Sunday markets are a bit different. A bit more up-market, if you like. There’s still the same punters out to get something cheap. But the people getting them to part with their dosh aren’t the car boot amateurs any more, they’re professionals. And where you’ve got professionals about in this business, you’re likely to find Stones McClure. I think of myself as a sort of Premier League football manager. The pros go out there to do the work and score the goals, so they can bring home the trophies. But they couldn’t do it without me organising the business end, deciding the tactics, getting the best out of them, sussing the opposition. It’s hard work, and a lot of responsibility. Of course, I take my share of the cash bonuses too. That’s only fair.
There’s a Sunday market near Medensworth that’s one of my best money earners. I won’t tell you which one it is — there are plenty of them in this part of the world, so you’ll have to visit them all to find it. You’ll have a good time doing it, though. I never said there was no fun in being fleeced, did I? This is Sunday — so I want you to enjoy yourselves, right?
The police do a good job at these markets. As you drive up the road, they practically force you to turn off into the site, where the market boys charge you for parking in a muddy field. If you try to drive straight past, the fuzz glare at you as if you’d just gone through sixteen red lights. God help you if one of your brake lights isn’t working. After all, you must be mad to drive round here at this time of the morning if you’re not going to the Sunday market. Through all this traffic? Definitely suspicious.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s only at times like these that the cops make themselves useful. They’re actually helping the less fortunate to make a living here. Careful — that could be frowned on by the bosses.
When I got to the site that morning, it was already full of punters. The fields were lined with cars, and the sound of money changing hands was deafening. The first stall I checked out was down at the end of one of the main aisles. It was loaded with leather jackets and handbags, belts and purses and wallets. Did I say leather? Well, you know what I mean.
The stall was run by Ernie and Stella. They’re into leather in a big way. Selling it, that is. The kids come in droves to buy the stuff, and think they’re conning the old pair. It’s good to let someone think they’re shafting you. It makes them less likely to come back and complain when they find out it was the other way round.
Ernie and Stella are a lovely couple. Ernie is an ex-miner gone to seed — a big, beer-bellied bloke without much hair left and a grin that is more gap than tooth. Stella looks much the same, but with more hair. She was attending to a group of giggly teenage girls when I arrived, but gave me a big wink from among the racks of jackets.
“Now then, Stones. How you doing?” said Ernie. “What can I sell you? Nice leather waistcoat?”
This is Ernie’s idea of a hilarious joke. He says it every time. But I never claimed he was a comic genius, did I?
“How’s business, Ernie?”
“Brilliant, brilliant.”
This was all I wanted to hear. After a bit of small talk and a wave to Stella, I moved on, letting a couple of bikers get to the stall to try out their smirks.
Down the aisle a bit were Carl and Vince, two brothers who once ran a joinery business until the building industry ground to a halt. They were in their late forties and not likely to get a job, but both had families to keep. Now they were selling watches and jewellery.
“It’s been quiet in the summer, but it’ll build up now for Christmas, I reckon,” said Carl, re-arranging the jewellery with a hand more used to handling a saw. “We won’t be complaining. And neither will you.”
Down the line again was Marlene, with two of her five kids helping her out on the display of shirts and socks, underwear and handkerchiefs. Some of this stuff looked like Marks and Spencers surplus. Maybe it actually was. Maybe that was a pig flying by, wearing a St Michael’s vest.
Sometimes people have the nerve to tell me there might be a problem with the Counterfeit Goods Act. What I say is, if there’s a problem with the Counterfeit Goods Act they should have worded it properly in the first place, instead of bothering blokes like me about it.
Marlene had been with me a long time, even before her old bloke was killed when a load of pallets fell on him at the warehouse he worked in. She was too busy at the stall to talk, but gave me a big smile and a thumbs up as I paused. The kids waved too. One big happy family. But I was thinking mainly of the punters’ cash going into the canvass pockets slung round Marlene’s waist.
Over the far side of the field was the area set aside for car-booters. This part of the event seems to get bigger all the time. It’s mainly for amateurs, of course, but there are definitely a few pros in there. I know, because it’s where I made my start. Now look at me — I never use my car boot for anything but keeping the spare wheel in. That’s success, that is.
I went to do a check on Marky Benn’s set-up — radios, cassette players, telephones, electric alarm clocks and hair driers, stuff like that. Small electrical items. Easy to shift, and pretty easy to get hold of too, usually. This is one of the most profitable stalls. As I arrived, Marky was flogging a radio alarm clock to a woman who looked as though she had more trouble sleeping than waking up. Her face was pasty and lined, and her hair hung in greasy strands either side of her forehead. She looked so tired and worn out that I wanted to offer her a chair. She was all of twenty-one, but she had three kids in tow.
Mind you, Marky wouldn’t be one to criticise the looks of his customers. His years working in a gypsum quarry had left their mark on his skin, white dust getting deep into his pores like the black coal dust that taints the skin of miners, making them look as though they’re wearing eye liner. In Marky’s case, his eyes had suffered worst. An allergy, he said, that he’d taken no notice of for years because he needed the job. Now his eyeballs looked like rotten tomatoes, swollen to unnatural size by the thick lenses of his glasses. He coughed like a miner, too — long, rasping barks that hurt the ears. Marky hadn’t been able to hold down his quarry job for a while now, but he still had a family to support and a mortgage to pay. He seemed to be making a good job of the electrical goods stall.
“Everything all right, Marky?”
“Things are going great, Stones,” he said, turning his awful eyes towards me. “This stuff sells really well. Can’t get enough of some items.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“CD players. That’s the thing they’re all asking for at the minute. I sold out last week, but folk keep asking for ’em all day long.”
“I’ll see what we can do about that.”
“Ta.”
Finally I went to see Jean and her daughter Wendy, selling perfumes and cosmetics in bottles with familiar names. People were trying out the samples, sniffing and nodding approvingly and opening their purses without hesitation. None of them would know the difference between a counterfeit and the real thing if it jumped up and bit them. Just shows that folk only pay for the name. Jean and Wendy were right there on the main drag the same as Marky Benn, two really good pitches. All satisfactory. There were plenty of folk about, so many that in places you could hardly get by in the crush.