By 1976, Denise and I spent some Saturday mornings looking at records. Looking was free. Buying required several weeks of not spending money on anything else.
There was a shop in Portchester that sold electrical goods at the front and records along one wall. The arrangement suggested that music was another household appliance. Singles were kept in sleeves behind the counter, and the covers on display had numbers that had to be given to the assistant.
Denise knew what she wanted before we went in. I wanted to hear everything first, which was not possible. The assistant would play part of a record if the shop was quiet, but not an entire side for two girls who might leave without buying it.
ABBA’s ‘Fernando’ was one of the records we discussed for longer than the record itself lasted. Denise liked it. I said I was not sure, because Peter had said ABBA were too obvious.
Peter was seventeen and had begun treating music as a test other people could fail.
At home, he played albums and read the sleeve notes. If I asked what something was, he told me I would not like it. This saved him from lending it to me.
Denise did not care what Peter thought. She said a record only had to be good enough to play again. This was a much easier standard and has remained useful.
We also listened to ‘You to Me Are Everything’. Denise wanted that one as well. Her method was to want several records at once and then buy the one she could afford. Mine was to delay until the record had left the chart and become harder to find.
When I finally bought a single, the assistant put it in a thin paper bag. I carried it flat all the way home. Mum asked what it had cost. I told her. She said I could have bought several useful things for the same money but did not identify them.
Peter looked at the label and said, ‘You bought that?’
I said Denise had recommended it.
This was cowardly because Denise was not there.
I played it on the record player in the sitting room. Peter stayed for the first minute, then went upstairs. Later that week I found the record on the turntable after I came home from school.
He said Mum had played it.
Mum said she had not.