I leave Luke standing with the over sixties in Costcutter where he is cutting costs by buying the components of a picnic lunch, his sunburnt forehead glistening sulphurously like the tip of an unlit match - just an England shirt and a neck tattoo away from looking inconspicuous, and go outside to check it. At least, that's my excuse.
It's from my friend Alex, aka Karl for the purposed of fiction, who, together with his 'over-exercised Jockess wife, teaches at a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania' and who has been browsing in the bookshop of said liberal arts college and come across my book. I'm delirious, and unlike Luke, not just because I've got incipient sunstroke. Though I haven't heard a thing since it came out with all the fanfare of a chair being drawn out from under a table in a remote cabin in the middle of an untamed wilderness - there it is, looking elegant on a table, in a real, live bookstore in a real live town (well the 'live' bit is maybe something of an exaggeration).
I rush back to show Luke as he finally emerges from the store bringing the sunshine with him on his glowing head and casting Costcutter into a shadowy gloom.
'Look Luke!' I say holding up the phone with a microscopic picture of me face up on a table.
'Hello precious girl,' he says as I bound towards him, but alas he's talking to a large yellow labrador with fur that appears to have been tumble dried and whose only skill seems to be panting, which he stoops to stroke, causing a minor eclipse of the sun as his head disappears into shade.
'It's from Alex,' I persist...
He looks momentarily interested. Alex is also the name of his daughter.
'Alex, you know - Karl in the book...'
His interest wanes. 'I can't remember. I don't remember much about books after I've read them'.
He carries on patting the dog, whispering endearments and giving it the sort of blonde attention that should be mine.
Turns out there are an awful lot of people with dogs in Norfolk, and a great many of them walking across Holkham Sands, each of whom (dogs, of course not people, silly) are patted enthusiastically as I trail after him for miles and miles and miles and, only just managing to avoid having my head blown off by the gale force wind coming off the sea that makes keeping your eyes open difficult and standing upright only possible because your sand-soaked shoes and jeans act as ballast. Eventually we shelter from the wind in a hollow of the dunes. Bliss. I lie back in the powdery sand that sprinkles across my factor 500 face like fairy dust, and smile contentedly. Luke lays down beside me and rests his head on my chest.
Ah.
I stroke sand into his gelled hair.
'That's lovely,' he whispers and I'm just about to murmur my agreement when he moves slowly across my body and prostrates himself inches from a little clump of grass. This is more like it... I wriggle accommodatingly.
'Oh, look, it's a cinnamon moth...' He whispers.
Frankly, the only way I'm going to get any affection is if I either grow wings or a tail.
Eight miles, one cream tea, an ice cream, half an baguette, a cheese and onion pasty and a slice of birthday cake later, we're back at the hotel. I'm prostrate on the bed, in pretty much the same position as my book is on the table of the Haverford Bookstore, and with half the energy and about 5 percent of the allure. Apparently. Luke however is curtain twitching and scanning the flat fields hopefully. With binoculars.
'The guy downstairs said there are a lot of hares around here. It's famous for them. It would just have been perfect if a hare had jumped across the path. If only I had managed to see one.'
Outside the barley is rippling to and fro but no obliging jackrabbit appears. Anywhere. It has been a very long day. I reach for his hand and try to urge him to lie down, shut the f*** up about hares and make the weekend somewhat less clinical than an episode of Great Surgical Disasters.
'Oh, I'd love to see a hare...' He rests his forehead on the glass pensively causing a slight hissing sound and the faintest smell of burning. I wonder if now would be a good time to give him the England temporary tattoo that came in a packet with wafers of pink-as-a-two-week holiday in Torremolinos bubble gums at Nobby's for Value. Instead I ask to borrow his Swiss Army knife, pick up a couple of leaflets for The World Wildlife Trust and go into the bathroom.
Tellingly he shows absolutely no curiosity.
Three seconds later I come back out wearing somewhat fewer clothes and a pair of long cut-out ears advertising conservation areas balanced lopsidedly on my head.
'Look, stand back and squint. Now you've seen a sodding hare, okay? So switch the ruddy light off and come to bed.'
He obliges.
The room remains floodlit.
I sigh wearily.
'Wait a minute. I've got you a little present,' I say and reach for the temporary tattoo.
