I, Partridge Read Online Free PDF Page B

also meant that I was something of a ‘mystery man’ on campus. While my fellow students lived in each other’s pockets and played out their debauched lifestyles for all to see, I was far less known. I’d be glimpsed at the back of lecture halls, ghosting through the student union with a glass of cider or shushing idiots in the library. And then I’d be gone. This all added to my aura. As did my idiosyncratic dress sense. Thick-knit zip-up cardigans, flared brown corduroys and shiny black pepperpot brogues set me apart from the long-haired layabouts who bore an uncanny resemblance to the Guildford Four and some of the Birmingham Six – Irish long-haired layabouts ‘wrongfully’ convicted of bombing England.
    It was a time of sex, drums and rock and roll, and these three things (or four things depending on whether you count ‘rock and roll’ as one item or two) provided the backdrop to a very crazy time. I know for a fact that I would have developed a pretty impressive booze habit and had full sex had it not been for the fact I was expected home for 6 to 6.30.
    You’ll notice I said ‘full sex’. Oh, I’d dabbled alright. Gentlemanliness prevents me from recounting some of the early incidents involving my nascent but powerful sexuality, but suffice to say, I was no frigid. I did quite a lot of kissing, some of it vigorous enough to chap lips (mine and hers). On other occasions, I enjoyed erotic and informative afternoons with a student whose essays I was writing. Years ago, I’d have been too prudish to discuss these sexual experiences in print, but hitting 50 has given me a new candidness. I’m happy to recall those eye-opening afternoons, with me and Jemima sitting bollock naked on her bed – me exploring her body with my quivering hands while she coquettishly feigned indifference by reading album sleeves or smoking.
    Young I may have been, but I was confident enough to speak my mind. This strutting, young, cockcertain Alan would often dish out compliments as he perused and felt her body.
    ‘You’re a really busty woman, Jem,’ I once said. ‘One of the bustiest on campus.’
    ‘Thanks,’ she said through her cigarette.
    ‘You’ve got quite a long torso, but your legs aren’t in the least bit thick. Believe me, if I didn’t have lectures, I’d love to kiss your back from top to bottom and from side to side. Also diagonally.’
    Things like that.
    And I knew how to party. Typically, I’d press a blade crease into my cords, 36 comb my thick hair past my ears like a glossy hat (the style at the time) before pitching up fashionably late to a house party, where my appearance through the frosted glass of the door would provide hushed whispers of anticipation inside.
    Perhaps subconsciously aware that I’d soon become a disc jockey (DJ), I’d bring albums with me and sit in front of the record player, treating my fellow carousers to the latest cuts. And what cuts! You couldn’t pigeon-hole me if you tried. The Swingle Singers, Nana Mouskouri, John Denver, The Seekers, The New Seekers, and then I’d throw them a curveball with some Steeleye Span. And all the while I’d sing along at a steadily increasing volume. (My warm tenor actually improved many of the tracks, some of which were marred by the rock stars of the time adopting a screechy higher register.) I’d do all this while getting roaring drunk on a Watneys Party Four – it was four pints of foaming beer in a can or, with Shaw’s Lemonade, six pints of shandy. What’s more, I knew a lot about my selected artists and would regale the fellow partygoers with interesting facts about the artists we were listening to.
    On one occasion, I woke up to find my records had disappeared, no doubt pilfered by a new convert to my fresh rock sounds. Although it was only 9pm, the party had completely wound down, with guests no doubt annoyed into leaving by the noisy party going on next door.
    Fun as these times were, I’d begun to grow disillusioned with