I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [114]
I telephone my assistant to tell her the news. I’m obviously not interested in what she has to say, so when I’ve finished speaking I press the buttons on my phone in order to drown out her protests with the keytones. Then I hang up.
I start the drive into work, manfully trying to operate the brake, accelerator and clutch with only one functioning foot. It’s not easy, but I’m confident that if I move my good foot quickly enough, while slinging my bad one over the gear stick, it can be done. A close shave with the local lollipop lady tells me I’m wrong. I clamber aboard my crutches and begin the long walk to work. It will at least give me time to marshal my thoughts.
Some hope! As I struggle to pole-vault my body gradually towards the studios, my concentration is crumpled by interruptions.
‘Excuse me, love,’ a bespectacled woman asks from the driver’s window of a Renault Espace. ‘I’m trying to find the Millennium Library. I think it’s Ethel St?’
‘It’s Bethel Street,’ I mutter, my eyes fixed on the pavement ahead. ‘It’s just past the end of Earlham Road but there are tailbacks from the roadworks on the Grapes Hill roundabout, so you’re better off taking Dereham Road and heading for St Benedicts St.’
‘Thanks!’
I must concentrate. This is a seminal moment in my life. I need this to be right. But a shout from a nearby doorway halts my train of thought.
‘Lovely day!’ says an old cardiganed woman, towing a tartan shopping trolley and dead-locking her front door behind her as all old people obsessively insist on doing.
‘Yeah, for ducks!’ I holler. She laughs, and I explain. ‘The weather’s going to take a turn any minute. Massive chance of rain today. Massive.’
She stops laughing and, deep in thought, heads back indoors to collect a coat or buy her shopping online.
I arrive at North Norfolk Digital279 still clueless as to how I’ll announce my retirement. Just before I enter the building, the security guard catches my eye. He looks a bit down – or rather, more depressed than usual – so I engage him in a quick bit of chat, instinctively focusing on topics someone like him he will relate to, such as football or the lottery.
I get inside and crutch myself to the bathroom. Standing at the mirror, I observe my reflection: my eyes still dance and sparkle (of course they do) but my hair is mottled grey, my eyes are riddled with wrinkles and my skin has developed a blotchy quality that I never discovered the source of.
‘The time has come for me to retire,’ I mumble to myself. Yes, something simply feels right. I hear a snigger from a toilet cubicle and curse silently. My colleagues really are twats sometimes.
After splashing my face where it had been stained with milk, I leave the bogs and order a couple of less senior people to assemble everyone in the foyer. And then I drop my bombshell. ‘I’m calling it a day. I wanted you all to know first, but in a few moments I’ll share the news with my listeners. “I’ve had some great years with you all,” I shall say. “But the time has come for me to retire.”’
A hush falls over the room. They can’t believe it. At the back, I think I see someone faint. I start the process of shaking every member of staff by the hand. It’s only a small gesture but I know it’ll mean a lot. Some people have got palms even clammier than my own (including a worryingly high proportion of women), but I don’t tell them – now’s not the time, I’ll just give my hands a good wash later.
In the end I have to do the shakes increasingly quickly as I’ve noticed people have started to drift away (no doubt intent on returning to their desks to switch off their email, take their phones off the hook and give themselves a few minutes to get their heads straight).
By the time I get to the last few it’s barely even a shake, it’s more of a grip-and-release. I’m in such a hurry I end up pressing the flesh of a couple of people who aren’t even on the payroll – one is a DHL courier, the other isn’t.280
I’m so determined not to miss anyone out that I even head back into the toilets