP, picked up a new prescription, taken a couple of tablets and headed straight to bed. Before I’d drifted off to sleep everything had seemed fairly ordinary. Alex had vanished, the only feline following me was Susie’s cat Freddie, and Aamon was nowhere to be seen. Simon was right: I was working too hard and the stresses of my job combined with my head injury were playing tricks on me. OK, so these weren’t textbook episodes I’d been experiencing – my trawls of Google had yet to produce anything as crazy as seeing phantoms and having conversations with them – but every head trauma was different and individuals were affected in their own strange and unique ways. Still, unless I got a grip soon I would be jeopardising my career. That was not going to happen.

Anyway, I’d woken up early this morning – long before Susie, who was still sleeping off a heavy night’s clubbing – and the world had still looked reassuringly normal. There were no signs of Alex, Egyptian cats or long-dead boy pharaohs, and in the bright winter sunshine I was able to laugh at myself. Of course there were no signs of these things, because they didn’t exist! There was bound to be some medical explanation, I’d decided firmly as I’d left the flat. I’d probably watched a movie years ago and been replaying scenes in my mind. The brain was more powerful than any computer and capable of pulling all sorts of stunts. By the time I’d picked up a coffee from the little shop opposite the museum, crossed the road and made my way though the first wave of keen Saturday visitors, I’d been feeling even more optimistic. A good night’s sleep had been all I’d needed.

I’d walked through the entrance hall, waving at a couple of the security guys and calling out a cheerful hello to the gift-shop crew before scooting through the Ancient World Gallery just to check on the new exhibits. Nobody else from the department was around, which was a relief; I wasn’t sure I was up to facing Simon yet. Not only was he knicker-meltingly gorgeous (God, I was starting to sound like Susie), but he now thought I was a complete nutcase. I was also trying very hard to forget that he’d seen my underwear. Twice.

In any case, when I’d let myself into my office I’d been thinking of Simon and quite how I was going to redeem myself. I’d booted up my computer, fetched my notes and been about to sit down at my desk and get stuck in, when seemingly out of nowhere a cat had jumped right in front of me, purring loudly and spilling my latte all over my folder. Moments later Aamon had whizzed past with Henry Wellby hard on his heels and the rubber-band ball ricocheting off the walls. I’d clutched the desk in disbelief, shaking my head as though trying to clear water from my ears. Then I’d pinched myself so hard I’d yelped. If pain was proof that I was awake, then the livid marks on my arm were all I needed to tell me that this was not a hallucination. It wouldn’t make any difference how many tablets I swallowed now: this was not going away. Alex’s parting words were suddenly terrifying. “If you can see me,” he’d said, “you’ll see all the others too – and they might not be quite as obliging as I am.”

Oh my God. What if it was only going to get worse? Apart from never being able to get any work done, I’d go mad. With a cry of despair I’d fled from the office and out of the museum. Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be in the crowds of Oxford Street, listening to Susie natter on about her latest romantic adventure and with nothing more pressing to think about than what to eat for lunch. I’d fired off a frantic text to tell her I was on my way to Selfridges, and it was only when I’d found myself in the depths of Museum Tube station, crammed onto a platform with seemingly everybody else in London, that my heart had stopped racing.

Now, as I stand sweating in the fetid recycled Tube-train air and do that Londoner thing of avoiding eye contact with people only millimetres away from me, the panic starts to recede. I’m wondering again if I’ve been imagining everything. Is this some delayed nervous breakdown? Maybe Simon’s right and I’m not up to going for the promotion. The thought of
not
applying is
enough to give me a breakdown, though. I’ve been working for this for just about as long as I can remember. There’s no way I can quit at the final hurdle. I have to find a way of dealing with this. There has to be an explanation.

“Busy, isn’t it?” says Alex cheerfully. He’s pressed up against the door and is grinning at me from beneath his floppy fringe.

What am I saying? Of course he isn’t really leaning against the Tube-train door:
he doesn’t exist.
Alex Thorne is no more present in this Underground train than the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. I ignore him. If I start talking to thin air that makes me the Tube nutter du jour and, as bad as things are, they’re not quite that bad. Yet.

“Still ignoring me?” Alex’s eyes are raised towards the curved ceiling of the train. “It’s getting a bit boring to be honest, Cleo. I thought you were an academic? How much more evidence do I have to give you? I know: look at this poor girl here.” He points at Emo-style student who’s shivering in spite of the heat of the carriage. “Watch what happens!”

Alex steps closer and the girl’s breath clouds as though, rather than being baked alive in an Underground train, she’s out walking on a frosty day. She frowns and plunges her hands into the pockets of her shapeless coat. The man crammed into the space next to her winds his scarf more tightly around his neck and looks puzzled.

“How’s that for physical evidence! Go me!” Alex crows. “Now, what shall I do next to convince you?”

I glare at him but he just grins. “Oh stop it, Cleo. If the wind changes you’ll get stuck. You wanted proof; I’ll give you proof.”

I try to ignore him but I can’t: he’s dancing through the commuters, waving his hands in front of their unsuspecting faces, tweaking scarves and making copies of the
Metro
flutter to the floor. If he wasn’t already dead I could throttle him.

“Tra-da! Only you can see me, Cleo! It’s time you started believing your own eyes.”

Now that he’s finished showing off, Alex saunters back and stands next to me. Instantly the temperature plummets and my skin crawls with goosebumps, just like it did in the flat.

“Feeling chilly?” he says.

“Go away,” I snarl. “I haven’t asked for all this! I don’t want it.”

Alex shrugs. “I don’t think you have any choice in the matter. Like it or not, you’ve got a gift. Look around, if you don’t believe me. All the others know you can see us.”

And just like one of those magic-eye paintings that you stare at for hours until another image takes shape, it becomes apparent to me now that the carriage contains the oddest mixture of people wearing outfits from times gone by. Thirties, forties, fifties, sixties and seventies fashions abound and, although I might be mistaken on this, there’s even an eighties punk; I really don’t think Mohicans are in anymore. All of a sudden the train is full of extra people, superimposed over the rest of the passengers like a bad Photoshop job or something from a Hollywood thriller. Bruce Willis will wander by in a moment with some weird kid who sees dead people.

“Why is an American GI winking at me from across the carriage?” I demand, giving the tall man with the roving eye my best killer glare.

“Oh that’s just Hank,” Alex says airily, following my gaze. “He was killed in a bombing raid in the forties. He could move on but he likes it here. He’s pretty harmless but you do need to watch him. For all his sweet talk about stockings and cigarettes he loves to ride the Tube and perv at the girls. He reckons it’s easier to peer down their tops when they can’t see him.” He smirks. “He could be right!”

I’m outraged. “That’s disgusting! He’s dead!”

Alex winks. “I think one vital part of Hank believes it’s very much alive!”

“Well, he should know better,” I say primly. “Whether or not they can see him is irrelevant. That’s harassment!”

Alex’s green eyes glitter with mirth. “Cut the guy some slack, Cleo. He’s from the 1940s. Political correctness hadn’t been invented then. Besides, it gets a bit boring down here sometimes too. He needs to get his fun somehow!”

“Well,
you
should know better,” I huff, looking over at Hank, who’s admiring the ample chest of an oblivious commuter. “You’re from a post-feminist era and he isn’t. Women aren’t just objects, you know. We’re doctors and scientists and lawyers and…”

“Egyptologists?” Alex offers, looking amused. “Anyway, who says we’re all post-feminists? Tell that to the Thorne groupies when Rafe and I were fighting them off, or not! Oh come on, Cleo, lighten up. I’m kidding! Where’s your sense of humour?”

“It vanished about the same time you showed up,” I mutter.

We are not having this conversation for a second longer. I can’t believe I’m on a Tube train having a discussion about equal rights with a figment of my imagination. Aware that people near me are starting to look edgy, I make a big show of pretending to be talking into my mobile, the effect of which is marred slightly by the fact that I’m goodness knows how many feet under London, where there’s no signal. Marvellous. I probably look like even more of a lunatic now. Fortunately at this point the train starts to move; we all stagger forwards. Briefly, the lights flicker off – and when they come back up, Alex and all the others have vanished. If, of course, they were ever really there to start with.

By the time the train pulls in and everyone surges up the escalator I’m feeling utterly defeated. Emerging into the magic of the West End in the festive season doesn’t improve my state of mind, no matter how much the shop windows glitter and promise Christmas day cuddled up in tartan pyjamas or fun evenings partying in a new sparkly frock. I take extra care crossing the road this time, because God only knows what damage a second bump on the head will do; I’ll probably start seeing Godzilla or something. As I’m negotiating my way, I’m starting to think that meeting Susie for a coffee is a mistake. I could do with a real drink instead.

Great. Now Alex bloody Thorne is driving me to alcohol as well as round the twist.

Selfridges is brimming with shoppers. Tills ring, carols play and there’s a sense of excitement in the air. Feeling about as full of festive cheer as Scrooge would if he were asked to stuff a turkey and then charged for the privilege, I elbow my way through the crowds of women gawking at handbags, stomp past the Jo Malone collection of fragranced products and slalom through the cosmetics before riding the escalator to the top floor. The stairwells have been transformed into a winter wonderland and on the second level a group of musicians dressed in silver and white are playing that miserable Christmas song again. Honestly, I swear I’d never heard it before and now it’s everywhere I go, haunting me as much as Alex. If I weren’t in a bad mood already then I definitely would be by the time I arrived on the top floor.

“Hey! Cleo! Over here! I’ve got you a latte!” Susie, surrounded by a heap of yellow carrier bags, is waving at me from the far side of the coffee shop. I’m impressed. It’s only a quarter to eleven and already she’s made serious inroads into her new credit card. Not that I’m going to nag her about that.