I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [17]
Eventually, though, things settled down (I ended up going with NDB Autos on King Street) and we could begin to enjoy learning about the different stages of the foetus’s growth. One week it was the size of a pea, another a walnut, then a plum, an apple, a beef tomato, by which time the novelty of being able to equate my child’s size to the mass of a common fruit or vegetable had really started to razz me off.
When the birth came, though, I have to confess that I didn’t find it especially traumatic. After all, I’d been through it myself some 25 years earlier, and that experience (see page 3) seemed to stand me in good stead. Carol, on the other hand, wasn’t quite so keen. It took her two days and two nights to deposit our first-born from her loins. But finally, almost as if he knew there were only minutes left on my car-park ticket, Fernando Partridge was born, weighing in at 9lbs 4oz (roughly the size of nine one-pound bags of sugar).
There he was, his skin covered in a thick film of my wife’s innards. Tears streamed down my face. I was so happy I wanted to shout it from the rooftop. But at the same time I knew that that afternoon’s downpour would have made the slate tiles so slippery that achieving any kind of purchase would have been impossible. Equally, I was acutely aware of the car-parking situation mentioned above.
After a while (a bit too long actually) I was awarded my child and I cradled him against the crook of my elbow. He was well swaddled so I didn’t have to worry about getting any of Carol’s guts on my shirt. We stood at the window, me and my son, my son and I. The night sky was straining to get into the room but couldn’t because of the glass. I could at least protect him from that.
I looked up at the starry night and knew what I must do. I closed my eyes and began to sing very, very quietly, for the first time, to my infant son.
‘There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando. They were shining there for you and me …’
And at that point, I broke down. To this day, my inability to sing the full chorus irks me because I’d just realised that I could change the next bit, ‘for liberty’, to ‘for Carol P’, which I thought would be quite nice. But I’d turned to look at Carol and she looked so happy and proud, it made my throat constrict and fill up with tears. I handed the child back to a nurse and ran off to the toilets so I wouldn’t be seen, throwing my head back on the way to shout, ‘I’m a father, you mothers!’
I also have a daughter, whose birth invoked similar feelings.41
37 With the exception of a Hoseasons holiday to Bournemouth in 1979. Consistently excellent intercourse.
38 Press play on Track 7.
39 Press play on Track 8.
40 But not our boots – there was a fair bit of shingle underfoot.
41 Denise.
Chapter 5
Hospital Radio
IN 1967 I MISDIAGNOSED myself with cancer of the ball bag. In every other respect I was a perfectly normal youth – I was active, I had a good diet, I was pubing well – but one day I found a lump.
For three long days, I felt the cold hand of death on my shoulder. Lost in the depths of despair I tried to figure out what I had done to deserve this. I wasn’t an evil person. The worst thing I’d ever done was kick a pig.42 It’s not even as if I wanted to live a particularly long life. As a child I would have been satisfied to reach my mid 30s. To be honest, I just wanted to best Christ.
Yet it seemed I wouldn’t get the chance. As I sat in the doctor’s waiting room, I pulled out a notepad and began to draw up my final will and testament. It was almost as if, even at the age of 12, I was somehow aware of the tax implications of dying intestate.
But before the pencil lead had dried on the paper, I was spared. A quick medical fondle by Dr Armitage had identified that the suspected tumour was nothing more sinister than an infected paper cut – a result, I later realised, of a