eight

Saturday morning dawned fresh and green. We got up early, full of energy despite our lack of sleep, and sat in Tony's kitchen eating Weetabix and toast. In the garden wagtails waded through crocus shoots that stabbed up through the lawn, dripping with dew, whilst we played imaginary guitar solos to every song that came on the radio (even the ones that didn't have guitar solos in them). Tony made a cup of tea for his mum who was still in bed and told her we were going out for a bit. Then we counted the money for one last time and set off into town.

Tony's house was about two miles away from the town centre. Sometimes we caught the thirty-one bus from the top of his road. But that morning, because it was nice and we wanted to save money, we walked.

It was still quite early and cool in the shade of the semi-detached houses and chestnut trees that lined the road into town. But in open space sunlight fell warm on our faces, adding to the bounce in our boots. We passed the school and the park, both made strange by an empty silence, and jogged across the cross-roads by the builders yard.

In the yard a fork-lift truck impaled and lifted a palette of breeze blocks, its white-vested driver paused to puff at his cigarette and shouted something to two men who laughed as they loaded plastic-wrapped doors into the back of a battered, red pick-up truck.

We passed the Nag's Head pub and the old butcher's shop with its boarded up windows and its faded sign, that used to say 'best cuts' until someone added an extra N. We walked on past the art shop, then stopped briefly to giggle and make crude comments about the cardboard cut-out in the travel agents window; a balloon-breasted, Jamaican lady in a wet T-shirt who sipped a cardboard Piña Colada and invited you (via a cardboard speech balloon) to cast away your cares in the Caribbean.

We walked on in high spirits until we reached the chemist, JP Andrews, where mum worked. I could see her inside, chatting to Mrs Davis, another lady who worked there. Normally, I would have waved, but that morning seeing her made me think about the fifty pounds and the blue post office book and my aunt who couldn't have kids. Those thoughts twisted together into a tight fist of guilt that landed sudden and heavy in my guts. And I grabbed Tony's arm and pulled him low past the chemist shop window, before we were seen.

Across the road from the chemist's shop was the Fringe hairdressers, where a girl was stacking tubs of hair gel in a pyramid in the window. Her hair was the same shade of green as the gel. All the stylists in the Fringe had weird hair. Mum used to say, "It makes you wonder why they're always so busy. When you look at the state of the people who work there."

"It's fashion," I'd explain. "Anyway, they do normal haircuts as well. Tony's mum has her hair done there."

"Does she," mum'd say, protectively patting the back of her head. "Well, I wouldn't let them get within a million miles of my hair!" Mum had little time for anything weird and wonderful. And I had a feeling that she wasn't going to be too happy when she found out about the amplifier.

"What's up?" asked Tony.

"Nothing," I said studying the pavement. "It's just that I don't reckon my mum's going to be too pleased about the amp."

"We can keep it at my house," said Tony. "My mum won't mind."

"You're lucky," I said.

We reached the High Street and walked slowly up toward Andy's Music. The shop was in Churchill Road, a cul-de-sac right at the top of the High Street on the left hand side. It was a narrow road often blocked by delivery vans; the kind of road you could quite easily pass without seeing unless you already knew it was there.

We passed Woolworth and WH Smiths, still not talking. With each step that took me closer to the music shop, my earlier excitement gave way to growing regret. But I knew it was too late to turn back.

"Maybe we should get the new amp," I said soberly (having decided that, at least, it would be less offensive to my mum's sober tastes than the huge orange one with the beer glass stains on top).

"Yea," said Tony. He squeezed my arm and smiled. "We can always get a bigger one later on."

I nodded and punched him gently on the shoulder.

"Nearly there now," I said.

"Yea," said Tony.

Why Andy's Music was so named, has always been a total mystery to me. I mean, if you went in and asked for Andy you would be met with a blank look, because the man who owned the shop was actually called Damien. He used to play bass with some seventies rock band, but you'd never guess. He had a pot-belly, short, brown, balding hair and a little white delivery van. He spoke in quite a posh voice and wore jumpers that looked as if they might be hand-knitted gifts from a mildly senile mother-in-law who didn't much care for him. I once asked Damien if he knew where the name of the shop came from. But he was in a bad mood and said, "Are you kids ever going to buy anything? Or are you just going to piss around in here all day?"

I think Damien used to get pretty annoyed with us hanging round his shop all weekend (nonchalantly showing off the Hendrix riffs we'd been practising for five hours the night before). Although, quite often Damien would blow his top on a Saturday afternoon when the noise got too chaotic and chuck us all out of the shop, he could be quite nice and patient.

If you went into the shop on a Tuesday afternoon, say, when it was quiet, Damien would let you have a go with all kinds of effects pedals and guitars he knew you couldn't afford. I suppose he hoped that in a couple of years time, when we had left school, we might actually blow a weeks wages or a student grant cheque on some of the stuff he'd let us play around with free for all those months.

However, what normally happened was the kids would go to Andy's to try stuff out, and then when they'd saved enough cash to get what they wanted would buy it mail order from some enormous music warehouse at a discounted price that a small shop owner like Damien could never hope to compete with. Still, he seemed to make a living. I quite often saw Damien's little white van bombing round our estate to deliver an electronic organ or a snare drum or a recorder.

Sometimes on a Monday night I'd see Damien's white van parked by the church hall where the town band used to practise, delivering a military march or a new arrangement of some old musical like Oklahoma or Hair, sheet upon sheet of music carried in cardboard boxes through winter darkness into that musty ill-lit hall, all Brasso, deep breaths and spent spit, to be sluggishly rehearsed and cursed, and yet that summer emerge, by some mysterious musical alchemy, like molten gold, flooding blazing days and cloudless evenings with melody and memories, tapping toes and contented smiles, making all those school fetes, garden parties and Sundays in the park 'the best yet.'

Westing used to be famous for its brass band. And when I was at school loads of kids were in it. Now, although the town is about twice the size it was back then, the brass band is practically non-existent.

The trouble is people tend to move in and out and around the town much more than they used to. And everyone seems to work so hard. No one is able or prepared to spend two evenings a week doing something like playing a euphonium or a tenor horn just for the fun of it. 'I can't spare the time,' they say, 'or the money.'

Those that have lived in the town for years, and see the demise of the band as a symptom of what is happening all around them, protest, 'It's not about time and money - it's a community thing.' The recent arrivals and those who have embraced the new way of things, laugh and ask, 'What community?' without a trace of concern in their voices.

'The band's all right for some old boy drawing his pension,' they say. 'But you can't expect kids today to spend years learning to play a trumpet or trombone, when you can buy a keyboard that in minutes can be programmed to sound like an entire band.' 'It's technology,' they explain enthusiastically, proud to be a part of such progress, brave new citizens of a microchip world. Nowadays all you see in music shops is those bloody plastic keyboards. But back then shops like Andy's Music were still full of real instruments, violins and things and guitars from America and amps Built in Britain.

All the kids I teach guitar to these days have their own amps, amps with graphic EQs and built in effects galore. Lucky buggers. When me and Tony first started to play it was quite unusual for kids our age to be able to afford even a basic combo. And, certainly, Damien didn't take us particularly seriously when we finally summoned up the courage to enter Andy's Music that Saturday

To be fair, Damien was in a more receptive mood than normal. Maybe he'd met a nice girl the night before in one of the night-clubs he frequented, a fan of his old rock band perhaps. Maybe he was simply made friendly by the brightness of the day that accompanied us into the shop - sunlight dancing to the doorbell's jingle jangle among the silver-plated pick-ups and chrome-rimmed tom-toms of all those drum kits and guitars. Whatever, he greeted us unusually cheerily.

"Morning lads. How's it going?"

"Fine," said Tony.

"Great," I said.

Damien caught the edge of the door as it slowly closed, and held it open, to bask momentarily in the sunshine (and, maybe, memories of the night before).

"On days like today," he said, "once I would've walked out of here and kept on walking."

He turned to face us, still holding the door and said:

"But not now I wouldn't. And do you know why?"

We both shook our heads. He opened his arms as if to embrace some huge invisible weight.

"Coz this is all I've got now," he said. "Coz this little shop may not be Madison Square Garden, but it's my own little space." He turned once more to the sky and breathed in deeply, paused for a few moments then let the door swing to, shutting out the daylight - the instruments at once impoverished beneath violet-tinged strip lights. Damien leaned forward, hands on thighs, then beckoned us to come closer to him.

"I'll let you boys into a little secret" he said, as we warily edged nearer, concerned that the sunlight might have gone to his head. "Now I've been to the States, to Los Angeles, to Pittsburgh, to Detroit," said Damien. "I've played in Paris in Munich and even Finland - more places than I can remember. But I'll tell you something, this little shop means a lot to me. Coz it's not like a bus or a hotel you know. It's my own space. And we've all got to find our own space in the end. People sometimes ask me. Damien don't you miss it all, all the gigs and all the wild things you used to get up to? And I tell 'em, no way man. Coz now I've got my own space. Somewhere I can get my head together, do my own thing. Somewhere, I can just hang out. You know what I'm saying boys?"

Although neither me nor Tony had a fucking clue what Damien was on about we both solemnly nodded. Damien looked serious and said, "I can tell you're both bright lads."

But, at that moment, a lady came into the shop and Damien acted like we weren't there anymore. He pushed past us, put on his posh voice and served her with a grade four music theory book. When she'd gone, I asked Damien if we could try one of his amps which were in a room out at the back of the shop, and he said quite harshly, "Look lads I'm starting to get busy now." But then the tone of his voice softened, and he winked and smiled and added, "Pop in one afternoon later on in the week and you can go out the back and have a bit of a jam then OK?"

"But we want to buy an amp," said Tony.

"Sure you do," said Damien wearily.

Another customer came in, and again it was like we'd become invisible. The customer was a tall man who wore a collarless white shirt, baseball boots and tight jeans with a wide black belt to hold in his beer belly. His hair fell half way down his back, but he was more than a little bald on top.

"Hey Damien man, how's it going?" he said.

"Yea, not bad Barry, not bad," said Damien.

Barry explained that he wanted to borrow an amp for a gig he was doing at a wine bar near Colchester that evening.

"Yea I've got just the thing out the back," said Damien. "A nice little thirty watter."

"Great," said Barry. "Mind if I give it a try?"

"No problem," said Damien.

He took a spanking new Strat from the wall and they went into the back of the shop through a door that had a hand-written sign above it - Ask Before You Touch in luminous green felt tip. Me and Tony put our heads round the door and watched with horror as Barry plugged his lead into our thirty watt amp, the one we had come in especially to buy.

"Shit," I said.

Tony went into the room and nervously tapped Damien on the shoulder. Damien turned round, and before Tony could explain about us wanting to buy the amp, he snarled, "Hey, I said I was busy didn't I lads? Now come on, give us a break!"

He steered us both out of the back room and shut the door with a bang and a sigh. We heard him mutter, 'fucking kids,' and glowered at the sound of Barry's muffled laughter.

"Great," I said angrily. "You could have at least told him we wanted it."

"He didn't give me a chance," said Tony.

I kicked the rim of a bass drum and scowled at the shut door, through which came the sound of loud and elaborate jazz runs. "Wanker," I muttered.

"Maybe he won't want the amp," said Tony. "Maybe he'll take another one."

"Of course he's going to bloody take it," I said miserably kicking the edge of the counter. "Course he is."

"We might as well go then," said Tony.

"No," I said. "Wait for a minute, just to see..."

Tony nodded glumly and wandered round the shop, listless fingers trailing across the strings of each guitar on the wall in turn. I stood at the counter like a damp firework full of frustration and hollow hope that Barry would emerge through the door with a different amp; a hope which, as the minutes passed, wavered ever closer to extinction, and was eventually snuffed when Barry strode out of the back room with a broad smile and the amp held tight in a strong, grown-up hand. Damien escorted him to the shop door. "Give Colchester one from me, mate," he said.

Damien again basked momentarily in the warmth of the day by the door then came back into the shop to see us stood there all fed-up and low.

"What's up lads?" he asked.

"We wanted to buy that amp" said Tony. He pulled his dad's old wallet from his pocket and took out our ten crisp tenners. "Look, we've got the money here."

"Jesus Christ," said Damien laughing, "You boys just robbed a bank or something?"

"No," I said. "I saved mine and Tony won his at the dogs, a tenner on Deadly Desire at eight to one."

"Well fuck me," said Damien and laughed out loud. "The dogs eh? I tell you what, you can put a tenner on for me next time you're down there."

"If you like," said Tony.

Damien grinned, suddenly all friendly again. "Anyway, come out the back and see what takes your fancy."

"We wanted that amp," I said sullenly, gesturing towards the door of the shop, as if the amp were still there clasped in Barry's hairy hands, being carried off to Colchester.

Damien looked down at the money in Tony's hand and then stared me straight in the eye, all sincere and said:

"To tell you the truth lads I only let him borrow it because it's a load of crap."

"It looked OK to me," I said.

"Oh yea, it looks great," said Damien. "But, to be honest with you, it sounds shit. It's fine for people like Barry who play all that wine bar crap, but its not the kind of amp I'd be happy selling to real guitarists like your good selves. I think you deserve something a little bit more gutsy."

We followed Damien into the back room and he led us over to a couple of small practice amps and said:

"Now these are fifty pounds a piece, but I think I'd be right in thinking that this wasn't exactly what you gentlemen had in mind?"

We nodded.

"We need a proper amp," I said.

"To do gigs with," said Tony.

Damien raised his hand to his chin and rubbed his stubble between thumb and forefinger. He narrowed his eyes as if in pain.

"I've got a bit of a problem here lads," he said. "Now I've got an amp that would be ideal for you. But I don't know. It could be a bit out of your price range."

"How much?" asked Tony.

Damien's eyes scrunched up again and he tutted and bobbed from side to side like a boxer warming up in slow motion. Then suddenly, as if the pain of his deliberation had all become too much for him, he sighed and strode across the room to the old orange amp with the beer glass stains and the huge speaker which stood in the corner. He drummed his palm on top of the amp as if slapping the back of an old and much-loved friend and said, "Look, I shouldn't really be doing this, but seeing as I mucked you lads around earlier. I'll knock this combo down to a hundred for you."

"But wasn't it a hundred anyway?" asked Tony.

Unperturbed, Damien continued his pitch.

"You're absolutely right lads it was at a hundred for quite a while. Unfortunately, the economic climate being what it is, I have been forced to have a bit of a stock revaluation recently and I wouldn't be being fair to myself if I let this go to anyone else for less than, say, one three five." He gave the top of the amp another hearty thump. "This kind of amp is a bit special. It's craftsmen-built in Britain and of course it's all valves, so you get a lovely warm sound. Now, your other option is to go for a new transistor amp. But, to be honest with you, at the kind of money you're talking about, you're going to end up with something that looks naff and sounds like a fly-fart. Of course that kind of thing you could come in and order any day of the week. But, a powerful vintage amp like this, well it could be gone by tomorrow and you'd never find another like it."

"But it's been in the shop for ages," said Tony. "It was in here about two years ago."

"True lads, true," said Damien. "To be frank, I have had a lot of people interested in it in the past, but it's got such a great sound I've always hung on to it so that I could gig with it myself."

"I didn't think you played anymore," said Tony.

"Precisely," said Damien, "and that's why, finally, I've got to let it go. It breaks my heart, of course, but at least I can be sure you lads will give it a good home. It's nice to be able to pass it on to someone who'll appreciate it for what it is, because it really is in a class of its own. So, what do you think?"

"Hold on a moment," I said, and me and Tony lowered our heads to whisper to one another.

"Let's get it," I said, loathe to leave the shop with nothing, after all we'd been through.

"I don't know," said Tony. "Maybe we should leave it for a bit."

"Come on Tony," I said. "We might as well."

Damien, seeing the look of uncertainty on Tony's face, interrupted us.

"I've got customers out front now, I'm afraid, so I'm going to have to ask you to make up your minds. The choice is all yours of course. But you seem like bright lads to me and, as I said, come Monday I'll be looking for one three five, if it's still here."

Tony looked uncertain, but shrugged and nodded and said, "OK then."

"Wise move lads," said Damien. He grabbed the hundred pounds from Tony's tiny fist and we followed him to the till. He wrote us out a receipt and said, "If you could just sign there at the bottom lads and jot down your addresses on the back then I'll pop it round to you this afternoon."