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what the fuck he’s talking about.
    â€œI’ll tape it for you.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œâ€™Cos you liked their second one, you said. Pop, girls, etc. The one with Hattie Jacques on the cover. You didn’t see the cover, though. You just had the tape I did for you.”
    I’m sure he did tape a Liquorice Comfits album for me, and I’m sure I said I liked it, too. My flat is full of tapes Dick has made me, most of which I’ve never played.
    â€œHow about you, anyway? Your weekend? Any good? No good?”
    I cannot imagine what kind of conversation we’d have if I were to tell Dick about my weekend. He’d probably just crumble to dust if I explained that Laura had left. Dick’s not big on that sort of thing; in fact, if I were ever to confess anything of a remotely personal nature—that I had a mother and father, say, or that I’d been to school when I was younger—I reckon he’d just blush, and stammer, and ask if I’d heard the new Lemonheads album.
    â€œSomewhere in between. Good bits and bad bits.”
    He nods. This is obviously the right answer.
    The shop smells of stale smoke, damp, and plastic dustcovers, and it’s narrow and dingy and dirty and overcrowded, partly because that’s what I wanted—this is what record shops should look like, and only Phil Collins’s fans bother with those that look as clean and wholesome as a suburban Habitat—and partly because I can’t get it together to clean or redecorate it.
    There are browser racks on each side, and a couple more in the window, and CDs and cassettes on the walls in glass cases, and that’s more or less the size of it; it’s just about big enough, provided we don’t get any customers, so most days it’s just about big enough. The stockroom at the back is bigger than the shop part in the front, but we have no stock, really, just a few piles of secondhand records that nobody can be bothered to price up, so the stockroom is mostly for messing about in. I’m sick of the sight of the place, to be honest. Some days I’m afraid I’ll go berserk, rip the Elvis Costello mobile down from the ceiling, throw the “Country Artists (Male) A–K” rack out into the street, go off to work in a Virgin Megastore, and never come back.
    Dick puts a record on, some West Coast psychedelic thing, and makes us some coffee while I go through the post; and then we drink the coffee; and then he tries to stuff some records into the bulging, creaking browser racks while I parcel up a couple of mail orders; and then I have a look at the Guardian quick crossword while he reads some American import rock magazine; then he has a look at the Guardian quick crossword while I read the American import magazine; and before we know it, it’s my turn to make the coffee.
    At about half-past eleven, an Irish drunk called Johnny stumbles in. He comes to see us about three times a week, and his visits have become choreographed and scripted routines that neither he nor I would want to change. In a hostile and unpredictable world, we rely on each other to provide something to count on.
    â€œFuck off, Johnny,” I tell him.
    â€œSo my money’s no good to you?” he says.
    â€œYou haven’t got any money. And we haven’t got anything that you want to buy.”
    This is his cue to launch into an enthusiastic rendition of Dana’s “All Kinds of Everything,” which is my cue to come out from behind the counter and lead him back toward the door, which is his cue to hurl himself at one of the browser racks, which is my cue to open the door with one hand, loosen his grip on the rack with the other, and push him out. We devised these moves a couple of years ago, so we’ve got them off pat now.
    Johnny is our only prelunch customer. This isn’t a job for the wildly ambitious.
    Â 
    Barry doesn’t show up until after lunch, which