Nena was a different matter, though. He couldn’t stand thesong now and had no intention of buying it. So here was a first opportunity tocorrect an early mistake from his past. He was going to make sure this firstpurchase really meant something.
They pushed through the swing-doors and into the familiarand reassuring ambience of the Woolworths store that he had spent so much timein during his youth. He never imagined he might set eyes on it again, yet herehe was.
Directly in front of him was the most amazing selection of pick’n’ mix he had seen for years. It was all laid out on a long, oval counter thatyou could walk all the way around.
There must have been a hundred different types of sweetsthere, many that Kent had not set eyes on since his childhood. He was temptedto blow his pocket money there and then to feast on Fruit Salads and Refresher chews,but he resisted the temptation. He was here on a mission and he had a record tobuy.
“Come on, Richie, we’re not here to buy sweets,” said Annie.“Let’s see if they’ve updated the chart. Nena’s gone from 31 to 11.”
Kent was not surprised that Annie was encouraging him to buyNena’s record. She had never been particularly cool when it came to music,though he hadn’t really noticed that until he’d reached his teenage years.Perhaps that had been because he had looked up to her back then. He wascertainly enjoying her company today, much preferring this Annie to the adultversion.
“Are you buying a record today, Annie?” asked Kent.
“Well, I was going to buy the Frankie Goes to Hollywood one butMum says I can’t because the BBC has banned it because it’s too rude. So Ithink I’ll get the new one by the Thompson Twins instead.”
How times had changed, thought Kent. It was only anotherfifteen years or so until kids everywhere would be listening to the filthcoming out of Eminem’s mouth, with parents barely batting an eyelid. As for hisown kids, by the time they were not much older than Kent was now, they werelistening to the likes of N-Dubz, and not just the radio edits, either.
Kent felt almost gratified that his sister was buying a ThompsonTwins record. It was further evidence that she wasn’t as cool as he was, orrather who he was to become. There was nothing wrong with the Thompson Twins, perse, but it was hardly cutting-edge stuff. He had to concede they were stillsignificantly higher in the coolness rankings than Nena was, though.
They rounded the corner to where the chart singles weredisplayed on wire racks, neatly arranged from 1 to 40 according to the current chartpositions. Kent was quite impressed. This didn’t tally with his memory of Woolworthsin later years when the music section had resembled some sort of jumble sale. Whoeverwas responsible for looking after this department at this point in historyclearly took pride in what they were doing. It must have gone downhill later.
He looked down to the second row, and there it was, in thecorrect place, at No. 11: Nena’s “99 Red Balloons”. But it was the singledirectly next to it on the shelf to which his eyes were excitedly drawn. At No.12 in the chart that week was a song he absolutely adored, “What Difference DoesIt Make?” by The Smiths.
Kent’s interest in The Smiths had come too late for him to appreciatethem while they were at the height of their fame. He discovered them a coupleof years after they broke up when he was in his early teens. For a while, theywere all he listened to.
Aged around fifteen, he had been going through a period ofearly teenage angst and insecurity about girls. Morrissey’s maudlin lyricsseemed to reach out to him in a way that no other singer’s ever had. Kent evenfelt at the time as if he was speaking to him personally.
The first Smiths album, bought by Kent in the early 1990s, barelyleft his CD player for the first few weeks after he got it. It had been thefirst CD he had bought after he had upgraded from records and was still one of hisfavourite albums of all time. He had rarely had a chance to listen to it inrecent years. Debs had dismissed it as “depressing crap,” on the one attempt he’dmade to get her to listen to it.
Kent felt this was rather hypocritical coming from someonewho watched The X Factor week in, week out, but it was easier to justgive in and admit defeat rather than argue the toss about it.
Now he was here in 1984 with a chance to right a wrong of thepast and banish Nena forever from his record collection. In the grand scheme ofthings it was a somewhat minor wrong compared to some of the other ills thathad beset him over the years, but it was a change that was going to make himfeel a whole lot better.
“What’s taking you so long?” asked Annie, who had alreadygrabbed her Thompson Twins single and was hopping about impatiently.
“Actually, I think I’m going to buy this one, instead,”remarked Kent, and he casually and coolly picked The Smiths single off theshelf.
“The Smiths? Really?” asked Annie, incredulously. “They’rerubbish.”
“Well, you never did have any decent taste in music,” repliedKent, rather cruelly. Immediately he regretted it. It was out of character forthe seven-year-old him, and the sort of thing he would have said to the adultAnnie, not the nicer younger one.
“That’s a horrible thing to say,” replied Annie with a crestfallenlook on her face. “I’m telling Mum when we get home.”
“Sorry, Annie,” said Kent, and he genuinely meant it. “I didn’tmean it. I just heard this on the radio the other day and I liked it.”
Annie didn’t say any more. She was too keen to
