Bodies in the Bookshop

A couple of years ago I was at an event called Bodies in the Bookshop at Heffers Bookshop in Cambridge. It’s a venerable institution, crammed with volumes, but the press of people and authors (about 30 of us) all signing books for people, wasn’t the best for preserving sanity.

This year they invited me back, and the setup has changed. It was on a Saturday, rather than a weekday evening, and consisted of eight different panels. I was on one concerning historical crime, along with Ros Barber, Robin Blake, Rory Clements and Peter Moore – with whom I had a great discussion, as we’ve both worked as music journalists. Well moderated, it was a joy, but perhaps the biggest thrill was that it took place in the debating chamber at Cambridge Union, where so many august people have spoken. That alone made it all worthwhile.

I’d love to say it offered a chance to mingle with other writers, but there was little of that. I had a brief walk around the town before the event (my son and I had done Cambridge properly two years back), then a quick trip to Fopp afterwards, where the Black Keys’ Brothers and a 2-CD best of Bob Dylan for a fiver each really made the trip worthwhile, before heading back home.

But it was very enjoyable, a chance to talk and be directed, a contrast to a different event in Leeds earlier in the week at Oxfam Books. That, too, was a joy, hopefully helping them put a little money in their coffers and to show my son an area of Leeds where I spent a couple of years before moving to the US, and a visit to old stomping grounds.

50 Shades of Yorkshire - The Start

CHAPTER ONE

She saw the advert in the Yorkshire Evening Post and it was as if it spoke to her soul. ‘Wanted,’ it said, ‘lass to work in chippie. Hard graft, but good rewards and free scraps.’ She read it again and again, and she knew it was fate calling. This was a job made for her, with the sensual feel of fat and batter.

It was up in Leeds, but she wasn’t going to let distance stop her from following her fate. The next morning she dressed well in her fanciest coat, taking the rollers out of her hair before she finally put on the new headscarf from the market her mam had given her for Christmas, and took the bus from South Elmsall.

The journey was tortuous, but that only strengthened her resolve. If she could get there before three, the job would be hers. She willed the driver on through the puddles, noticing how, as she moved north the people began talking funny, saying town instead of tarn and right instead of reet. It scared her, being in this alien land.

She found the place at five minutes to three. Green’s Fish & Chips, the sign read, and her heart raced to see it, scarcely contained by her lacy 38F bra. A world of promise lay inside.

‘Eh up, luv, what that having?’ a girl said to her. She was dressed in whites, the clothing pristine and pure except for the stains across her front.

‘I’d like to see t’owner,’ she answered, he voice as meek as a mouse in a cattery. ‘About t’job.’

The girl nodded at a door with the word 'private' painted on it. A door of temptation and promise, she thought.

‘Go through there, luv, and up t’stairs. Office is at top. I’ll ring him for thee.’

‘What’s…’ she began, and had to force herself to breathe before she could continue. ‘What’s ‘is name, please?’

‘Herbert Green. Right bugger wi’ ‘is hands he is, too.’ She surveyed the lush form in the low cut dress. ‘He’ll be over you like a rat on a corpse.’

Herbert Green. Even the name sounded magical, she thought as she climbed the stairs to a small waiting room with two old chairs and a coffee table. She balanced her handbag on her lap and waited, crossing one leg over another. Finally, after five minutes, a door opened and a man stood looking at her.

‘Thas’s here about t’job?’

He had a deep, masculine voice that flowed liked water through a slag heap. His belly bulged invitingly against a 1974 Leeds United home shirt, and over the waist of his brown terylene trousers. He had a thin, cruel mouth, and he gave her a smile that would have been overwhelming with a full set of teeth. She felt the heat flow through her. She’d never seen a man like this, one who exuded power and the smell of mint humbugs in equal portions.

He began to turn away from her, back into the office. She stood quickly to follow and tripped over the rug, sprawling behind him. He offered a hand to help her up.

‘Do that near t’fat fryer and tha’ll be ruining a tenner’s worth o’ chips’ he warned her. ‘Can’t be going arse over tit here.’ She held his hand a little longer than she needed, relishing the strong grip. ‘And summat else, lass, you forgot to put your kecks on this morning.’

She blushed deeply, embarrassed by her stupidity, the haste in which she’d dressed to come her following him into the office. The windows looked out onto a row of back-to-back houses and the desk was scarred wood. This was a man’s office, she thought, the centre of an empire.

‘What’s tha name?’ he asked, and she could feel his eyes boring into her. She could never have any secrets from this man.

‘Call me…Doris.’

‘Aye, right. What experience do you have, Doris?’

‘None,’ she admitted, lowering her eyes. ‘I’ve done nowt.’ Suddenly there was pleading in her voice. ‘But I’m eager to learn. I want this. I want it all.’

‘Steady on, lass,’ he said quietly, reaching across the desk to pat her wrist. So there was tenderness in him, too, she realised. He was a complete man. ‘Can tha make a decent cuppa?’

‘Pot to the kettle,’ she said, ‘and let it steep for three minutes before I pour.’

He smiled and she knew. The job was hers.

‘When can tha start?’

‘Now,’ she said impulsively. She had nowhere to stay in this strange town, no money, no spare clothes, not even a pair of knickers. But life was giving her a chance, and for Herbert Green she was willing to take it.

‘Champion,’ he told her. ‘Champion.’

50 Shades of Yorkshire

She left me tied to the chair, unable to move. Luckily there was rugby league on't telly. The way she moved on holiday gave a whole new meaning to Leeds United away strip. She was dressed to the nines for me, like a chip shop goddess, snapping the clip on her suspenders. "Right then, love," she told me, "I'm off to bingo." She looked back over her shoulder at me, her eyes full of sensual warmth. "Whippet," she said, "whippet good." The dog whimpered. "By 'eck," she warned, "I'm going to make tha peas the mushiest ever, big lad." He was dressed in a dark blue suit that was nothing less that Burton's best, the dog hair lovingly brushed from the material, with a C&A bri-nylon shirt and his Leeds Rhinos tie. His Hush ~Puppies has been cleaned, the brown suede crisp, the soles silent as he walked to meet her. Later, at home, he hung up the jacket. "What's that?" she asked in surprise. "Belt...and braces," he whispered in her ear, knowing that she loved a man who looked after himself. She ran calloused fingertips between his shirt buttons, pressing herself close to him so he could take in the scent of salt and vinegar crisps. "Oh luv," she said adoringly, feel the juices run as she held his kebab tightlu "you wore the string vest."

For The Last Several Weeks I've Been A Woman...

For the last several weeks I’ve been a woman. Well, not in my daily life, but in my writing. I’ve been changing the main character of my Seattle mystery Emerald City into a female. It’s affected every dynamic in the book and made me much more aware of what women go through – and even more so in 1988 when the novel is set – every day. Seattle has always been a progressive city, and it was back then, too, but it’s never been perfect. In some ways the book is a love letter to the city where I lived for 20 years, as well as to its music scene, life and to The Rocket, that most glorious of music papers. But it’s become a love letter with a different edge to it in the rewriting. It’s now back with the publishers, the people who first suggested the sex change, so I’ll be waiting for their reaction and hoping they love what they read. I’ve even started on the follow-up, set six years later, with the first chapter complete (and I don’t plan on continuing it for a while yet). Right now I feel I can breathe again, if only for a few days until I receive a critique on the new Richard Nottingham novel from my most trusted reader. But I need that little space, as my son arrived – from Seattle – for the summer. For a little while I can enjoy him every day.