Life and Laughing_ My Story - Michael McIntyre [37]
I ran over to her, forgetting I was now nineteen years old and a decade had passed. ‘Mrs Orton,’ I screeched, ‘I got 92 per cent.’ Naturally, she had no recollection of me whatsoever. I apologized and we continued our respective games.
Academically, that was my one good year. I never again worked so hard or scaled those heights. I suppose I just wanted to prove to myself and to my dad I could reach the top, and having done that I slipped back down to the middle. I never again excelled in any subject. I was a bit like Blackburn Rovers when they won the league in 1992. One subject I certainly never excelled in was Music. I am simply not musical in any way. I can barely press ‘play’ on the stereo. My dad, of course, had a musical background and was very keen for me to take up an instrument. More specifically, he wanted me to learn the piano. He owned a piano for me to practise on so he was especially keen for this to be my instrument of choice.
My best friend at the time was Gary Johnson. Gary was tremendously cool. He was a fair-haired American, liked basketball and had his own ‘ghetto blaster’. When my mum asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, ‘Black.’ Gary said guitars were cool, so my mind was made up. The guitar was the only instrument for me. I argued with my dad for hours. The ‘guitar’ row was our biggest to date, and it was only when I threatened divorce that he eventually backed down. He begrudgingly bought me a guitar and booked me in for lessons at my school. Gary said my guitar wasn’t cool – he’d meant electric guitars. So I didn’t attend a single lesson. The guitar sat in my Golders Green bedroom in its case, untouched. My dad didn’t live with us so he would never know. I was now only seeing him every other weekend. He and Holly were as in love as Steve and my mother, and bought a big country house. She had been living in LA and he in London, but they now decided to pursue an English country life together.
Holly dreamed of an idyllic rural life and my dad set about making this dream a reality. The house they bought, Drayton Wood, had 35 acres of land, a swimming pool, a tennis court, stables and two paddocks. They purchased a Range Rover, of course. Kitted themselves out in new wellies and Barbours, and filled their property with two dogs (a Great Dane called Moose and a sheepdog named Benjie), two cats (Marmalade and Turbo), three horses (Nobby, Dancer and Lightning), two cows (Bluebell and Thistle) and six geese (I don’t remember their names), no partridges and several pear trees.
It was a wonderful place for Lucy and me to visit, and they seemed to adjust well, apart from the occasional mishap. The geese, for example, weren’t quite as successful as my father had hoped. ‘Geese are great watchdogs, the best,’ said my dad.
‘What about dogs? Aren’t they the best watchdogs?’ I challenged.
‘No,’ my dad insisted, refusing to follow my logic. ‘Geese are much better watchdogs than dogs.’ So rather than rely on the dogs or indeed install an alarm, he got six geese. On their first night at Drayton Wood, we went to sleep safe in the knowledge the geese would alert us to any unwanted guests by honking. In the morning, we awoke to find six dead geese. My father had forgotten about the food chain. A fox had eaten his new alarm system. It turned out our watchdogs needed watchdogs.
The ill-fated ‘watchdogs’ preparing for their one and only night at Drayton Wood.
Visiting my dad in the countryside was a real adventure. I had horse-riding lessons, rode my BMX, went swimming, played fetch with the dogs and tennis with my dad. It was the perfect weekend getaway. Holly created her dream country kitchen with copper pots hanging from the ceiling and more herbs and spices than I knew existed. She would prepare a variety of dishes with varying success for our juvenile palates. Regardless of how much we enjoyed it, Lucy and I