Isn’t it funny? Life seems to have come round in a full circle, everything slotting neatly into place as though it was all meant to be. Not that I believe in fate, but just sometimes I can’t help but wonder.
The track finishes and now Raymond Brigg’s Snowman is “walking in the air”. Rafe turns the music down and passes Ally back to me.
“Time to unpack this box,” he says. “Let’s hope it’s the decorations, otherwise it’s a trolley dash round Homebase for this family.”
I perch on the arm of the sofa with the baby and watch Rafe unpeel the parcel tape that holds the lid down. Oh the anticipation! Will there be tinsel and baubles? Or more junk? That’s another thing I’ve discovered about Rafe Thorne: he’s a terrible hoarder. When he moved out of Mellisande he was practically dragging stuff back out of the skip.
Then Rafe’s face crumples.
“What is it?” I ask, alarmed. He has a dreadful haunted look and my stomach lurches. The last time I saw that expression he was sprawled on the floor of Mellisande clutching a whiskey bottle.
“This isn’t my box.” Rafe passes a hand across his eyes. They’re brighter than usual and he swallows hard. “This is Alex’s stuff. I must have missed it.”
He reaches in and rummages about. “I remember now. I had to clear the drawer in his bedside table after the accident. I couldn’t bear to look at it then so I just scooped the lot into this box and bunged it in the attic.”
“Put the lid back on and we’ll keep this safe.” I drop a kiss onto Ally’s head, inhaling the warm baby scent of her. “When she’s older you can tell Ally all about her uncle.”
“Hmm, there’s magazine in here. I’m not sure I want my daughter reading Playboy or worse.” Rafe pulls out a magazine. “Oh! Music Mad. That’s totally acceptable, seeing as she’s going to be a muso.”
“Egyptologist,” I correct, and we laugh.
“God, this is really old,” says Rafe, looking at the cover. “December 2009. Oh–” He sinks down onto the sofa beside me. The magazine is shaking in his hands and, wide eyed, he turns to me. “Cleo, this is the issue I told you about, remember? The one where Alex promised he’d find you? The one I thought I’d seen?”
The iPod has finished the track. The room is suddenly very still, as though somebody somewhere is holding their breath. Sensing that Rafe needs my full attention I lay the baby in her basket, where she sucks her toes and gurgles to herself. Then I sit next to Rafe and place my hands over his trembling fingers.
“Show me,” I say.
The magazine falls open to the article – it’s been well thumbed – and at once I recognise Alex grinning out at me across time. His grin is as wide as I remember, or rather his grin is just the way I imagined it. Obviously I don’t remember it, because I never met Alex Thorne. Rafe is in the background, looking far more intense than his sibling and simmering with emotion. He looks so much younger and it hurts me to see afresh just how the loss of his brother changed him.
We scan the piece together and in silence. My eyes fill with tears when I read what Rafe said. I lace my fingers tightly with his. His love for me is there in black and white and for the entire world to see, or at least for the readers of Music Mad December 2009 to see. Yet this is nothing compared to what comes next.
“She’ll find him and they can live happily ever after!” Alex had said, and it’s as though I’ve been jolted by mains electricity. In an instant I’m whisked away, back to that Topshop changing room with Alex sitting on the floor, eyes tightly shut, while I tease him about being a closet romantic. He’d wanted me and Rafe to meet again, fall in love and live happily ever after, and I’d laughed at him.
I swallow. Who’s had the last laugh?
Rafe’s fingers clutch mine so tightly that I wince.
“Read the last line, Cleo,” he whispers. “Read it out loud.”
My throat feels tight, my tongue dry. The last line closed the interview; the journalist was obviously struck by an aside he’d overheard after Alex had teased his brother about living happily ever after with his mystery girl. Me. The journalist had surmised that Rafe would probably do just fine with a supermodel but had written down Alex’s final comment anyway.
“‘But if I could,’ Alex says quietly to his brother,” I read aloud, “‘I’d move heaven and earth to find her for you.’”
Rafe and I stare at one another. My heart is hammering against my ribcage. Move heaven and earth, Alex had said. Oh my God. Was that exactly what he’d done?
Rafe raises my hand to his lips and brushes a kiss across my fingertips.
“Alex found you for me, didn’t he?” he whispers.
“I’m sure of it,” I say, and this time I really am. I don’t need any more proof or evidence. My heart is telling me that this is the truth. Alex did exactly what he’d promised he would do. He moved heaven and earth to help his brother.
I’m toying with telling Rafe my very strange story, hoping he won’t think I’m nuts, when a peal of happy giggles draws our attention to the baby.
Rafe’s sudden intake of breath and tightening grasp on my hand tells me all I need to know. I’m not hallucinating or imagining things – not if Rafe can see this too. This is as real as the love in my heart for my family. As real as my mum’s love for me. As real as Alex’s love for Rafe. Because this is what love is: doing everything you can for those you care about. I know that now. I get it. I really get it.
In silence and by the flickering shadows thrown by the fairy lights we watch Alex bending over the Moses basket and pulling faces at Ally, who gurgles delightedly. Then he looks up, smiles at us and vanishes.
THE END
Dear Reader,
Sometimes an idea for a book pops into your head and just won’t go away. The characters stick around, nagging you until finally you give in and agree to write their story. It’s the weirdest thing and it sounds absolutely bonkers, but as a writer you can literally hear them chattering away. This was certainly the case with the characters from Dead Romantic. This book was the one I had no choice but to write and, quirky as it is, I loved every minute of telling it.
I was on the London Underground, on my way back from a meeting at Orion Towers, when Cleo Carpenter popped into my head and demanded that I told her story. She was determined, bossy and very single-minded. I knew instantly that there would be no getting away from her until I’d listened and done my job. Cleo was an Egyptologist and this was in no way an area of expertise for me. I asked her if she could be a science teacher instead but she wasn’t having that! It seemed I would have to do some serious research.
Living in Cornwall made researching Cleo’s job rather tricky. I visited the British Museum and the Ashmolean a couple of times and spent hours trawling the Internet, reading up on the subject of Egyptology and making notes. I was soon hooked on the History Channel too. Then, quite by chance, my mother told me that my granny had always been fascinated by ancient Egypt – something of which I’d had no idea – and had claimed she had an Egyptian spirit guide too. It had always been her dream to see the pyramids. I shivered. Maybe her guide was now with me, egging Cleo on? I must admit that I was a little unnerved by all of this...
At around this time a friend’s husband was busy fitting a big lift to service the Egyptian Rooms in the British Museum, and he told me how the place terrified him and his team at night – this being the time when it was quiet enough for the men to do their work. He claimed that there was a very eerie atmosphere and that they all felt as though they were being watched. They were tough men, not given to being spooked, and he said they were very relieved when the job was completed. This was great material for me as a writer. My no-nonsense, sceptical heroine who spent many nights in her museum without turning a hair would laugh at this idea. It is in this exact kind of creepy setting, which unnerves tough builders, that Cleo feels most at home. That told me a lot about her. It was great fun to write about how someone so analytically minded and totally convinced that she has life figu
red out would react to suddenly seeing ghosts.
Although the characters were raring to go, I was still stumped by the Egyptology side of things. I could use my imagination, of course, but I owed it to my readers to get as many of the facts right as I possibly could. Belief can only be suspended so far. It was at this point that one of my colleagues at Bodmin College asked whether I had ever visited the Egyptian Museum in a nearby village. I hadn’t, but I phoned them straight away and booked a trip. The place was a gem, a fantastic 1930s-style museum, filled with the couple’s private collection of artefacts and replicas. I was lucky enough to be granted an exclusive tour. When I drove away my mind was racing with new ideas and I could hardly wait to start writing. I could also picture vividly the Aamon statue and artefacts that play such a central part of the story.
In the novel Cleo goes to see a celebrity psychic at a local theatre. She’s hoping that this will be a way of proving once and for all that ghosts don’t exist – but ends up with more proof to the contrary than she ever expects. As part of my research for this book I also booked tickets to see a celebrity medium in action. I won’t name who this was but I was horrified by the mistakes they made – from getting the breeds of dogs wrong to telling a gay man all about his girlfriend! I’m not saying that I don’t believe – far from it – but like Alex says to Cleo, there are many vulnerable people who could be misled by unscrupulous folk. It was all great novel fodder though.
Sometimes books just write themselves and this has been one of those times. Cleo, Rafe and Alex were vivid presences as I wrote. When I typed “The End” I felt truly bereft. Dead Romantic accompanied me through some very tough times in my own life and it felt odd to walk away from it.
Dead Romantic is really a story about love in all its guises. Love for a partner, a sibling, a child, a job – as well as the agonising pain of losing a loved one. The Egyptians had a strong belief in the afterlife but Cleo, although she has studied their ancient culture, has learned to close her mind and her heart to anything other than her work. She misses out on so much. Writing about her journey helped me to think about my own beliefs and to work through losses in my own life. If my granny did have an Egyptian spirit guide, I think he was probably reading over my shoulder and hopefully smiling!
I really hope that my readers enjoy Cleo, Alex and Rafe’s story as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I also hope that it does offer some degree of comfort. As Cleo learns, love never dies but lives on in our memories and in our hearts. Please feel free to write to me and let me know your thoughts and feelings about this book or to share your supernatural experiences with me. I’d love to hear from you.
Finally, I need a favour! Reviews can make or break a book and it really helps the word to spread if a book has lots of reviews. If you enjoyed Dead Romantic and have the time to post a review on Amazon and Good Reads, that would be very much appreciated.
Thanks so much, and thank you too for sharing in Rafe and Cleo’s story. If you enjoyed Dead Romantic then you might like Escape for Christmas – out on November 2nd. In the meantime, here’s a sneak preview!
Brightest wishes,
x Ruth x
Chapter One
“And that’s to be the last book! We haven’t any more in stock I’m afraid, folks. We’ve totally sold out!”
The manager of the Truro branch of BookWorld had an expression on his face that hovered somewhere between absolute joy and total disbelief. Only two hours earlier, fuelled by a caramel macchiato and aided by two of his keener Saturday staff, he’d lugged one hundred and fifty hardback books down from the stockroom and to the front of the store, where they’d been piled hopefully on a table placed slap in line with the doorway. Ordering such a large amount of expensive hardback copies in these uneasy days of eBooks and Amazon domination was something of a gamble, but he’d had a hunch about this one and his hunches tended to be worth trusting. At half past eleven on this sunny winter’s morning the manager was very happy indeed that he’d had faith in this one.
Today’s book signing was a huge success by any standards, even for a Saturday in the run-up to Christmas. Such days were always busy, with the pretty cathedral town packed with happy Christmas shoppers, the car parks full by ten a.m. and an air of anticipation keeping the Cornish cold at bay. On Lemon Quay a mini Christmas market did a roaring trade. The coffee shops were crammed with shoppers enjoying gingerbread lattes and mince pies while they got the circulation back into their fingers after lugging carrier bags all around the town; meanwhile, the traditional horse bus, complete with coachman in full Victorian garb, was giving its passengers a leisurely tour of the main streets. Strains of carols drifted on the cold air as the cathedral choir rehearsed for the big day, valiantly competing with the usual Christmas anthems emanating from the shops. Outside the bookstore the pavements were three deep in pedestrians, all wrapped fatly in their winter coats and scarves, and determined to shop until the daylight started to fade and the sun slipped behind the cathedral’s spire.
Yes, the book trade was always good on a brisk December Saturday, what with people browsing the shelves for a novel or Jamie Oliver’s latest offering – but this morning’s activity had been something else entirely. From the minute the cathedral clock had chimed nine and the doors had been unlocked, the store had been rammed. Under normal circumstances, authors sat at their tables, pens clutched in trembling hands and adrift on the sea of carpet while shoppers took the longest route around the shop to avoid making eye contact. When customers did find themselves near the book-signing desk, they generally felt obliged to talk and to buy a novel they’d never really wanted in the first place. Sometimes a savvy author – one who’d read up on marketing or whose agent was switched on – would bring sweets or postcards to tempt the shy book shoppers with goodies. Even so, the queue was never more than a few interested folk or some family and friends recruited to create a buzz. Today, though, it was a very different story. The queue for the signing had even snaked outside into the street, the customers seeming more than happy to stand in the frosty air, hands wrapped around hot drinks from the bookstore’s coffee shop, and wait their turn. Inside, the tills were ringing as joyously as the cathedral bells and the entire bookshop was bustling with excitement. As the last customer made her way to the cashier, thrilled with the signed book in her hands, the manager only wished that he’d ordered twice as many.
I should have listened to my daughter, the manager though ruefully as he apologised to all the disappointed people who’d been unable to buy a signed copy. Sixteen-year-old girls tended to have their fingers on the pulse of the zeitgeist, and this was certainly true of his daughter: when Melanie had heard that Angel and Gemma from Bread and Butlers were signing the show’s Christmas cookbook in his store, she’d almost popped. He’d been amazed she’d heard of them; One Direction was generally more his daughter’s thing than cooking. “Come on, Dad, get with the programme,” she’d teased, rolling her eyes. This wasn’t a lame cooking show! Bread and Butlers was a reality show and everybody watched it. It was the best thing on the telly; Cal was hot, Laurence was even hotter and Angel had the best clothes ever! The bookshop manager had listened in a rather bemused fashion. These days it was almost as though his daughter communicated in a foreign language. Mel’s speech was peppered with gangsta slang and text talk: it was all LOL this and lush the other – as well as his personal worst, CBA, which was usually used in reference to homework. Still, once his ears had tuned in to teen speak, he’d managed to gather a few facts and felt even older than his forty-eight years.
These sparkly red and green books that he’d ordered in for the Christmas run-up – which were glossy, satisfyingly fat to hold and crammed full of pictures of glamorous people – accompanied a TV show called Bread and Butlers, which apparently was huge. While he’d listened to his eager daughter, the manager had realised that he’d fallen into the popular-culture void between Newsnight and Big Brother. A quick trip to Google soon revealed this show to be a brilliant cr
oss between Downton Abbey and The Only Way is Essex, featuring a group of people working together to save a crumbling stately home in Devon. From what he could gather it was a curious mixture of aristocrats, footballers, models and hunky young builders who spent a very unnecessary amount of time walking around with their shirts off like lost members of the Chippendales. There was romance, drama, cooking, posh totty, rows, an ex-Premier League footballer (of whom even a bookish chap like himself had heard), a lively Irish family and even a glamour model or two thrown into the mix. It appeared that the British telly-viewing public simply couldn’t get enough of it. The manager had Sky-Plussed a couple of episodes himself; within ten minutes the clever narrative hooks had reeled him in like a square-eyed fish. By the time the final credits had rolled he’d been desperate to find out if Viscount Laurence really had hidden the family diamonds from the bank manager, and whether his eccentric mother was having a fling with a toy-boy builder.
Now he smiled to himself. No wonder today’s book signing had been such a success. Mel was right: he did need to “get with the programme”! Everyone wanted a piece of these reality stars, especially since one of them was a bona fide Cornish maid from Bodmin. The Cornish loved their own – and the author of the book, with her cheerful freckled face, ample curves and warm West Country accent, was undoubtedly one of them. He made a mental note to order another big delivery and play this angle up for all it was worth…
Gemma Pengelley, she of the freckled face and curves that were just about kept under control if she ignored all the creamy lattes and slices of thickly iced Christmas cake, put down her pen and flexed her fingers. Ouch. They were really cramped. She guessed this was unsurprising really, seeing as she hadn’t stopped writing messages and signing her name for over two hours. When Gemma closed her eyes briefly, her scrawling signature was imposed on her retinas. Her brain was hurting from trying to come up with endless original messages. She wished she’d had longer to chat to all the people who’d taken the time to trek into Truro and see her. In Cornwall this was often easier said than done, given that public transport was erratic. Although buses were rumoured to run from some of the outlying villages, in reality they were spotted less than the mythical Morgawr, the county’s very own sea serpent.
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