Back when they were younger, Martin had been the first to leave school. At a time when everybody they knew was signing on, Martin was changing jobs at the rate of one a month: dishwasher, labourer, that kind of thing. Even so, Martin was always short of money, always asking for loans. To his credit, he did pay back; but he was never the one to turn up at your doorstep and say, ‘Here’s that money I owe you.’ No, Martin had to be hunted down, and you had to embarrass yourself by asking for what you were rightfully owed. Likewise, it wasn’t unusual to be out with Martin, and for some complete stranger to come over and demand money from him. Such instances rattled Ray and Hilly. Consequently, Martin would get slagged to bits, be made to feel really rotten, to such an extent that it would prompt Martin’s hiatus. Martin, though, didn’t storm off like Hilly, or turn in on himself like Ray. No, what Martin did was to run away. Martin fucked off. He would somehow manage to borrow twenty quid off somebody or other, then disappear off to the city, or away down south, or, on two notable occasions, over to the continent.
But it wasn’t just the borrowing Martin did: Martin sold things. One time that was really annoying was when Martin sold his Bowie collection. He hadn’t even sold it to a collector, just some dud at a record fair for about a tenth of what it was worth. All he’d got in return had amounted to little more than a good night out. But that wasn’t the point, the money wasn’t the point, the point was you didn’t sell your records.
For it was records that had brought them together in the first place. At school, they’d noticed the same names scrawled on each other’s bags, books and desks. From there they’d got to talking. Soon, they were exchanging records and making up tapes for each other. It wasn’t long before the three new friends were spending all their free time sat in front of each other’s speakers, appraising their own collections, investigating their brothers’ and sisters’; talking about nothing other than records.
Whilst everybody else of their generation seemed content to spend Saturday mornings hanging round up the town, giving it the best bored teenager routine, Martin, Ray and Hilly treated Saturday mornings as though they were on a no-frills, top-secret assignment. They’d head up the town, straight to the record shop, browse for exactly twenty minutes, make their purchases, then head straight back home.
It was a truly amazing time; discovering all this great music, getting overwhelmed by it. And the great thing was it wasn’t a case of one liking this, the other liking that – what one thought the others were thinking, what one said the others agreed with. In as much as they ever could be the same, they were the same: they dressed the same; they did the same things; they were all in the same boat as regards money, women and opinions.
Then, just as they were getting their interviews with the careers advisory woman, punk rock happened.
Initially, it was great. More great records. Records, in fact, that were even better than a lot of the stuff they’d been listening to. It was a discovery again. Only this time round, it was a discovery they could call their own. This time, they weren’t out hunting for records; this time, they were waiting for records.
Yet while Martin, Ray and Hilly were equally keen to embrace the new, they responded to it in completely different ways. For Martin it meant party, it meant always going out, having to try everything: every drug; every fashion; every possibility. Performance was what attracted Ray, being on stage – the forlorn hope being that women were only just waiting to fling themselves at the feet of the local axe-hero. For Hilly it became as important to state what he didn’t like as much as to state what he did like. So while Martin would be all excited, looking for a party, looking for the action, going, ‘What’s happening? What’s happening?’ Ray would be thinking about his band, and, being a bit unsure, would waffle on something about, ‘Don’t know. Supposed to maybe be a gig in a couple of months. All depends, though …’ Hilly, on the other hand, God bless him, was never too bothered with having to think about things. Hilly just started every second sentence with the then trademark words, the italicized ‘I hate …’
And there you had it, the three friends: the hedonist, the hopeful and the hostile. Whenever Ray landed a gig the situation would transpire that Martin wouldn’t turn up because he hadn’t the money, while Hilly wouldn’t turn up cause he thought the band were crap.
Responses that not surprisingly got right royally on Ray’s nerves.
Not that Ray was ever the one to talk, mind, not when it came to getting on folks’ nerves, anyway.
Thing was, Ray would always be leeching around in the hope of meeting up with women. He spent a small fortune treating Martin, going to this pub, that club, chasing parties here, heading round there. Not that it ever achieved the desired purpose. Martin was so restless, such a party animal, that by the time they got served somewhere, or got accepted somewhere, Martin would be on about where they would be going next, where they could be going that was better. Come the early hours of the morning, when everyone else was heading home, Martin and Ray would still be stopping off at the cash machines, stocking up for that elusive good time.
Ray was also into pestering Hilly to go out. A mission which was as doomed as any mission ever could be. See Hilly was never much of a mixer. Hilly’s idea of a good night out was to sit in the same seats of the same pub with the same faces he always sat with, talking about the same things he always talked about. When Hilly was in company he didn’t care for, he said so; when Hilly was in a place he didn’t care for, he left.
Over the years things went on like this. The three friends got on with their lives but, increasingly, struggled to get on with each other. Martin married a rich man’s daughter, Hilly married a lassie who lived three doors away, Ray never married. Ray could, however, lay claim to being the most well off, seeing as how he became an administrator for the region’s education services. Martin worked for the health board in a self-advocacy project while Hilly earned his crust with a family-run removal firm.
Despite the changes that entered their lives, and the fact that, by this time, they were hardly ever seeing anything of one another, Martin, Ray and Hilly continued to share a bond that came from them spending so much time together when they were growing up. When two of them bumped into each other, they invariably spent most of their time talking about the third – often to the exclusion of even talking about themselves.
On those rare occasions when the three did get together, it was only a matter of time before they broached the subjects they never liked to talk about, only a matter of time before one of them upped and opted for the early bath.
Even though the others were never in the slightest bit interested, Martin would always contrive to go on about his money problems. He didn’t get much sympathy. The fact that Martin never had anything to show for all this money that mysteriously disappeared was too much for Hilly. The fact that Martin admitted to nicking money from his wife, and denying money to his wife, was enough to send Ray off.
Ray was by far and away the wealthiest of the three. Ray knew this, and didn’t like it one little bit. The others never intended it as such, but whenever Martin went on about the ease with which Ray accumulated his wealth, or when Hilly went on about what he saw as the pointless possessions Ray had a habit of acquiring for himself, Ray felt they might as well have been having a go at his failure with women – he was rich because he was alone.
But while Martin and Ray at least admitted to having problems, Hilly never would. There was nothing wrong with Hilly. If folk couldn’t handle a few home truths then that was their problem. These self-styled ‘home-truths’ covered everything from the mildly embarrassing right through to the downright ignorant. The mildly embarrassing was when Hilly was in the home of somebody he considered middle class. In such circumstances, Hilly would always make a point of pilfering something, usually from the drinks cabinet, occasionally from the bathroom, but always something expensive, always something that would be missed. The downright ignorant side of Hilly showed with his penchant for having a go at Martin and Ray, and folk close to Martin and