Love...Among The Stars: Book 4 in the Love...Series (Love Series)

by Nick Spalding

  ...actually, they don't look like waiters, they look more like -

  Oh good lord.

  Mum has ordered me a barbershop quartet for my birthday.

  She claps her hands excitedly and turns to look at me. 'Isn't it brilliant Jamie!'

  'Er... '

  'They come highly recommended!'

  'Okay... '

  'They've got a special birthday song for you!'

  'Right... '

  The four men file into the hall, and fan out in front of us. One produces what looks like a kazoo from his back pocket and plays a single note.

  Then the song begins.

  All four men burst into harmonious singing - and boy, the lyrics are something else.

  'Hello Jamie, that's your namie,'

  'It's your birthday today, and you're looking rather gay,'

  Terrible start. Let's hope it improves as it goes along.

  'You're turning forty, but you're not warty,

  'Your skin still looks clean, and it has a healthy sheen,'

  Getting worse.

  'You're getting older, but not much bolder,'

  'As the years ebb away, you'll get wrinkled and grey,'

  Oh, well that's charming. Where did Mum find this lot?

  'You'll get a bad cough, your cock will drop off,'

  'Your teeth will fall out. You'll look horrid, there's no doubt,'

  I stare at them in amazement. Am I actually hearing this right? From the look on Mum's face, it appears that I am. She has gone from sheer delight during the first verse, to horrified dismay as the song has gone on. The rest of my family are looking equally shocked. The Newmans are not an attractive bunch when we're all standing open mouthed, looking like a bunch of guppies at feeding time.

  'You'll have a huge stroke, it will be no joke,'

  'They'll have to feed you with a spoon. Your sad death is coming soon,'

  What makes this awful song even worse, is that all four men are singing in happy, light tones, with the broadest shit eating grins I've ever seen across their faces. It's like all my worst enemies have clubbed together and hired the barbershop quartet from Hell to serenade me into an early grave.

  If we weren't all quite so fucking British, one of us would surely have stopped the harmonious character assassination by now, but as it is, the singing lunatics are allowed to do another verse.

  'Your corpse will bloat up, so let's raise one last cup,'

  'As they throw you in the ground, you won't make a bloody sound!'

  I feel like crying.

  'Woah, woah, woah!' Laura shouts and waves her arms angrily about in front of her. She steps forward and moves towards the quartet - who thankfully stop singing, before they can launch into another verse about how my loved ones will cry... and then go and eat some Thai.

  The broad smiles have been replaced by a mixture of fear and confusion. This is obviously the first time somebody with an angry look on their face has interrupted them mid-flow, which, given the content of their lyrics, astounds me.

  'What the hell are you doing?' Laura says to them incredulously.

  'We're... we're singing our birthday song,' one of them replies in a doubtful voice.

  'But it's horrible!'

  'Well, yes. We know. But... but that's the point.'

  'What do you mean, that's the point?'

  'We're The Black Barbershop Quartet, aren't we.'

  'Are you?'

  'Yeah!'

  'Is that supposed to mean something to me?' Laura demands.

  I think I'm beginning to grasp what's going on here. I figure I'd better step forward before my wife chins one of these poor buggers. I have the feeling that the blame does not lie with them for this.

  'Mum?' I ask. 'Where did you find these guys?'

  'I looked them up online, Jamie,' she replies in a faraway voice. She's obviously having trouble getting past the idea of me having a stroke and being fed with a spoon. 'They were one of the closest and one of the cheapest, so I thought they would be good.'

  'And I guess you didn't read much about their actual act?'

  'They're a barbershop quartet. Everyone knows what a barbershop quartet does, don't they?' She gives me an imploring look.

  'Oh my God!' I hear Sarah exclaim from behind me. She's holding out her iPhone to me. 'I've just looked them up! It says they specialise in blackly humorous four part harmony. It looks like Mum ordered the 'We'll Sing You Into Your Grave' package.'

  'Yep, that's the one,' the guy replies. 'Only forty quid, very reasonable.'

  Mum continues to look aghast. 'But... but, I didn't know Jamie! I honestly didn't!'

  Time for some careful reassurance, I feel. I put one arm around her shoulder. 'It's okay Mum. You weren't to know. Laura? Could you see the gentlemen out please?'

  'Sure.'

  I give them all a smile. 'Thank you for coming. You, er, you rhyme very well, and have lovely singing voices.'

  Laura ushers The Black Barbershop Quartet out of the door, and I gently coax Mum back to the kitchen.

  'I wanted to hear more!' pipes up Enid from her wheelchair. 'Haven't heard a good barbershop quartet since Pearl's wedding. Very handsome they were.'

  'I'll ask them for a CD, Mum,' Dad says, taking over from Chris in the wheelchair guiding department.

  It takes me a good ten minutes to calm my poor mother down to the point that I've managed to convince her she isn't the worst parent in the history of the world. I'm half tempted to point at Terry to underline my point, but manage to resist the urge.

  The rest of the party goes off more or less without a hitch. Enid spends most of it telling Terry about how dishy the barbershop quartet at Pearl's wedding looked. To be fair to him, he fakes his interest very well. Mum is fine after a couple of Baileys over ice, which gives me a chance to detach from her and speak to my two siblings - something which I don't have much opportunity to do these days. Uncle Fred and Auntie Kathy are being completely captivated by Poppy and her fascinating stories about how many small, defenceless creatures she's poked in the past couple of weeks. This leaves Laura talking to my father. Or rather, trying to keep a smile on her face as my father's eyes inevitably wander down to get a quick look at her tits every thirty seconds or so.

  By 10.30 Poppy is yawning her head off. 'Can I put her in the spare room, Jane?' Laura asks Mum.

  'Of course, my dear. It's all set up for the night, as we agreed.'

  What's this? I didn't know Laura had arranged for Mum to babysit tonight.

  I say as much to my wife as we go to get our tired daughter from where she's flaked out on Uncle Fred's lap.

  'Well, I haven't given you your birthday present yet, Jamie,' she tells me softly, as I carry Pops out of the room and up the stairs. This'll have to stop soon. Poppy is getting far too big to be carried, but it's hard to let go of the fact that your little girl is growing up - and is not actually so little anymore.

  'I thought we agreed the holiday was my early birthday present this year?' I say to Laura. 'Given how much it was? I told you I didn't want anything else.'

  'I know, but the whole pedalo debacle put the dampeners on it a bit, so I thought I might give you a little something extra.' Laura arches one eyebrow suggestively. 'Your birthday present this year is going to be one word.'

  'One word? What do you mean?'

  'You'll find out later,' she says cryptically and pats me on the cheek. 'Now let's put Poppy in bed for the night. She knows she's staying with her Grandma, so she'll be fine.'

  We both coo for a few moments over our gorgeous sleeping offspring, and then wend our way back to the party, which, I'm grateful to note given what Laura has just told me, has reached the point where people are checking their watches and flicking their eyes occasionally at the door.

  Uncle Fred and Auntie Kathy lead the grand exodus, offering to drop Enid back at the care home, before the staff send out a search party. Enid doesn't seem happy about it, given that she's moved on from telling Terry about Pearl's
wedding, and is now regaling him with the time she seduced the local postman in a pair of French nylons that Pearl gave her for her twenty fifth. Terry looks relieved when Fred wheels Enid away. The green complexion really doesn't go well with the straggly grey beard.

  Mum is once again highly apologetic at the front door as we leave. Sarah is still humming the tune The Black Barbershop Quartet used to inadvertently humiliate me, while Chris is now on his phone trying to book them for his mate's wedding in a month.

  'Don't worry, Mum. I really enjoyed myself. The cake was fantastic,’ I tell her.

  'Thank you, son. I do feel so embarrassed. It's like something from one of your books!' Her eyes go wide. 'Please don't put this in one of your books!

  'Of course I won't!' I lie expansively. I'm already formulating a suitable plotline.

  Laura, who kindly offered to be designated driver for the evening, then takes us away and back towards Terry's flat in the city. We drop him off and head home, blissfully on our own for the first time all day.

  By the time we're indoors, I've started panting like a dog.

  'Calm down boy,' Laura says in a husky voice. 'Just enjoy the anticipation for a moment. I want a nice big glass of wine before we get down to any funny business.'

  I pour us both a glass and we settle down to drink it at the dining room table. It doesn't take either of us long to down the wine. It's rare these days that we get time alone in the house without Poppy, and both of us are eager to make the most of it.

  'So, what's my one word birthday present then?' I ask, trying not to salivate too much.

  'Come upstairs with me,' Laura replies and moves towards the stairs.

  My mind is racing. What one word could she possibly say that would be a birthday present? There are plenty of great words in the world. Kumquat, for instance. Or verisimilitude. Azure is lovely, as is coruscate. I always like to use defenestrate in conversation wherever possible, and get a thrill every time I hear somebody else say intransigent.

  All great words, but none that I would consider worthy of giving to somebody else as a gift.

  We reach the bedroom.

  'So? What's the word, baby?'

  Laura backs away from me slowly. She stands to one side of the bed and slowly starts to unzip her dress, her eyes not leaving me for a second. The dress is shrugged off to reveal her stunning lingerie set.

  She takes a deep breath, licks her lips slightly and runs her hands over her breasts.

  In a soft, husky voice, she says one solitary word to me. And it's all my birthdays and Christmases come at once.

  'Anal.'

  My penis, no stranger to the metaphorical victory lap, is now circumnavigating the entire globe at five thousand miles an hour, while blowing loudly on a three headed trumpet. As he reaches the African continent, he sets off several million pounds worth of fireworks and high fives at least sixty percent of the population, before performing a victory moonwalk over the North pole while curing cancer.

  I can't fucking wait to turn fifty!

  Laura's Diary

  Wednesday, May 19th

  Dear Mum,

  One thing I wasn't prepared for when Jamie and I embarked on our joint career as authors was how much interaction with the public we'd have.

  Now, don't get me wrong, I like to talk to new people as much as the next person, but when that conversation is held in a crowd of well meaning fans - and the conversation topic is usually about what continuity errors you've made between chapters four and five - it can get a bit disconcerting.

  I'd always had a romantic vision of what being a writer was about in my head. You know the one. It features an expansive study lined with bookshelves, an antique desk in gorgeous stained cedar wood, a comfy, plush Chesterfield chair, and a polished, vintage typewriter sat next to a pile of crisp, clean paper. There's always a shaft of warm morning sunlight filtering in between the curtains, and the smell of freshly made coffee is in the air.

  All utter bollocks, of course. I write at a two hundred quid flat pack desk from Staples, sat on a blue office chair that squeaks every time you so much as move it half a millimetre, and I type on a bluetooth keyboard connected to an iMac that is at least two years out of date.

  Also utter bollocks is the notion that you get to write in splendid isolation, safe in the knowledge that all you have to do is hand your completed book off to a publisher, and sit back while they sell the bugger to the public.

  Aha ha. Nope.

  That may have been the case back in Hemingway's day, but in the 21st century, being an author is as much about being a master of self promotion as it is sitting at a computer and knocking out eighty thousand words of prose every six months.

  I have a Twitter account.

  Me. Laura Newman.

  A woman whose attitude to the internet has always been one of annoyed tolerance. I know it's there, I know it can be useful, and I'll use it when absolutely necessary, but other than that, it can just stay over in the corner where I can't see it. Jamie's different of course. He's been writing that bloody blog for a decade now, so he's well versed in the vagaries of social media. I therefore let him handle all the comings and goings that occur via the Twitter handle @NewmanWriters.

  I might occasionally dip in and see what people are talking about, but once my well-meaning husband starts going on about hashtags and trending topics I tend to lose interest.

  Along with creating an 'online presence', I am also required to be available offline for public appearances - designed to give the fans chance to say hello, and for our publishers to ram our newest project down their throats.

  These appearances generally take place in bookstores, involve Jamie and I signing copies of our books, and are about as well received as genital herpes.

  That's the impression I've take away from the two signings we've done, anyway. During the first, we had two people show up for a signed copy of Love From Both Sides. I say two - one of them was an elderly lady who quite clearly suffered from Alzheimer's and thought I was Ethel Merman. The other was my best friend Mel, who had only come out to show us a bit of solidarity. It transpires that success in the book charts does not necessarily square with the public's desire to turn out and meet you in person.

  The second signing had more people - approximately a dozen - but half of them had only come in to get out of the driving rain outside, and the other half looked decidedly disappointed to meet the real Jamie and Laura Newman, after having read about the far more exciting and better looking versions they'd encountered in our semi-autobiographical comedies.

  Given these previous experiences, you can imagine my joy when Watermill's bouncing publicist Tori Brightling arranges a third book signing for Love Under Different Skies. The book has been faring quite well online, and in high street retailers, so Tori has decided on a third bite of the cherry.

  'You're bound to get more people out this time!' she tells me excitedly down the phone. Tori does everything with excitement, up to and including urination, so I'm taking her optimism with a pinch of salt. 'I've booked you and Jamie in at Morninghouse Books on Tuesday May 17th. Do you know it?'

  I gulp. Oh yes. I know Morninghouse Books very well, thank you Tori. It's the oldest bookstore in a hundred mile radius, and has squatted in the middle of the old Victorian terraces just off the High Street for the past century. Run by a succession of stern faced Morninghouse men, its cramped three stories of bookshelves are famous for both their musty smell, and their collection of rare books you'd struggle to find anywhere else. If it could, Morninghouse Books would give the nearest Waterstones a clip round the ear and tell it to bugger off home to its mother.

  I haven't been into the store for over twenty years. Not since I got caught by a stern Morninghouse in the cookery section with Dan Sanderson's hand halfway down my bra.

  You remember Dan, don't you Mum? Nice boy, bit of a squint.

  I feel that all these decades later, I can admit to the fact I used to let him put his hand down my bra -
if he'd been nice to me and we were in a suitably private place, that is. On that particular day, we'd only popped into the store so Dan could pick up a birthday present for his Gran, and one thing had led to another, so to speak.

  I've never been thrown out of a shop before, and haven't since, so the prospect of returning to the scene of my mild teenage crime is not one that fills me with pleasure.

  Still, Tori has gone to all the trouble of arranging this signing, and I'm contractually obligated to do at least one of these things when a book comes out, so it's time to swallow any fears or doubts I might have... and warn Jamie that he won't be getting to repeat any of Dan's antics.

  I know my husband well.

  'Spoilsport,' he says, when I tell him of both the signing and my previous experience in Morninghouse Books. 'I feel as your husband that I should be allowed to place my hand down your bra at every given opportunity.'

  'And I feel as your wife that I should be allowed to ignore everything that comes out of your mouth at every given opportunity,' I reply in a withering voice, and turn to write the date for the signing on the kitchen calendar.

  A date that comes around altogether too bloody quickly. I do find these public events something of a trial.

  It’s not an issue Jamie Newman has, however. He's positively vibrating back and forth in his seat as we park in the multi-story car park close to the shop.

  'I bet there will be more people at this one!' he crows triumphantly. 'After all, we've got a few books out now. We must have built up a fairly decent fan base. Certainly enough to fill up a tiny independent book shop, anyway.'