I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t got the first clue what I’m doing. In the car, the London streetlights liquefy as I cry all the way home. I think of my fifteen-year-old self in his bedroom practising that other dance in what feels like that other lifetime.
15: Bit self-indulgent, isn’t it?
43: What?
15: This. You, talking to yourself.
43: You were expecting to grow out of it?
15: I wasn’t ‘expecting’ anything. Christ.
(Pause)
43: Can you please stop that?
15: Stop what?
43: Looking at my hair. It happens.
15: Sorry. Just a bit of a shock. I mean, what the fuck –
43: It just fell out, OK?
15: Right.
43: Look, there’s good news, all right? I came to give you the good news.
15: Like Jesus?
43: If you like.
15: Like Jesus with a massive bald patch?
43: Mate, get over it. I have.
15: Really?
43: No, not really. But look, I’m a TV star!
15: Oh my God.
43: Good, isn’t it?
15: No, I mean ‘Oh my God – what a penis’.
43: Well –
15: Hark at cunty. ‘My name’s Robert Webb and I’m a TV star!’ Is that how you talk?
43: Look, if you’re just going to be horrible –
15: How big?
43: What?
15: How big a star?
43: Erm, well, I don’t really think about it in those terms.
15: Like fuck you don’t. Bigger than John Cleese?
43: No.
15: Bigger than Rik Mayall?
43: Er, no, not really.
15: Well, it doesn’t sound very fucking –
43: Nigel Planer.
15: What?
43: I’m about as famous as Nigel Planer, if you must.
15: (Considers this) Right. Well, I suppose that’s –
43: Actually, Rik Mayall didn’t have a sketch show, so –
15: Yes he did! He was in A Kick Up the Eighties.
43: Oh yeah, I forgot that.
15: You FORGOT A Kick Up the Eighties!?
43: Look, a lot’s happened, all right? A lot of good things. I’m married with two children.
15: Oh, OK.
43: You pleased?
15: Yeah, course I’m pleased. I mean, I get to have sex at least twice, right?
43: Well, yes, that’s one way of looking at it.
15: Oh, Mr Mature, Mr Fucking VICTOR MATURE isn’t bothered about all the sex. I suppose you have sex all the time.
43: No, not really. I suppose 21 might turn up later; he’s at it constantly.
15: I like the sound of 21.
43: I think he’s a bit of a wanker.
15: Sounds like he does less wanking than you.
43: Right, I’m going.
15: No, sorry, hang on. Sorry.
(Pause)
15: I like your accent.
43: My accent?
15: You sound quite posh.
43: Ah yes. Well, that was your idea. You want to sound like Stephen Fry, don’t you?
15: What’s wrong with that?
43: Nothing. I mean it’s a bit –
15: Look, I just don’t want to sound like fucking Dad, all right? I want to be the opposite of Dad.
43: You’ve just said two different things and the second one is impossible.
15: Worth a try.
43: Waste of time. Close your eyes and don’t think of a pink elephant.
15: What?
43: Close your eyes and don’t think of a pink elephant.
15: OK . . . (Closes eyes)
43: What are you thinking of?
15: A pink elephant.
43: You’ve got – you can open your eyes now – you’ve got this idea of Dad as an abrasive northern male with an over-developed sense of adventure who takes women for granted and drinks too much. And you’re about to spend twenty-five years trying to be ‘not that’.
15: So?
43: So you’re screwed.
15: So I should just give in and be a macho bullshit arsehole like other blokes.
43: Other blokes aren’t all like that. Listen, a few years ago, I did this charity dance thing on TV and it went really well. Lots of people said kind things but there were two messages that really mattered. One was from Stephen Fry and the other was from Dad. It was the one from Dad that was the most important by a long way. You want his approval and you’re much more like him than you th –
15: What did Mum say?
43: What?
15: This dance thing. What did Mum say?
43: Mum, she . . .
15: She liked it too, right?
(Pause)
43: Yes.
(15 looks at 43)
15: What’s the matter?
A year or so before Let’s Dance, I’m driving a car for the first time since getting married. It’s a smart navy-blue Audi A3, given to Abigail by her dad. I’m alone but in a mysteriously good mood. What, I wonder, has gone so right? Is it the free car? The free car certainly helps. Abbie’s dad had just retired and says he doesn’t need it any more. Yes, the free car is a bit of all right; an absurdly big engine for a little car and much sportier than the second-hand Datsun Cherry (‘Chesney’) that I blew my inheritance on when I was seventeen. But no, it isn’t that. What is it? What’s that noise?
Tap. Aaah . . . there you are. Abbie and I have been married for a while but this is the first time I’ve driven a car whilst wearing a wedding ring. Every time I change gear I hear the tap of the ring on the gearstick. And suddenly I’m seven again and sitting on the back seat, and Mum is driving us between the golf club where my grandparents (and Auntie Trudy) work in the kitchen and our new bungalow in the next village. It’s a journey we make many times a week and that tap is one of the happiest sounds of childhood. It means that I’m alone with Mum.
‘Quiet boy’, ‘painfully shy’, ‘you never know he’s there’: these are some of the phrases I catch grown-ups using when they talk about me. But not here, not in the car with Mum. And definitely not when ‘Sailing’ by Rod Stewart comes crackling over the MW radio. The gusto of our sing-a-long is matched only by the cheerful lousiness of my mother’s driving.
‘We are SAAAAILING’ (tap, second gear),