Roberts went into a record shop. The last record he’d bought had been by the Dave Clark Five. He was stunned by the shop. The sheer volume of the noise deafened him. Everybody looked like a drug dealer. Worse, he felt like a pensioner. Mainly he wanted to flee. But gathering his resources he marched up to a counter. An assistant, a girl who looked about twelve, said, ‘Yeah.’
‘Ahm … I’m looking for … a … Smokie…
‘CD or cassette?’
‘I think you can take it that if the customer is over forty, it’s a cassette.’
‘Is it hip-hop, dance, techno…?’
‘Whoa, wait a moment … they’re a pop group from the ’70s.’
‘Then you’ll want retro.’
Eventually, he was led to the cassette section and, no luck.
No Smokie.
They offered to order it, saying, ‘Seventies … cool.’
He declined.
Roberts’ sole passion was film noir of the forties and fifties. Now he resolved to re-bury himself in the genre. It was what he knew.