I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [72]
After a quick cup of tea, I bade them good night and bounded up to my room, lying on the bed with my hands behind my head. (Lying on my back I mean, not my front. I was in a state of relaxation rather than internment.)
Yep, it felt good to be in the home when I’d been at my happiest – and to be back among the family, although Emma no longer lived there (she was dead). Her space was filled, if you like, by Sheila’s husband Tim, a pretty nice bloke who had seen my shows and said he quite liked them.
Staying there was just the tonic. My three months at the Lamberts’ were just enough to get me back on my feet. I referred to them frequently on Norfolk Nights, and my listeners took their trials and tribulations – Kenneth’s continued unemployment, Fran’s slurred speech – to their hearts.
We each had to make compromises, of course we did. I had to store my property in the garage even though it was cold in there. For their part, the Lamberts knew if I was going to manage a solid morning of show preparation, I needed the kitchen to myself between 9 and 12 – I had to insist on that.
For a while, things went smoothly, but soon Trevor’s breathing became a bit too loud. It was really off-putting. So I eventually decided to take my notes and Dictaphone to the public library and do my work there.
In fact, I became such a fixture there, I heard one member of staff quietly refer to me as Karl Marx. I don’t think so! I’d take his ideas about the redistribution of wealth and shove them where the sun don’t shine! The workers own the means of production – I ask you!
I was determined – absolutely adamant – that I wouldn’t outstay my welcome at the Lamberts. And so, after 14 weeks, I saddled up and hit the road.
‘Thanks for having me,’ I said.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Fran Lambert seemed to say with the good side of her face. ‘You can come and stay any time you like.’
167 He’s moved to America now so he won’t mind me talking about it, but his wife did used to beat him quite a lot. She’s still in the UK but I’m not naming her. Anyway, I think she’s reverted to her Polish maiden name. She’s a teacher in Nantwich.
According to Jim, she used to beat him with a plastic hosepipe then whirl it round her head so it made a futuristic noise. It may well be that she used to work for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. (The BBCRW used to manufacture sounds in the pre-synthesiser days. It’s an open secret that the Tardis noise was made by a BBC engineer scraping his keys down the fat wires inside a piano. And I’m told the sliding doors on Blake 7 were made by a clothes brush being swept across the back of a leather jacket.)
168 I’d prepared this in advance.
169 Press play on Track 32.
Chapter 23
Swallow
ON THE TITLE PAGE of my pilot script for Norwich-based detective series Swallow, I wrote the words: ‘Dedicated to the memory of Stacy Morgan, 7.’
Stacy wasn’t dead – she never even existed actually – but I thought it would set a poignant tone for the episode and/or gain enough pity to sway the mind of a commissioner. But I’ve scrubbed Stacy’s name off now and replaced it with that of Pete Gabitas, who did exist and is now dead. He’s sorely missed.
I’m often asked if I have a manager or agent and, instead of answering with words, I used to take out a ten pound note, tear a quarter of it off and then scrunch that bit up and throw it in a bin.170 Never had one. Waste of money! And, as my career has proved beyond doubt, I’ve never needed one.
But if anyone came close to filling the role of agent/manager, it would have been Pete Gabitas. The MD of BlueBarn Media, Pete was a big-hearted, big-bellied guy, who liked nothing more than