I loved drinking tea and I loved cycling. I would bike to the tea shop in the High Street and see what blends they had. My bedroom contained boxes and boxes of tea, and I was always happy to have new brews with which to concoct more original combos in my tea pot. I was supposed to be preparing for my mock A level in History, English and Politics. But whatever happened I knew I would fail them. I was too concerned with other things. Sometimes I took speed – 'blues', little blue tablets – to keep me awake, but they made me depressed, they made my testicles shrivel up and I kept thinking I was getting a heart attack. So I usually sipped spicy tea and listened to records all night. I favoured the tuneless: King Crimson, Soft Machine, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa and Wild Man Fisher. It was easy to get most of the music you wanted from the shops in the High Street.During these nights, as all around me was silent – most of the neighbourhood went to bed at ten-thirty – I entered another world. I read Norman Mailer's journalism about an action-man writer involved in danger, resistance and political commitment: adventure stories not of the distant past, but of recent times. I'd bought a TV from the man in the chip shop, and as the black-and-white box heated up it stank of grease and fish, but late at night I heard of cults and experiments in living, in California. In Europe, terrorist groups were bombing capitalist targets; in London psychologists were saying you had to live your own life in your own way and not according to your family, or you'd go mad. In bed I read Rolling Stone magazine. Sometimes I felt the whole world was converging on this little room. And as I became more intoxicated and frustrated I'd throw open the bedroom window as the dawn came up, and look across the gardens, lawns, greenhouses, sheds and curtained windows. I wanted my life to begin now, at this instant, just when I was ready for it. Then it was time for my paper-round, followed by school. And school was another thing I'd had enough of.
Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia
