A traveller emerges into the arrival hall of Birmingham Airport. He has attracted no little attention from his fellow passengers on the early flight from Dusseldorf because unlike them he is not wearing a business suit, but aggressively casual wear; sky blue shell-suit bottoms, silver trainers with high sides and fat tongues, a black t-shirt stretched tight over his burly torso, thinning grey hair pulled back through a lime green elastic hair-band into a lank ponytail. He is is densely tattoo’d with designs of some originality – holly up one arm, ivy up the other, and sprigs of mistletoe on each side of his neck. Inevitably one imagines a fully trimmed Christmas tree up his back.
While the others trundle cabin-sized suitcases behind them, he travels with two plastic shopping bags; one from T K Maxx and one from an airport shop.
Acknowledging their prejudices to themselves, everyone on the plane places him as a daytime habitué of Wetherspoons when not prowling the walkways of council flats or smoking outside a Job Centre. They try to put out of their minds insistent images of him grooming schoolgirls by introducing them to the pleasures of white cider.
His voice, heard when he suggestively asked the stewardesses where they would be staying that night, has the broadest of local accents; he appears to be a son of the Black Country, returning to his home turf, or tarmac.
He scans the row of drivers waiting behind the barriers, holding up pieces of card with names on. And there is his – Professor Col Couchman.
Immediately they’re outside the terminal Col lights up, democratically offering a cig to the driver. He’s on his way to give a guest lecture at the University of Wolverhampton, which will be exceptionally well attended – he’s a cult figure following his abrasive appearances on TV’s Late Review, where he delights in comparing the classic cultural greats unfavourably with trashy reality shows and video games.
The businessmen and women on the flight don’t, it seems, watch Late Review – nor does Col’s elderly mother, who doesn’t have TV, but has seen an item in the Walsall Express and Star trailing the celebrity’s visit to the area. She’s so proud of his success and growing fame, but rather bewildered by a reference to his ‘boorish behaviour’ – surely they meant ‘bookish’? Colin’s popping over to see her in the evening, after the lecture. She’s made his favourite boeuf bourguignon, in case he can stop for a bite to eat – possibly even stay the night. She’s looking forward to hearing about his exciting life and how his wife Valerie is liking the conservatory they had put in a year ago, or was it two now? She’s sorry that Valerie won’t be with Colin. She’s a lovely girl.
As Col and the driver wait to cross into the car park, a people-carrier pulls up beside them and one of the stewardesses leans out. She must be a follower of Late Review. If not surely she would not be responding to his earlier advance. ‘The Excelsior Hotel,’ she says. ‘Near Villa Park. Before 7.’ Then she’s gone.
Col’s driver raises his eyebrows. ‘Nice one!’ says Col. ‘You can take me straight there from the Uni.’ He takes out his notebook and records the information. Once he’s written something down he knows he won’t forget it.
Col’s about to phone his mum to tell her he can’t come this evening, but his conscience is pricking him. He checks the clock. ‘We’ve got time to call in at my mum’s in Sutton Coldfield, haven’t we? For 20 minutes tops?’ The driver agrees. ‘Pull up a minute,’ says Col. He gives the driver the address. While he’s re-setting the satnav, Col gets into the back of the car, taking the Primark bag with him.
The driver watches him in the mirror, wrestling with his clothes. By the time they pull up outside his mum’s house, a comfortable-looking detached in leafy suburbia, Col is dressed in charcoal trousers, black shoes and a high-collared pullover which hides his tattoos and even his ponytail. He knocks on the door and checks himself over while he waits for an answer.
But Mum is out getting her hair done, so there is no answer. Col writes her a note, tears the page out of his notebook and pushes it through the letterbox.
He changes back into his professorial gear on the way to Wolverhampton, where the lecture and the Q&A session afterwards go famously. There are questions about his choice of clothes (he grabs stuff down the market) and tattoos (he let the tattooist choose, she was well fit but off her head!), and what he likes doing in his spare time (bingo). Asked what his ambitions are, he says ‘to win the Lottery’. Like much about Col, this is disingenuous. Although he would like to win the Lottery, he is not so
ambitious in this respect as to often buy a ticket. His less cool and therefore unadvertised ambition is to have a son or daughter; but after several years of marriage he’s made no inroads on Valerie’s conviction that this would be a bad thing.
Not long afterwards he’s on his way to the Excelsior Hotel. He finds the stewardess in the bar and over a couple of quick drinks they discuss where to go for dinner. His suggestion of a kebab is treated as a joke, but her preference for Wolverhampton’s finest Italian restaurant is problematic in view of its dress code and his dress. They decide on a cutting-edge curry house.
Col’s mum has just got out of a taxi. It cost a fortune, but she could hardly ignore the invitation he’d put through her door; ‘Mum, sorry to have missed you at home, as I can’t get over to you later. Love, Colin’, said one note, and on the back, ‘Be at Excelsior Hotel, Villa Park by 7pm.’
Now she’s flustered, as the taxi got stuck in traffic and it’s a little after 7. But here, coming out of the hotel, is Colin, apparently off to a fancy dress party, with a rather horsey woman hanging on his extraordinarily tattoo’d arm.
‘Mother! What are you doing here?’ The stewardess does not fail to notice the sudden loss of his Black Country accent; with it goes all his celebrity street cred.
She disengages herself and waves down the about-to depart taxi. Opening the rear door, with a sweep of her arm she invites Mother and Col to get in. ‘Enjoy your curry’, she says. ‘Three’s a crowd’.