I met Ben at eleven o’clock, Saturday morning outside McDonald’s in the High Street. Like me, he was wearing the teenage metaller’s uniform of a denim jacket – an affordable substitute for the leather jackets we could only dream about. He had more patches sewn onto his, though, and most of them were for bands I’d only vaguely heard of – Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple.
‘Wotcha,’ he said, the established metaller greeting at our school.
‘Wotcha.’
It was funny, up until this point I wasn’t even sure he was one of us – a metaller, I mean – but just looking at him, I could tell that he had tasted of metal’s goodness to a level I had previously not known to be possible. I felt rather puny in his presence, like a novice confronting a master wizard in one of Scott and his spazzy mates’ Dungeons and Dragons games.
‘So what’s the plan then?’ asked the wizard of his pupil.
‘Dunno, really. Um, what time’s your brother going to be round?’
‘Dunno, mate. Probably about two.’
‘Um, well, we could get something to eat, then go round the record shops for a bit,’ I said, hoping that would satisfy the wise one to whom I had become apprenticed.
‘You mean down St Anne’s?’
‘Yeah.’ I hadn’t meant that at all, of course. I’d meant HMV and Our Price in the High Street. I’d never even been to St Anne’s, much less heard about any record shops that might be down there. The suburban roads of Quireley and the High Street were practically all I knew of the town I’d spent my entire life in, apart from occasional visits to the sports centre and the swimming baths. But the wizard knew more. He knew about the other record shops, and I would have to follow him, without letting on that I really knew nothing.
‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘Shall we go in then, or what?’
‘Yeah, course.’
We went under the golden arches, and for only the second time in my life I bought fast food with my own money. It was that bygone time – the end of childhood, when fast-food restaurants were bright, magical places, before you had started to notice the food on the floor, and the surliness of the staff, and the never-ending screaming of the babies, or had been so zealously informed about their role in the destruction of the rainforest, what their food did to poor people’s health, or the sparseness of the wages they paid. In those days you could eat there and feel good, instead of guilty and worried someone will see you when you leave.
‘So what bands you into, then?’ asked Ben as we sat down. Obviously I did not have enough patches on my denim for him to glean that information, and for that I felt ashamed.
‘Oh, thrash metal mostly,’ I said. ‘Pantera, Megadeth, Slayer. Also Metallica, Iron Maiden …’
‘Yeah, they’re good bands,’ said Ben. ‘Do you like any of the older stuff, like Sabbath, Led Zep?’
‘Yeah, I like them too.’
‘Have you heard Physical Graffiti? That’s a fucking amazing album.’
‘Not sure,’ I said; ‘I think I have but not all the way through.’
‘Jimmy Page’s guitar playing is fucking mental on that album.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said, nodding my head like a toy dog in a car window.
‘Do you like Hendrix?’
‘Yeah, they’re good. I like their earlier stuff, anyway. Good band.’
Ben looked at me with his eyes wide. ‘Hendrix aren’t a band, you monger – he’s a bloke!’
I sank about a thousand feet inside. ‘Oh, Hendrix! I thought you meant someone else. Yeah, I thought you meant …’
‘Yeah, like fuck you did.’
I felt still more ashamed. I’d failed my master already, and he’d caught me trying to deceive him. I was also curious as to what a monger was, although already I was pretty certain that I did not want to be thought of as one, especially by Ben.
‘I’ve got to educate you, man,’ said Ben.
God, yes you have, I cried inwardly, tell me everything.
‘Come on, let’s get a move on,’ he said, standing up from the padded seat of the McDonald’s booth. I hadn’t finished, and was going to make an issue of it, before thinking better of it. That wouldn’t be cool. It would be babyish.
‘Wanna get my hands on some vinyl,’ said Ben, apparently to himself, as I followed him out.
I walked beside Ben down the High Street, trying to give the impression of knowing where we were going, until he took a sudden and unexpected right that left me waiting by myself by the traffic lights.
‘This way, you monger!’ he called out to me, waving sarcastically from some feet away.
‘Sorry,’ I replied, smiling a silly apologetic smile.
‘You will be. Jesus. What’s wrong with you?’ he said as I caught up. ‘Do you like Hawkwind?’
‘Uh, yeah, they’re good.’
‘You haven’t heard them, have you?’
‘Yeah, well … no.’
‘They’ve got an album of theirs I want in Weasel’s. In Search of Space. It’s got “Master of the Universe” on it.’
That made me think of something funny. Maybe Ben would also think it was funny. ‘You mean, like He-Man?’
‘No, not like fucking He-Man!’ Ben slapped me round the back of the head. I looked for affection in the gesture but could find none. ‘The song came first. It’s been around for bloody ages.’
‘Sorry, I don’t know it.’
‘Right, here’s a trivia test for you. What famous bassist and lead singer of another band started out in Hawkwind?’
‘Ummm … I don’t know, who?’
‘Come on, think!’
‘I really don’t know, sorry.’
‘Lemmy!’
‘Oh right.’
‘And what band’s Lemmy in?’
‘Hawkwind.’
‘No, you monger, what band’s he in now?’
‘Umm … I don’t know, sorry.’
‘Motörhead, stupid!’
‘Oh, yeah, I knew that,’ I said, in a small voice I couldn’t will to be any bigger.
‘No you didn’t,’ Ben said gruffly. I knew he was irritated with me now. I had to find a way to please him somehow, but I was feeling too ashamed to think of anything right then.
Ben led me further down the strange road, at the end of which was a dual carriageway. On the other side was a strange construction of metal pillars and a corrugated roof. It had the words ‘Queensbury Market’ written in bright green metal letters on the side. There seemed no way to get to it across the road, as the traffic was fast and thick, and of course a barrier in the middle blocked the way. Did the council or whoever was in charge of these things expect us to jump over it?
I must have looked confused, because Ben elbowed me in the ribs and pointed to our left. ‘Down there, come on,’ he said, sighing at me in frustration. It was something I’d never encountered before, a tunnel, going underneath the road, with an unsettling mixture of dank urine-tainted air and sodium glow. I didn’t like the look of it, and it seemed exactly the sort of place you could expect to be stabbed, but there was no way I was going to let Ben know I was afraid. So I went down the slope after him and into the tunnel, certain that we were being watched and followed as I entered a subway for the first time. It may sound bizarre, but it really was something I’d never come across before. This was simply a thing they did not have or need in Quireley. Even by the standards of the time I suppose I was a sheltered child. Ben walked ahead, taking giant strides with his long pipe-cleaner legs that I could not hope to match. Silhouetted against the light from the other side, he turned. ‘Are you coming or what?’ he said over his shoulder. I scurried along, my dignity trailing far behind me, until we emerged onto another slope leading up, taking us into what turned out to be the market car park.
‘We’ll go through the market, it’s quicker,’ said Ben, who now seemed resigned to the fact that I clearly didn’t know where I was, and had apparently never been outside ever, and that he had to lead the way completely.
It was another world. Spoiled cabbages and oranges were at our feet as Ben took us through the market. It was bustling with trade on this grey January Saturday, a forest of anoraks and pacamacs and shell suits, with the smell of fruit and clothing damp from the drizzle. Shouts about things I didn’t understand, market stuff, jokes I didn’t get ricocheted off the corrugated roof. ‘Ron is a coppers nark,’ read some graffiti on the wall. I had never had cabbages at my feet before, and I had never come across any mention of narks except on the telly. That graffiti was the closest I’d ever got to real criminality. But what I found really strange was, well, the people. They didn’t look like the sort of people you’d find in Sholeham High Street. I mean, I’d seen the working classes before, I hadn’t lived totally in a shoebox, even though I hadn’t seen a subway, but here in the market, en masse, they all seemed – I suppose ‘damaged’ is the word. The young, the old, trader or customer – there was a strange look in their eyes I hadn’t ever seen, something I couldn’t pin down back then, but I suppose I would describe now as a kind of matter-of-factness. I mean, and this is hard to describe, not visibly enjoying where they were, and not obviously hoping for something better, but just being. But I remember them smiling and laughing too, loud working-class laughing. It’s confusing.
I don’t know, I’m probably talking rubbish, I’m just trying to articulate how they appeared to me at the time, that’s all. If you showed me the same people today, maybe it wouldn’t seem that way. Anyway, the market’s been totally redeveloped since then, probably looks and feels completely different. And I’m a lower-middle-class arse and that probably accounts for everything. But that’s what places like Quireley do to you. However much you experience, wherever else you go, it will always seem a bit alien. Anything that’s not suburban, anywhere that’s not quiet, won’t feel quite right. The only places that will sit right with you are places that are like where you came from. Places that are nowhere.
Ben led me over a zebra crossing. I could see that we were somewhere dark and scary, but very, very exciting. This was something new, I remember telling myself, something necessary and good. We walked past shops that had boards for windows, and signs on them indicating that they were for over—18s only, and that there was a back entrance for discretion. Along with the discovery that a copper’s nark had been in the vicinity, the mere sight of these shops made me feel that I was a man. ‘This way,’ said Ben. ‘We’ll go to Underground first.’
I can only remember a few things about Underground Music now. Dark and dank, with the smell of second-hand merchandise in the air, it’s long since gone, but I remember that it had posters of the type of bands that meant nothing to me on the walls, the sort of music that Neil liked, probably. I didn’t really know how to behave or what to do, so I just copied Ben as he flicked through the records nonchalantly. Even though I didn’t recognise half the stuff I was looking at, I picked up the records the way Ben did, slipping the inner sleeve out, then the vinyl out of that, and inspecting it for scratches. The guy behind the counter didn’t pay us any attention. He just read his Melody Maker. I prayed that Ben wouldn’t spot me looking at a record he didn’t approve of and have a go at me. To prevent it I always looked at the rack he’d just looked at, and sometimes even the same record.
‘What are those tapes in that box?’ I asked, pointing to a collection of D60 cassettes with home-made photocopied covers.
‘They’re bootlegs.’
‘They’re what?’
‘Never mind. Come on,’ said Ben, ‘let’s go to Ferret’s and Weasel’s.’ Then he walked out of the shop, not bothering to hold the door for me.
Ferrets and Weasels? Was he suggesting we go to a pub? But we were too young! Still, I’d learned from the ‘Masters of the Universe’ incident not to question anything Ben said, and so I followed his gigantic stride as best I could, down the street, past the porn shops, bookies and haberdasheries, until we approached another record shop. ‘Ferret’s’, it was called. Now I was really confused. Ferret’s, yes, that made sense, but why had Ben mentioned weasels?
‘All right, we’ll spend a few minutes in here,’ said Ben. ‘Then we’ll go across the road.’
‘What’s across the road?’ I asked, stupidly forgetting that I wasn’t meant to ask questions.
‘Weasel’s, of course! For fuck’s sake.’ Ben grabbed me by the neck and pushed my head up to the glass of Ferret’s, so that all I could see were picture sleeves on display. ‘This is Ferret’s!’ he snapped. Then he swung me round to face the other way. ‘And that’s Weasel’s!’ There, across the road was still another record shop. ‘Weasel’s’ said the hand-painted sign.
‘Ferret’s sells singles! Weasel’s sells albums! They’re both run by the same people! Is that fucking clear, you stupid monger?’
And something inside of me stirred. I knew at that moment that I was not as soft as Ben thought I was, or indeed as I was acting. Yes, I had not been in a tunnel under the road before, or seen many working-class people, but I knew I could cope with both and more. I was going to survive in this new world that was opening up for me that day like a strange and exotic flower, then I was going to have to toughen up. I knew then that I didn’t have anything to fear from Ben, and neither would he desert me. I could taste his loneliness in his anger and saw that he desperately needed my company, despite his unpleasantness.
‘Look!’ I said, as I elbowed Ben squarely in the stomach, winding him. ‘Don’t ever grab me like that again, OK? I know I don’t know as much about these places as you do, but that’s because I don’t live round here, innit? Now get off my back and let’s go to Weasel’s cos I’m not interested in buying singles.’
Ben shifted from one foot to the other and looked to the side of him. ‘No need to elbow me so fucking hard,’ he mumbled. ‘OK, let’s fucking go, then.’
So Ben and I crossed the road, dodging the traffic that travelled so much faster than any of the cars I’d had to deal with in Quireley, to Weasel’s, a record shop that would prove to be in possession of even greater magical beauty than Underground. Turned out neither of us had the money to buy anything after McDonald’s, but it didn’t matter. To be near the music was enough.