Page 2 of The Book of Lost Stories

‘That’s it,’ he agreed, very cheerfully considering he’d just split up from his long-term partner and was now in a small room shared with two-dimensional people. ‘In fact, I’ve got a script to finish tonight, so I’d better get on with it. Same time tomorrow?’

‘OK, and may the force be with you,’ I said gravely, before he vanished from the screen.

*

It felt mean of me to be so happy that Tris was coming back home for good when it meant the end of his relationship with Marcy, but I couldn’t wait to see him again.

However, I had so much to occupy my mind that the time just flew by.

Although I had started by transcribing the journal into my laptop with a view to altering my thesis slightly, by the time I’d got to the end, where the author had added details of the events she described that she’d later gleaned from others, I’d become totally consumed by Alys Weston’s life story.

It was like a Gothic novel in itself … and once the various characters had started to talk to each other in my head, that’s when I began to write a novel.

It just poured unstoppably out on to the page, rather like automatic writing and I was just the conduit.

I wrote night and day, so it was just as well it was Tom’s summer holidays so he could help Unks in the shop.

I only remembered to talk to Tris because I’d set my phone to remind me, and he said I looked more hollow-eyed and distracted every day – even more than he did, trying to finish his current work before leaving.

He assumed I was having to make some major changes to my thesis after all and I didn’t disabuse him of that idea.

I wasn’t yet ready to tell him what I was actually doing.

I’d keep that as a surprise for when he’d got back.

I suppose most Lit grads think they might one day write a novel, and Tris and I had certainly talked about it, but I hadn’t envisaged that mine would be in the Gothic genre …

The first draft took me eleven days … and about that long again to stand upright and talk intelligently.

Then I set to and revised it, before printing it out and having it laminated and spiral bound, like the thesis it should have been. I wanted to hold the tangible proof of my first literary offspring in my hands.

*

I’d recovered a bit by the time Tris arrived back in York one afternoon in early August. I certainly looked a lot better than he did, but then, apart from all the midnight-oil burning, he could never sleep on planes and then got dreadful jet lag.

In fact, he looked just as hollow-eyed and glazed as I had until just a couple of days before.

His eyes lit up when he saw me, though, and, dropping his bags on the wooden floor of the shop, he swept me right off my feet into a bear hug. At six foot, he isn’t much taller than I am, but stronger than his willowy build might make him appear.

I hugged him right back. It had been so long since we’d been together that when the doorbell jangled and I’d looked up and seen him, I’d felt as if he’d been a stranger, but now, as he let go of me and grinned, it was suddenly as if we had never been apart.

‘How’s my little Birdie?’

‘Shut up, Shandy,’ I said.

I’m the opposite of a cute little birdie, being tall, dark and with mournful dark blue eyes that turn down at the outer corners.

‘You look dreadful, Tris. There are shadows under your eyes and blue was never your colour.’

‘It was a bit of a rush finishing work off and then a long flight, but it’s great to be here. Hi, Tom,’ he added, as the student emerged to take over the counter.

‘Come on, let’s go upstairs. Uncle Ambrose is looking forward to seeing you and he’s planned a welcome feast,’ I said, as the door jangled again, although not to let in a customer. Behind us rose a shrill, horrified female voice asking Tom if he knew he had a dead cat in his window.

‘Tilly up to her old tricks again?’ Tris asked.

‘Yes, and if Tom’s got any sense he’ll let the woman try and wake her up, and save himself a few scars,’ I said, leading the way through the door marked ‘Private’ and up some ancient and twisty stairs.

*

Uncle Ambrose loved cooking and made a lovely dinner of grilled trout, new potatoes and salad, accompanied by a very good white wine, and followed by apple pie and cream.

He went out to the pub to meet friends after that, leaving me to stack the dishwasher and make coffee, which we took through into the small, wood-panelled sitting room.

Tris, who had revived a bit while eating and talking to Ambrose, now started to look increasingly spaced out and admitted he still felt like a zombie.

‘But a well-fed and happy one.’ He looked at me consideringly. ‘You’ve looked zombie-ish too for the last couple of weeks, but you seem to have made a miraculous recovery.’

‘That’s because I was not only burning the midnight oil, but the morning, noon and evening oil, as well.’

‘Revising your thesis in the light of your great discovery? Or was transcribing the journal a lot more difficult than you expected?’

I’d relented and emailed him my typescript of the journal just before he set off to come back, so he could read it on the way if he wanted to, on the strict understanding we didn’t discuss it until he was over his jet lag.

‘Neither. I’ve had … another project,’ I said, suddenly feeling strangely nervous about revealing what I’d been up to. None the less, I fetched the printout of my novel and handed it to him.

‘I’ll show you the journal tomorrow but in case you can’t sleep tonight, here’s a bit of bedtime reading.’

‘If that’s your thesis, you’ve gone over the top a bit, haven’t you?’ he commented, then opened the cover and looked at the title page before looking questioningly up at me. ‘ Lord Rayven’s Revenge by Cleo Finch?’

‘It isn’t my thesis, it’s a novel,’ I confessed. ‘After reading the journal, the characters just sort of started talking in my head and the book really wrote itself. It was the weirdest feeling.’

‘This whole evening is getting weirder and weirder,’ Tris said. ‘I’m having this hallucination where I think my best friend just told me she’d written a novel in less than a month and now everything around me has started undulating, so I think I’d better take myself off to bed.’

But when he did, he had my novel tucked under one arm in case, as I’d suggested, he couldn’t sleep and needed a bit of bedtime reading.