I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [115]
I glance out of the window and see an old woman looking up at the window, through the driving rain. But I’ve no time to worry about lady pensioners. It’s show time for the final time. I enter my studio, for the final time. I sit on my seat, for the final time. I warm up my voice, not for the final time (at this point I’m still toying with the idea of joining a gospel choir).
As I have done for every one of my broadcasts over some 30 years, I quietly run through my pre-show checklist. Headphones – on. Throat and nasal passages – clear. Fingers – ready to push buttons and slide sliders. The breakfast show has chosen to end with ‘It’s My Life’, the 1992 hit by Dr Alban. It seems somehow appropriate, even though it’s been used to advertise tampons.
My moment has arrived. Alban stops, his husky European rap-singing slowly fading in the crisp morning air. And then …
Nothing. Silence. I’ve frozen. I’m committing the biggest sin in radio: dead air. But it’s not that I’ve lost my bottle. Me? No way. Get real. I’d made my mind up after all. It’s simply that I can’t muster the will to speak. Something has grabbed my brain like the jaws of a distempered police dog. It’s the old lady I’ve seen from the studio window, moments earlier.
It’s only now I realise: this wasn’t just any female pensioner. It was the woman I’d spoken to earlier this morning. This time she was wearing a coat, carrying an umbrella to protect her body from the drench. And when her eyes had fixed on mine she’d been mouthing something. ‘Thank you,’ she’d been saying. ‘Thank you.’
I’d helped that woman. I had genuinely helped her. In providing a simple weather update, I’d helped her to avoid both the downpour and – who knows – perhaps a fatal dose of hypothermia.
And it wasn’t just her. The travel bulletin I’d given to the bespectacled driver had helped her to (I imagine) return her library books in time, saving her money that she could use to feed her children, and all thanks to a detour away from the inevitable jam-back at Grapes Hill. And then there was the security guard. He’d been at a low ebb, but my chat, my breezy demeanour, my easy way with people had given him a chuckle, a moment of levity, a sign that someone cared.
I shake my head. No time for sentimentality, Alan. I need to get back ‘on-message’, as Tony Blair would say. But still I’m dry-mouthed and unable to propel the words towards the foamy orb of the mic.
By now word has spread that I’m drying up live on air. People are pouring into the studio that faces mine. Others are peering in through the little round window in the studio door. It’s only a small window but I count at least 3.5 faces.
But still, I can’t do it. Because I’d helped people, I’d amused, I’d chatted. Help, amuse, chat. And those qualities – help, amuse, chat – are qualities that broadcasters spend a lifetime trying to perfect. Yet on the limp to work I hadn’t even had to think about it – it was like breathing, or going for a wee in the night. It had all come so naturally. It was just Alan being Alan, Partridge being Partridge, me being I.
But shouldn’t I be saying ‘sod them all’? Sod the mockers, the naysayers, the bouncy-castle saboteurs? Whatever they think of my broadcasting, isn’t it my audience that matters? I mean, for them I am doing a good thing, day in, day out (except weekends). Help, amuse, chat. Help, amuse, chat. I look back to the window. Now my assistant is there. She’s holding up a plastic bag with some sandwiches in. Is this a sign? No, probably not.
Suddenly the producer is in my ear. ‘Speak, man.’ His voice seems to go into slo-mo. ‘Speeeeeaaaakkkk maaaannnn!!!’ I go to loosen my tie but realise I’m not wearing one. So instead I just end up scratching the bit below my Adam’s apple. As I drag my nails back and forth across the base of my gullet, the producer is back in my ears. ‘Snap out