I give him a look. 'You've never been in Morninghouse Books, have you?' I point out.
'What makes you say that?'
'Morninghouse Books is enormous. Not in that open plan layout, modern way that you get in Waterstones. It's a three story monstrosity, with more shelves than you can shake several sticks at. The place is crammed to the rafters with books, but there's still enough room for a few hundred people, if needs be. There's every chance there's a doorway to Narnia somewhere in there, or possibly the corpse of Lord Lucan.'
Jamie's face falls. 'Damn. I was hoping it'd be titchy so it looks like we can fill up the place.'
I roll my eyes. My husband has developed slight delusions of grandeur over the past few months. The successful author thing has gone to his head. Sadly, even with authorial success, there are levels to your popularity. Stephen King might be able to pack out a bookstore for a signing, but Jamie and Laura Newman are nowhere near that famous - or rich, unfortunately.
I'll just be pleased if I don't get mistaken for Vera Lynn, to be honest.
Jamie tries to avoid looking disappointed as we round the corner, and Morninghouse Books homes into view. I bet in his mind's eye he saw a queue of people outside, all eagerly clutching a copy of Love Under Different Skies. In the real world however, no such thing has occurred. There is one chap stood outside the store, but he is wearing a fluorescent green council jacket and has a broom in his hand, so I think we can safely say he's not here to speak to a couple of romantic comedy authors.
A funny feeling washes over me as we walk up to the shop's entrance. It's part nostalgia, and part the lingering sensation of broad teenage embarrassment. The large shop window doesn't seem to have changed much in twenty years. 'Morninghouse Books' is still emblazoned across it in serif gold writing, and the wooden display stands are still dark stained oak. Before I even open the door, I know that once I do that musty smell will assail my nostrils again.
'Cor, smells a bit in here. They need to get some air fresheners in,' Jamie comments as I lead us into the store.
Before I get a chance to reply, Tori Brightling bounces her way over to us. 'Morning Jamie and Laura!'
'Hello Tori,' I reply and try to shake her hand. This proves difficult because the girl can't seem to stay in one place for a nanosecond.
'Morning Tori,' Jamie adds.
'Would you both like to meet Mr Morninghouse?' Tori asks us.
'Sure!' Jamie says.
I am not so sure.
Could this be the same Mr Morninghouse who so unceremoniously threw me and Dan Sanderson out all those years ago for a bit of heavy petting? He of the stern gaze, frazzled grey hair and tobacco stained cardigan? And if it is him, will he recognise me? There's every chance he may have caught a quick glimpse of my teenage boob, which is something that an old man might well remember well into his dotage.
My fears are not borne out however, as from behind a long bookshelf containing various atlases of the world comes a plain looking man in his mid forties. He is bespectacled, and dressed in a grey suit that has seen better days.
'Good morning Mr and Mrs Newman,' he says in a pleasant voice. 'I'm so pleased you chose our store for your signing today.'
'It's a pleasure,' I tell him, knowing full well that we had nothing to do with the arrangements, but happy to take credit it for it, because these small victories are few and far between at the best of times.
'Mmmm,' Jamie adds absently as he looks around the room. I know what he's thinking: if we'd only agreed to do this in Waterstones or Blackwell's, the joint would be heaving with Newman fans.
He's completely wrong of course, but I have to admire his optimism.
Tori and Morninghouse guide us over to where they have set up a table and two chairs, surrounded by bookshelves heaving with copies of our books. Somebody in the Watermill Publishing warehouse must have put their back out bringing this lot over here. 'It's a while before we're due to officially kick off,' Morninghouse says. 'Would you both like a cup of coffee while we wait?'
'Oh, thanks very much mate. That'd be fantastic,' Jamie says, parking himself on one of the chairs, and regarding the pile of our three paperbacks set out in front of him.
'Yes please,' I add and join him. I look at my own watch to see that it's coming up to eleven, and crane my head to look out of the window. Still no-one in sight. I look at Jamie's limp expression, and resign myself to the fact that I'll probably be massaging his ego for the rest of the day.
But colour me surprised when, at just gone eleven o'clock, some people do start to trickle in.
It's only when they do that I remember how excruciatingly embarrassing this whole enterprise is. Jamie and I are sat together in plain sight of the entrance, so that every time a new punter walks in, they get to see us gurning at them from the corner, with our pens poised and ready. This wouldn't be so bad, but just because a customer has come into the store, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are here to get an autographed copy of a book by the Newmans.
Can you imagine popping into your local bookshop to pick up the latest Jodi Picoult, only to find yourself confronted by two complete strangers sat at a table and surrounded by books you've never heard of, both with expectant looks on their faces? You'd be tempted to think that the local mental home had chucked out a couple of its patients for the day; ones who like to scrawl on innocent passers-by with a biro.
Alternatively, you might realise that there is a book signing going on for two people you've never heard of, and then you'd have the exquisitely awkward experience of trying to purchase the latest Jodi Picoult without looking like a complete and total bastard for not going over and picking up a copy of their less popular hardback.
Over the next hour or so, I figure that at least ten percent of the customers who walk into the store are in this very camp. Most manage to buy whatever it is they were after and leave quickly without making eye contact, but there are a couple of punters whose British guilt gets the better of them, and they end up buying a copy of Love From Both Sides each. I almost want to tell them both that they don't have to buy our book, but then stop myself, because every copy sold puts a few pence in my back pocket, and economics beats social niceties every time.
Fortunately, the luckless sods who have just stumbled unwittingly into our book signing are few and far between. Most of the people who turn out are actually here to see Jamie and I. In fact, by lunchtime, we've had such a healthy trickle of people through that my wrist is already starting to hurt from all the signature writing.
Jamie is of course as happy as a pig in shit. My ego massaging can be put on hold for another day. By the time we've got through the first twenty people, he's in his element, chatting away to all and sundry with a never ending supply of enthusiasm.
I am more than happy for him to take the lead. Of the two of us, I have always been less comfortable with being in the public eye, and am therefore happy just to provide back-up to Jamie's witty repartee.
This also gives me a chance to evaluate the kind of people who read our work, which is always a valuable exercise. The better you know your audience, the easier it is to write the type of books they want to keep reading.
By and large, I'm pleased to say our fans are a healthy, normal bunch. Not a raving psychopath or obsessive stalker in sight. Okay, a few might need a bit more sun, and there's one odd lady in a top hat who asks us to sign her breasts, but other than that, they all seem well adjusted and without criminal convictions. I have to confess, I'm a little surprised. Given our combined track record of attracting unhinged people, I really did think that we might get at least one person who -
'Where are they!?' a voice screams from behind the small crowd stood in front of the table. 'Where are those minty bastards!?'
Spoke to soon, didn't I?
'I wish to speak to them, post haste!!'
The crowd parts to reveal Sherlock Holmes.
Nope, not kidding. It's a guy dressed as Sherlock Holmes. And not the Cumberbatch varie
ty. This is full on Rathbone. He's wearing a tweed cape, tweed trousers, a white button-down shirt, and a deerstalker hat.
Sherlock fucking Holmes.
The effect is only somewhat ruined by the fact he is also wearing a moth-eaten cable knit cardigan in a delightful shade of vomit green underneath the cape.
As it's not Halloween for another five months, I slump down in my chair and look around for heavy objects I can fight him off with.
Sherlock strides purposefully up to the table, pushing past everyone even slightly in his way. As he arrives, he slams down a book onto the table and regards Jamie and I with such a look of sheer animal loathing that I start to blindly dial 999 on the phone that's still in my pocket.
He points one tremulous, bony finger at us. 'You!'
'Er, can we help you?' Jamie asks.
'Can you help me!? Can you help me!?' the man wails in a voice as tremulous as his finger. 'I very much doubt that you scabrous, loathsome popinjays could supply me with any kind of practicable succour in this time of extreme existential crisis!'
'Come again?' Jamie says, the lack of comprehension writ large across his face.
Tori steps in to try and calm the situation. 'Excuse me? Can I help you with something? I'm the Newman's publicist. Maybe it would be a good idea if we stepped back from the table?' she suggests, attempting to take one of the man's thin arms.
He twists away from her with a high pitched shriek. 'Do not attempt to lay your vile protuberances on my person, oh painted jezebel!' he spits at her. This is a tad unfair. Tori may go a little overboard with the foundation and eyeliner, but she hardly comes across as a jezebel, painted or otherwise.
Jamie stands up. I do like it when he snaps into manly mode.
'Have you got a problem, mate? Only we're trying to have a nice book signing here for all these lovely people, and you're ruining it.'
The lunatic regards Jamie with acid contempt and presses one thin hand to his chest. 'Do I have a problem, sir? Do I have a problem?'
Jamie looks highly confused. 'I don't know, do you?'
Cardigan Holmes reaches inside his thick woolly undergarment. My mouth goes letterbox shaped as I imagine him producing a handgun and shooting everyone within point blank range. Instead - and inexplicably worse - he pulls out a book. Not one of ours either. And definitely not the latest Jodi Picoult.
He slams the hardback down onto the table and stands back, pointing that tremulous finger down at it.
'Look! Look I tell you, you ravening charlatans! Look at the misery you have wrought upon me!'
The book is a hardback of average size. It looks quite old, with a rather tatty jacket and some definite wear along the edges. On it, in one corner, is a picture of what appears to be a muscular gent in a strongman outfit, playing a trombone and standing on the corpse of a large African lion. In the opposite corner is a blonde woman barely dressed in a floaty negligee, lying across the back of what looks like a very grumpy elephant. She has her head back and her hand to her forehead in the classic 'swoon' position.
The title for this book, writ large and diagonally across the cover, so as to separate the two melodramatic images, is 'Taming The African Love Goddess: A story of love divided by the veldt'.
Being divided by the veldt sounds extremely painful, but the title and cover suggest that this is some kind of love story, possibly told from both male and female perspec - oh shit.
I look up at Jamie, who has obviously reached the same conclusion as me, as he looks like he's just licked a goat's bum.
This isn't the first time we've been accused of plagiarism. It's just the first time it's been in person, and wearing a vomit green cardigan and Holmesian cape.
Being a writer invites this kind of thing, especially when you write commercial fiction. There are millions of books out there in the wild, and every so often a few are bound to have similarities to your own work. It's a total coincidence of course - after all, there are only so many different stories to be told - but you try convincing the author of a book that came out before yours that you haven't deliberately plagiarised their writing for your own personal gain.
'Thieves!' Cardigan Holmes roars. 'Defalcators of dialogue! Purloiners of prose!'
Jamie groans and sits back down. We both look over at Tori with imploring eyes.
'I'm sure Mr and Mrs Newman are none of those things, sir,' she says in her best 'trying to keep calm, but rapidly losing the plot' tone of voice.
This only causes Cardigan Holmes to turn his unholy rage back on her. 'And what would you know, oh foul and pestilent purveyor of propaganda?!'
You've got to give the bloke something, he certainly has a wide and varied vocabulary.
'Look, Mister...? ' Tori pauses, aware that the lunatic has, as yet, not divulged his name to any of us.
I look at the book's spine and am delighted to discover that the man's name is Hedley Mislington. You'd have to wear a cape and cable knit cardigan if you had a name like that, wouldn't you? It's my turn to stand up, with open hands raised, and what I hope is a United Nations kind of expression on my face. 'Mister Mislington...'
'It's pronounced Misserlingertun!'
Of course it is. 'Mister Misserlingertun, I gather that you feel our work may in some way be similar to yours?'
'Similar? Similar!?' Hedley Mislington bellows to the rafters. 'The rancid effluence that you call Love From Both Sides copies my searing indictment of one man's love for one woman on the plains of Africa almost to the very letter!'
'Does it really,' I reply, resisting the urge to chew on a knuckle.
'Yes, woman! Yes it does!'
'Why don't you read a bit?' a voice pipes up from the small crowd surrounding this little pantomime. I turn to look at a cheerful hipster in a bobble hat, and wish I could set his beard on fire.
Unfortunately, the idea seems to appeal to Hedley Mislington immensely. 'Yes indeed! A fine suggestion from the hirsute manchild in the corner! Let us read from both books, and the crowd shall see your evil thievery in all its contemptuous glory!'
I groan out loud.
'Fair enough,' Jamie says from beside me.
What?
I shoot him daggers.
He shrugs his shoulders. 'Well, why not? Let's hear what Mister Misserlingerpingertun's book is all about, shall we?' There's distinct mirth now playing around my husband's eyes. The situation has evidently developed into one of much amusement for him.
'Fine!' I thrown my hands up, and sit back down on my seat with a huff. 'Why don't you go first, Mister Misserlingertun?'
This concept is greeted by a look of such unbridled horror that I fear the man is about to suffer a massive cardiac episode. 'I cannot read my own writings aloud, you scabies ridden pensmith!'
'Fine! I'll read a bit of Both Sides then,' I snap, and grab up the nearest copy. I turn to Jamie and narrow my eyes, 'then my husband here can read your book.' Jamie starts to protest. 'After all,' I cut across him, 'he thought it was a good idea, didn’t he?'
Cardigan Holmes crosses two thin arms across his chest. 'That is acceptable to me,' he intones with a sniff.
'Excellent!' says the hipster, and the rest of the crowd nod in agreement. A book signing is one thing, but two sets of authors at each other's throats is entirely another. I'm sure Morninghouse is kicking himself that he doesn't have any popcorn to sell.
Trying to resist the urge to tell the universe to fuck off, I crack open the copy of Love From Both Sides I have in my hand and start to read.
For the next few minutes I read the first chapter of the book aloud. Everyone is silent as I do so, apart from a few titters from the crowd when I read a funny bit, and many huffs, sniffs and tuts of disgust from Mislington whenever I read something he doesn't like the sound of - which seems to be every other word.
I finish my recitation just at the point where Jamie is taken back to Isobel's house for some humiliating sex. It's not my favourite part of the book, to be honest. There's something about the idea of Ja
mie's semen sliding down a picture of Jesus that gives me the heebie jeebies.
I get a small round of applause for my efforts, which I take with as much good grace as possible.
'Right then!' Jamie exclaims with glee and picks up Taming The African Love Goddess. With a grin of delight he opens to the first page and starts to read.
'It was, as ever, a thunderous morning to be sailing a camel on the incandescent plains,' Jamie begins. 'But I was not overtly concerned, for I had my trusty Dromedarian ally betwixt my thighs, and my rambunctious trombone slung native-like across my back.'
Jamie stops for a second and looks up, giving everyone a chance to process what they'd just heard. It takes a few moments, but confusion slowly gives way to unsteady comprehension as they realise what those mangled sentences were actually about. A couple of the slower ones need the answer whispered to them, but by the time Jamie continues, everyone seems up to speed.
'Oh, how the temperate bosom of the veldt did clutch me in its unyielding embrace, as I traversed its oatmeal coloured peaks on my way to new undertakings of grave import.'
I can't be a hundred percent sure, but I think this story is about a bloke on a camel. He may, or may not be, in love with said camel, but I'll have to wait for more details before reaching a definite conclusion.
'My breast beat with the excitement of my incipient adventures, and my loins grew engorged at the prospect of the dark and hairy maidens I would encounter amongst the sundrenched flora and malnourished fauna of this most intransigent geography.'
Yep, he's definitely going to have sex with that camel at some point.
Thus far, what Jamie has read is... well, the nicest thing I can say is that it's not boring in any way shape or form. It's also barely comprehensible, and written with a contempt for narrative structure that borders on the psychopathic.
What it definitely is not, is anything like Love From Both Sides.
I choose to point this out before Jamie can get any further. This earns me a look of unconcealed malice from Cardigan Holmes. 'Skip to page 39!' he orders Jamie. 'Read the second chapter from the perspective of my glorious heroine Revagina!'
Love...Among The Stars: Book 4 in the Love...Series (Love Series) Page 12