Educating Peter by Tom Cox Read Free Book Online Page B

one who tries to pretend to be young by shagging all those women and making that sad album with those hip-hop guys. I saw that documentary about him on TV, where he was taking the piss out of Kate Winslet.’
    â€˜What about Keith Richards?’
    â€˜Think so.’
    â€˜You should do. He’s the really cool one. What about Charlie Watts and Ron Wood?’
    â€˜Ummm . . . not sure.’
    I decided not to mention Bill Wyman. As a rule, it’s best not to. Besides, we had only just eaten.
    It was one thing playing Peter The Stones’ invincible 1973 album,
Exile On Main Street
(Peter: ‘This is alright, actually’), going into a bookshop and showing him a picture of Keith Richards taken during the making of its predecessor,
Sticky Fingers
, and convincing him that The Stones had once been the coolest men on earth. It was another thing entirely trying to convince him that they’d been the wild men of rock as well. One of Peter’s favourite bands, Slipknot, regularly defecated live on stage without being noticed, never mind arrested. Merely by opening their mouths and switching on their microphones, other groups he listened to could replicate the sensation of having someone projectile-vomit down your ear canal. Why was he going to be impressed by a group of former art students having a slash against a petrol station?
    I pictured the months ahead, and wondered what kind of battle I was facing. How hard was I going to have to try to impress him? Just how anaesthetised was he to the murkiest reaches of Rock And Roll Babylon? As we stood and focused on the scene of the crime, I attempted to give him a sense of historical perspective: a 1965 world on the brink of upheaval, with flower power just around the corner, when pop music genuinely seemed dangerous. He nodded a lot – it was difficult to know if he was taking it in or not – then went to purchase two tubes of Pringles from the kiosk.
    â€˜Can you feel it in the air? The sense that you’re somewhere special?’ I asked him upon his return.
    â€˜I’m not sure. I’m a bit too cold to feel anything at the moment,’ he said.
    â€˜But can you picture it? It was a pretty daring thing to do in 1965, you know.’
    â€˜Yeah. It sort of sounds like fun. My mate Raf’s brother sometimes drives around with eight people in his car. I think you’re supposed to only have five.’
    â€˜You could probably fit eight in a Daimler, though.’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜I suppose it’s a good job that the car didn’t cut out when they were trying to pull away. That would have ruined the moment a bit.’
    â€˜Mmm.’
    With one last wistful look – well, a wistful look from me; a slightly relieved one from Peter – we turned for the Focus. It started first time. Sticking our hands out the window in a well-known gesture that the Rolling Stones probably didn’t use, we waved to ournew friends in the booth and pulled out into the unruly early evening traffic. It was, after all, just a wall, and there was only so long you could stare at it.

REALLY FUNNY
    â€˜ IT WAS REALLY funny. There’s this guy in my year, Sam, who’s, like, really cool on guitar. He can play all bottleneck and stuff, but he’s a bit of a mosher . . .’
    â€˜What’s a mosher?’
    â€˜Well, it’s kind of like a goth, but not quite.’
    â€˜What? More energetic?’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜It’s weird. Moshing was just a kind of dancing you did when I was a kid; now it’s a whole lifestyle choice. Bizarre. Anyway – sorry. Carry on.’
    â€˜Yeah, so Sam’s like showing off in Mrs Williams’ music class, playing this Feeder song, and Raf, who’s in year eleven, walks in, and he’s like, “What’s going on?” And we’re like, “Oh-oh,” ’cos Raf’s, like, the best guitar player in the world,