I, Partridge (35 page)

‘Would you like one Scampi Fry?’ I asked.

‘Just one?!’ she replied, greedily eyeing up my full bag of fish crunches. It may be that she’d forgotten that taking more than one would almost certainly compromise her appetite, which wasn’t really on given that I was buying dinner.

But no sooner had she eaten her Scampi Fry than Denton piped up with a joke about her having ‘fishy fingers’.

On the face of it, it pertained to the distinctive aroma of scampi, but Denton and I both knew it had vaginal overtones. And while the woman was unimpressed, Denton and I
fell
about. It was a reminder of what genuinely good comedy sounds like and we’ve been fairly inseparable since then. In a recent raffle, I won an afternoon driving saloon cars around Brands Hatch and Denton has asked if he can come and watch.

And when the day comes, I might swing round to his place and pick him up. Yes, I think I will.

259
Press play on Track 41.

260
Love that noise.

261
The Terminator, for example. Or Metal Mickey.

262
North Norfolk’s best music mix.

263
North Norfolk.

264
Provided he had first sought permission from me.

265
So long as he’d run the ideas past me during the previous song.

266
Unpaid.

267
Press play on Track 42.

268
I basically just stopped picking him up.

Chapter 34
Hanging Up the Headphones

EVERYONE HAS A SHELF-LIFE
– whether they’re a finely tuned athlete, a surrogate mother, or a lady newsreader. Disc jockeys are no exceptions.

The last thing you want to do is plough on long past your sell-by date, trading on past glories (Simon Mayo) or pretending to like classical music (Simon Bates). The dignified approach is to recognise when your magic is gone, and serenely slip away, having negotiated a handsome severance package and delivered a stinging broadside against younger DJs and station controllers (also Simon Bates to be fair).

I’m perpetually analysing my relevance and fitness for purpose, angrily quizzing my assistant on the quality of each day’s show and sending tapes to Denise and Fernando to flag up anything that sounds dated or fogey-like. So far nothing has come back.

But sometimes there are whispers, nagging doubts, worries. I’m a human being – a good one, but human nonetheless – and the creeping concern that I am outstaying my welcome has lived alongside me in recent years, like a quiet wife or a sidelined application for planning permission.

This has taken on new badness in recent months, culminating in a bounce-back to where I was before I bounced back. I found myself walking through the valley of no confidence towards the desert of deep despair.

You see recently there have been whispers that the Partridge is past it. Naturally the naysayers haven’t had the testes to say this to my face, but you can just sense these things. Plus I’ve had my assistant sit behind them in the staff canteen and listen in to their conversations.

From whence did these hushed conversations arise, you ask (or at least, I do)? Well, it was all triggered by an incident in May. Craig Kilty, aka The Monster, a DJ from rival station Orbital Digital, had tricked his way into my studio and duped me into saying the words ‘I listen to Orbital Digital.’ Far from this being a clever publicity stunt, however, most people just ended up thinking he had learning difficulties. Which to my mind, he definitely does.

Yet it seemed that the chattering classes around North Norfolk Digital had seen it differently. To them it was a sign that I was letting my guard down, that I was losing my hunger, my sharpness, my ‘joie de broadcast’. Of course this was cobblers/fucking bullshit. But it still needed answering, and the only way to do that was to stage the kind of one-off radio event that people would be talking about for a generation, certainly in my household anyway. Which is how I came up with the idea of ‘Mid-Morning Matters, mid-air’.

Whoosh! Legs together, arms by my sides, I shoot up into the air, my body spiralling like a drill bit. ‘Shiiiiit!’ I scream in terror as my beloved Norfolk disappears beneath me. Up I go, higher and higher, climbing like a bird (that flies vertically). Two feet, three feet, four. God knows how many Gs I’m pulling.

Then suddenly the ascent seems to stall. ‘Norwich, we have a problem,’ I quip, deep inside my own head. But of course we don’t have a problem. It’s just Old Lady Gravity getting her way. (She always does in the end, the bitch.) And so here I go, beginning my long descent back to earth. Four feet, three feet, two. As I gather speed, my side parting lifts off my scalp. ‘I can fly!’ it must be thinking. How wrong it is. How wrong it is.

And then – ka-boom! – 13 stone, 8 ounces
²⁶⁹
of pure Alan Partridge crashes down into the forgiving embrace of soft, inflated plastic. A broad Cheshire cheese smile lights up my face. I really do love a bouncy castle.

It’s August 2011 and you join me at the annual Fun Day of North Norfolk Digital.
²⁷⁰
A million miles away from our dark, cramped studios, the Fun Days are all about glitz and glamour as we broadcast live from a large field or car park. It’s a rare chance for us radio professionals to do our stuff in front of a real-life audience, and I for one love it. Reading the travel news into an unresponsive studio mic is one thing, but announcing a tailback on the A47 while staring deep into the eyes of a local granny as she nervously tries to calculate the implications for her journey home? Well you can’t beat it.

I like to spice things up with a gimmick too. Last year I broadcast wearing a full suit of armour (hot, but worth it). The year before I didn’t do anything. (I was going to dress up as David Beckham, but in the end I didn’t as I was in a bad mood on the day.) And this year, I’ve trumped the lot. A first for digital radio anywhere in Norfolk,
²⁷¹
I’ve decided that part of my show will take place mid-air, as I catapult myself up and down on a bouncy castle.

People have tried to talk me out of it of course – some concerned that the jumping will compromise sound quality, others believing (wrongly) that the castle is only for the use of under-10s. But there’s no way I was going to be dissuaded, because this year of all years, with rumours circulating that I’m past it, I need to make my mark.

A few practice leaps have banished the nerves that kept me awake for much of the night. And as I look out into the small but high-quality crowd I can feel myself basking in the warm glow of relative confidence. I breathlessly clamber aboard the castle (having first removed my shoes) and quickly scare away any remaining children. Yet barely have I finished my first mid-air ‘Hello, Norfolk!’, than things go horribly, catastrophically wrong.

As I reach the high point of my first ascent, I can just make out something odd going on below. A grubby man has rushed forward and is shoving the castle out of the way. Suddenly there’s nothing to cushion my fall but cold, hard car park. My whole life flashes before me (it really would make a good film).
²⁷²
But before I crash to earth I notice who the perpetrator is. It’s none other than my DJing nemesis, Dave Clifton.

With an hour to kill before opening time he’s clearly decided to come and make mischief. Yet this time he has badly miscalculated. What he is attempting won’t just leave me a bit red-faced, there is every chance it could lead to paralysis on a truly Perry Masonesque scale. And there is no way I am prepared to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair, even though I have always been curious about the turning circles of the motorised ones.

I shut my eyes and prepare for the worst. But instead of the crack of bone on tarmacadam, what I hear is more of a squelchy thud. Because Clifton has failed to get out of my way and has effectively broken my fall. Better still, his recent thyroid problem means that, to land on, there’s very little actual difference between him and a bouncy castle.

Yet as we lie there in a tangled heap of DJs, I realise I haven’t totally escaped injury. My left ankle is badly sprained. As the pain courses up my body I yelp like a shot dog. Clifton is pretty badly hurt too. Blood is glugging from a cut in his knee like a big squirt of leg ketchup.

I’m sorely tempted to spit in the bastard’s mouth, but don’t. I’m worried it might be taken as a sign of affection by any sexual deviants in the crowd. As my mind scans its database for a plan B, he leaps up and starts to run away. Instantly I’m hurled into the belly of a dilemma. What do I do now? He’s pushed it too far this time, but I’m still a professional, I’ve still got a show to do. My fans are expecting three hours of quality radio, delivered mid-air. I may have a bust ankle, but there’s no reason I can’t get back on that castle and hop.

But then I look out into the (small but high-quality) sea of faces. My god, people are laughing at me. Worse, on the front row I see Craig Kilty, aka The Monster, and a man who looks very much like Tony Hayers but isn’t Tony Hayers because Tony Hayers is dead. What I wouldn’t give to wipe the smiles off their faces, especially the face of Craig Kilty aka The Monster because it is actually him, whereas the other one isn’t Tony Hayers (because Tony Hayers is dead).

If I just let Clifton get away with it even more people will think I’m past it. Even more people will think it’s time to put me out to pasture/stud. Instantly my mind is made up.
²⁷³
‘Sorry, guys,’ I say, ‘show’s cancelled.’

Two hours later the pursuit is still in full swing. Struggling with different but identically debilitating injuries,
²⁷⁴
we’re locked in a dramatic low-speed chase. Thankfully for me, Clifton has been unable to stem the bleeding from his knee. Even if I temporarily lose sight of him I can always tell which direction he’s headed because he leaves a small trail of blood. He’s like a large, menstruating snail (with a drink problem).

By this point my ankle has swollen to roughly the size of a child’s head. There’s no way I can give up, though. To make matters worse, he’s goading me.

‘You’ll never catch me, Partridge.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on that,’ I counter, as a pregnant woman overtakes me.

‘Well I would,’ he replies, his ridiculous mid-Atlantic accent hanging on the breeze like a bad trump.

‘Oh yeah, how much?’

‘How much have you got?’

‘Depends if you mean cash or assets. If we’re going down the assets route then we’re talking house, car, antique Toby jug, which is chipped but not badly …’

Suddenly something hits me. This entire conversation has been nothing more than a smokescreen. With me distracted he’s hobbled on to a number 23 bus and is getting away. Overcome with rage I flick him the Vs (both hands). A young boy misunderstands and thinks I’ve aimed the insult towards his mother. Keen to defend her honour, he flicks his wrist to and fro in the international gesture for ‘masturbator’.

I flick my head effortlessly to the right and see another bus pulling in. Hauling my kiddy’s head of an ankle aboard, I pay my fare (£1.50 for a single!) and fix the driver square between the eyes.

‘Follow that bus!’ I bellow, my face puce with frustration.

‘Jesus, what happened to your ankle?’ he asks, leaning his head out of that little cabin they sit in.

‘Bouncy castle fall only partially broken by bad man,’ I answer, concisely. ‘Now drive!’

He steps on the gas and with a massive cloud of dust we wheel-spin out of the depot, our back end bucking like a bronco. But at the lights, disaster. Clifton’s bus turns left, mine goes right. I ding the dinger, but as I leap from the bus and on to the pavement I’ve forgotten about my ankle. The sudden throb of pain makes me understand what childbirth must be like. Except I’m feeling it in my lower leg rather than my vagina (which is presumably more sensitive).

‘Are you okay?’ says a passing French woman who’s obviously learnt to speak English. I totally ignore her, partly out of pain, partly because I’m still angry at her countrymen for taking part in the Vichy regime.

I scan my surroundings. If I can cut across the retail park I should –
should
– be able to head him off at the junction. It’s a long shot but it’s the only shot I have. I make my way past Boots, JJB Sports and Blacks, who I notice have got 25% off all waterproof trousers. This is handy, not only as I need a new pair of waterproof trousers but also because I always aim to get them at a discounted rate rather than pay full price.

But when I look back over to the junction, the bus has gone. Clifton has eluded me! ‘Noooooooooo!!!!’ I shout, tossing my head back and firing my scream into the sky (although some of it will inevitably have spilled into the nearby Burtons). I trudge on in a daze, making it a few more paces before collapsing to the ground in a tangled heap of DJ.

When I finally come round – how long has it been? A few seconds? A few minutes? A few hours?
²⁷⁵
– I realise where I am.
²⁷⁶
I’m lying in a disabled parking bay outside Morrison’s. Yet this isn’t just any old Morrison’s. This is the site of the copse where I’d stood all those years ago, an eight-year-old marvelling at a simple maple, bowled over by its class and its spunk. The same site to which I make pilgrimage once a year, to remember that tree and take stock; to remember who I am and re-engorge my sense of self.