I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [69]
I wouldn’t say I was particularly ecstatic. It was no less that I deserved, which meant it was one positive that cancelled out the negative of Hayers’s snubbing me. But not a second positive that would have pushed my happiness level higher than average.
Chris took the pen.
‘This might seem like it was drawn up on a whim, but I know exactly what I’m doing,’ he said, clearly and alertly. He winced as he gripped the pen.
‘I trapped my hand in a door earlier so my hand hurts and my signature might end up looking a bit weird, but I should still be able to sign this.’
He did so slightly gingerly but in a very lucid and legally binding way. I shook his good hand and left.
162 I actually have the utmost respect for elderly Romany women, after one of them read my fortune in a beer garden with incredible accuracy. I’d honestly never met this woman before but she reeled off intimate details of my life that left me dumbfounded. She listed five things that rang true as a bell.
i) She said I was concerned about travel. CORRECT. I’d just put in an expenses claim for a non-work-related train journey (back to my car after an over-ambitious ramble) and was panicking that I’d be exposed.
ii) She said someone close to me with the letter e in their name had had health concerns. CORRECT. My daughter DEnisE (my capitals) had had been suffering from migraines and was sent to see a specialist, although it turned out to just be stress-related illness from over-work.
iii) She said I had been unlucky in love. CORRECT. Carol and others.
iv) She said I would be given good news by a man wearing blue. CORRECT. Not three days later, I would told by a British Gas engineer that my combi boiler repair was covered by the original warranty.
v) She said I should be wary of ‘the Birdman’. CORRECT x THREE. In the months that followed I was shouted at by Bill Oddie (looks at birds), crippled golfer Gordon Heron (name of a bird) and Jim Rosenthal (looks like a bird).
Some people will say there’s nothing psychic about this – that these could apply to anyone, that they’re vague, or that every now and then she’s bound to get lucky. Alright, if it was just one or two maybe. But FIVE of them? Get real.
163 Press play on Track 31.
164 But at four and six, their memories of him would at best be vague and, on the plus side for them, his death would lead to a welcome cash injection because of the life insurance that people in his position all too predictably take out – don’t tell me that doesn’t sweeten the pill.
165 I still am. Rare is the day I settle down for an evening in front of the Million Pound Drop or The Cube with Phil Schofield, without access to a notebook and fountain pen. I scribble notes on production techniques and format. ‘Too much make-up on Bradbury’, ‘Impeccable, Tarrant. Impeccable’ or ‘Invent quiz show with world record prize’.
166 Which are actually painted red. Try finding a black cuboid on a sea bed. It’d take you all bloody day!
Chapter 22
Homeslessnessness
I BADE MY FAREWELL to the Linton Travel Tavern in the only way I knew: by taking my luggage to the car and paying my outstanding balance with a credit card. I was touched that Duty Manager Susan had taken the trouble to see me off/take my payment.
‘There’s your receipt, Alan,’ she said. I could tell she was keen to chat.
‘Six months, eh?’ I continued, commenting on the duration of my stay in the hotel. ‘That’s almost long enough to gestate a baby.’ I winced. It was a clumsy choice of words. I’d already established (see page 152) that she ached to have me inside of her. So it followed that she also longed to bear my child.
For several seconds we embraced, or rather our hands did. Finally, with the handshake over I got into my car, made sure it was in neutral, turned the engine on, found the biting point, checked my mirrors, indicated to pull out, released the hand-brake