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Ohio
21st-22nd of June 2002

I awake three hours later at eight o’clock feeling like a worn out old piece of dog-chew. I check out and discover that yesterday’s Bran Flakes and banana breakfast cost Dutton $18, get into a Lincoln town car and catch a plane from LaGuardia airport to Cincinnati. This my first experience of ‘travelling-as-an-alien-in-America-in-the-aftermath-of 9-11’. My suitcase is pulled out and given a security check. I too am pulled out and given a security check. By the end of my trip I have taken my shoes off in eight different airports and learn to travel in flip-flops.

I am met at Cincinnati airport by Kathy Tirscheck. Kathy is an escort. This is a job that doesn't exist in the UK. Because the States are so completely massive and no-one wants to spend the best part of a fortnight travelling around with some weird old author or other, publishers employ local escorts all over the country. They collect the author from the airport or hotel and then take them on to all their appointments for the time they’re in that area.

Kathy takes me to shopping mall after shopping mall in 95º heat to do informal stock signings in gigantic, cathedral-like branches of Borders and Barnes and Noble. We are edging our way slowly towards a bookstore called Books & Co in Dayton, about thirty miles away where I'm to do another reading. Books & Co is one of those dream bookstores, local, independent, huge and welcoming with a really active attitude towards events and promotions.

Look what they did for me:

That’s Sharon Roth, the manager and C. David Bowman, her assistant, who reads out the most amazing introductory speech for me. I was tempted to reproduce it here (he gave it to me to keep) but modesty prevents me. And this is Kathy looking grumpy in the staff room with Sharon just before my reading, and a few members of staff who I didn’t get to meet:

The reading is great, even though only 5 people turn up. At least they’re five intelligent, interesting and enthusiastic people. I get asked some great questions and get some great feedback and thoroughly enjoy myself. But by now I’m starting to feel the lack of sleep combined with the jetlag and really could do without my last appointment of the day - a half hour slot on the Steve Cannon Show in Columbus, Ohio at 10pm.

Kathy’s starting to run out of juice, too. After the show she has to drive all the way back to Cincinnati where she lives and she won’t be home until the early hours. It’s been a long, hot and very sweaty day. Kathy takes me to a great Mexican fast food place where I get myself the biggest single item of food I've ever seen. It’s a burrito-style thing the size of a man’s head, stuffed with chilli beef, sour cream and various other things. It weighs about three pounds. I help myself to a large coke from a dispenser and Kathy laughs at me for not putting ice in it. I dutifully return to the dispenser and top my coke up with ice. As I leave I see a man the size of a Welsh dresser actually finishing his burrito.

WTVN-AM is a nightmare to find. Kathy doesn't know this part of the world at all and there are major roadworks everywhere. We manage to pitch up just in time. The small building on an industrial estate in the back end of beyond appears to be deserted apart from Steve Cannon and his producer. I immediately get a bad feeling about this when his producer tells me that ‘Steve calls what he does ‘info-tainment. He’s the king of trivia.’ I gulp and nod and smile. His producer has the aura of a man who is trapped in a studio every night with a lunatic and looks slightly sad. I walk into Steve’s studio. He's very friendly and nice with a wicked comb-over and a tired-cowboy kind of a face. He says ‘we’ll be talking to you for about an hour, is that OK?’ My head feels like it’s full of asbestos and my blood’s gone all fizzy. I can hardly stop yawning and my husband is waiting for me on the other side of Columbus having just got off a transatlantic flight, so no, it’s not OK. I gesture feebly to Kathy through the glass but she doesn’t know me well enough to read my eyebrow gestures and then Steve launches into his show.

Wow - I mean wow. This man is incredible. He’s a dinosaur, the sort of DJ I didn’t think existed any more. It takes him five minutes of high-octane pop-tastic punning and jingling and god-knows-what-else just to introduce his show. I watch him in amazement, feeling a sudden sadness that only about twelve people will actually be listening to this master at work. And then the interview begins. And it becomes immediately apparent that he hasn’t the first idea who I am. He thinks I've written a book about One Hit Wonders and expresses great interest when I tell him that actually, no, it’s a work of fiction, about a fictional One Hit Wonder. He doesn’t let this stop him spending the next forty five minutes bombarding me with the names of obscure One Hit Wonders from the 1950’s. ‘Hey, what about Minty Jane and the Juleps, remember them, their great hit, Take Me on the Waltzers in November, wow, now that was a song, remember that?’ ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head, sadly and smiling for all I'm worth, ‘no, I've not heard of that one.’ Undeterred, he continues. ‘Hey - and howabout Freddie Dazzle. Remember him? Eating Clams With My Baby? Huh? And you know, Freddie Dazzle, he wrote that other song, you know, that one, what was it - Dan?’ He looks at Dan. Dan shakes his head sadly and shrugs. ‘Well,’ smiles Steve, completely oblivious, ‘Freddie Dazzle - I wonder whatever happened to him.’

I watch the clock clicking slowly towards my original finish time of ten thirty and beyond. It’s the longest forty five minutes of my life. I feel responsible in some way, like I should know about these people, so that Steve would have someone to bounce off - I mean, I wrote a book called One Hit Wonder, for God's sake. I should have done more research. Finally Kathy saves the day. I've watched her face through the glass as the time's passed and she's slowly but surely become livid. During a commercial break she storms into the studio and tells them I'm going. Steve looks gutted. He's just getting into his stride. Still, he gives the book a bloody good plug and tells me it was a pleasure having me on. Here’s Steve just before we left:

Bless him.

‘What a waste of time!’ rants Kathy as we climb back into her car, ‘what a complete waste of time!’ She's furious. And it’s the only time during my entire time in the States that I see anyone lose it, see anyone have a total sense of humour failure. And I love her for it.

It’s nearly midnight by the time we finally find the bar where I'm meeting my husband Jascha and his friend Mike, who we’ll be staying with. Kathy's got a long drive home and I feel really guilty for having dragged her all the way out here. I give her a big kiss and she gives me my suitcase from her boot. I feel like we’ve spent a week together.

Kathy disappears into the night and Mike gets me a nice cold beer. I eat a spicy chicken wing, ask Jascha all about his flight and relax at last. After all, it’s Friday night. It’s the weekend!

*

Jascha and Mike went to primary school together. They've known each other since they were five. Jascha was Mike's best man. Mike was Jascha's. And Mike’s first born son, Patrick, is Jascha's godson. But because Mike and his family have always lived abroad, Jascha's only met Patrick once, at his christening when he was a year old. So this weekend is a fantastic opportunity for Jash to bond with Patrick (which he does in style - see below) and for us all to spend some together.

We hang out in Mike and Mette’s poky little house for a while:

And Mike and Jash ‘help’ Patrick and Daniel play with their toys:

We go to a mall so that Jash can get some mid-American style sunglasses and sandals and we get our first real taste of middle America. Everyone in mid-America looks exactly the same. They all dress the same and eat the same and drive the same. And I’ll tell you something else. Women in the mid-West have fantastic legs. All the women live in tiny, little chino shorts, mainly because it’s so effing hot, but also I couldn’t help thinking, to show off the fact that they have no cellulite. Whatsoever. Pah!

That night Mike casually flings a heap of giant shrimp and fillet steak on the barbie and afterwards we sit on their veranda watching fireflies in the balmy night air. We’re officially relaxed.

But something’s starting to bother me. A rash I had all over my face yesterday which I put down to heat and alcohol has started to swell up. By Saturday evening people have stopped reassuring me that I look fine and started looking strangely at me. By Sunday morning I look like the Elephant Man and Jash, Mike and Mette all agree that I should go to the doctor. So off we go to Ohio Riverside Medical Centre. I am directed to the Emergency Room and imagine excitedly that I'm going to get an ER experience! Sadly not. ER is a quiet plush department which appears not to be attending to any multiple pile-ups, gangland killings or freak industrial accidents. Damn it. Jash and I yeuch and yuck over copies of Bodybuilder Magazine until finally, an hour later, I'm seen by a doctor. Here I am, waiting for him. Check out that face. I look like a fifty-something chronic alcoholic:

He tells me I've got an allergy (well, duh), gives me a prescription and that’s that. Four weeks later I get an invoice for $478.