Geoff Dyer - The Colour of Memory

‘You ought to read the book he’s writing,’ said Steranko to the woman they were talking to. ‘It’s a work of Tolstoyan banality. One of the few truly dispensable works of our time.’

‘What’s it about, your book?’ the woman asked.

‘It’s a memoir of life at the eastern end of the Central line. I’m calling it “Look Back in Ongar”.’ At the very least I had heard Freddie make this joke ten times in the last two years. It was what he called one of his ‘Classic Standards’ and he showed no signs of ever getting fed up hearing himself say it.

‘And what do you do?’ the woman asked Steranko.

‘I’m an artist,’ he said.

‘The only thing he’s got in common with an artist,’ said Freddie, ‘is he gets cramp in the same wrist.’

Foomie came over, smiling, pouring wine and putting her arm around the woman Freddie and Steranko were speaking to.

‘So you’ve met the beer boys Caroline?’ she said, much less formal with us once she could mediate her comments through a friend. Steranko, Freddie and I stumbled over each other trying to make jokes.

‘D’you three live together?’ Caroline asked during a pause in all this verbal jockeying for position.

‘We ride together,’ said Freddie before going off to get some food.

Foomie talked to Steranko and me but however hard she tried to share what she said evenly between us it was obvious that the conversation was taking place on a slope, tilting away from me towards Steranko. If Steranko was talking to Caroline I could tell that Foomie was half listening to what they were saying. Her eyes lingered on Steranko when he spoke.

Someone tapped Caroline on the shoulder. I moved over to the drinks table where someone handed me another joint. The centipede rhythms of salsa snaked out from the room next door. Laughing loudly Belinda came through the door, followed by Carlton who was wearing the same dark suit he’d had on earlier. Picking up another can of warm beer I went over and kissed Belinda. As I shook hands with Carlton someone kicked me lightly on the back of the leg.

‘Go on: give him a big kiss,’ Mary said, winking and then walking off again.

Foomie came over and kissed Belinda and Carlton. Freddie came back, holding a plateful of chicken something.

‘Look at Steranko,’ Belinda said. ‘In a suit he always looks like he’s just got out of prison or the army.’

‘What bollocks,’ said Carlton. ‘He looks like he’s just got out of art school.’

‘I tell you, I’d hate to live in a time when men didn’t wear suits,’ said Freddie who wasn’t actually wearing one.

‘I’d hate to live in a time when women didn’t wear dresses,’ said Foomie.

‘Me too,’ said Belinda. ‘But I’d also hate to live in a time when you had to wear one.’

‘Suits and dresses,’ said Freddie. ‘When I’m wearing a suit I always wish I was wearing a shoulder-holster too.’

‘I even like the words connected with suits,’ I said. ‘Lapel, vent, turn-up. .’

‘You feel good in a suit,’ Carlton said.

‘Not as good as you feel in a dress on a boiling hot day,’ said Foomie.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever had a suit that’s quite fitted properly,’ I said.

‘A suit shouldn’t fit properly,’ said Freddie, a sudden gleam of illumination in his eyes. ‘If it fits properly it doesn’t fit properly.’

‘What shit you talk Freddie.’

‘Let’s face it though,’ said Carlton, buttoning up his jacket for emphasis. ‘Suits always look better on black people.’

‘What about Lee Marvin in “Point Blank”? That’s a great suit.’

‘Not as good as Sidney Poitier’s in “In the Heat of the Night”.’

I went to the bathroom for a piss, leafing through a couple of pamphlets on cystitis and thrush while I was at it. When I came back Freddie was giving everyone a lecture about Hemingway and the lost generation, leaning against a wall as though he needed to.

‘It’s meaningless. Every generation wants to think it’s lost. Take us. Who could have been more lost than us? We’re so lost we’re virtually extinct,’ he said and everyone laughed. ‘As far as I can see there are only two things to be glad about. We were just old enough and just young enough to realise the full joy of short hair. And we were just about on cue for the jazz revival. Obviously it would have been better to have been in on it first time round but that’s the way things happen these days. History is like the Cup Final: if you miss it in the afternoon you can always catch the highlights later on in the evening when it’s shown again. As for politics, well, you might as well forget it. I mean I wasn’t even able to vote in the last election. .’

‘Nor me,’ said Foomie. ‘I wasn’t registered in time.’

‘Nor me,’ said Steranko.

‘Me neither,’ I said.

‘What about you Lin?’ She nodded and so did Carlton.

‘Look at that. It’s incredible. Four people out of six — two people out of three — don’t even have the vote! Our being on the left means nothing. It means we hang around with certain kinds of people — people like us — but beyond that it means nothing. All it does is underwrite our friendships and provide a kind of shared language, a foundation of broadly shared values. None of us really has anything to do with politics. We sneer at the way the news is presented on TV but nothing we feel has any effect on anyone else. It’s not our fault. That’s just how things have turned out.’

I didn’t know whether I agreed with this or not and Freddie probably didn’t either.

‘People of our generation aren’t able to die for good causes any longer. We had all that done for us in the sixties when we were still kids,’ said Steranko. ‘There are plenty of good brave causes left but there’s nothing we can do about them.’

The afternoon passed quickly as we all got more drunk and stoned. People kept arriving. Juggernaut funk, agile, cumbersome and moving at high speed, thumped around the flat. Carlton and I were in the kitchen with Belinda, scoffing French bread and hummus.

‘How’s your group going?’ I said, searching through the kitchen drawers for a corkscrew.

‘We split up,’ said Belinda as someone else came into the kitchen. Belinda introduced her to Carlton and me. Her name was Monica and she was wearing a green cardigan. Her ripped Levis were three or four sizes too big, gathered in at the waist by a leather belt. She had light, wavy brown hair and wore earrings and no make-up. She talked to Belinda while I continued my hunt for a corkscrew.

Eventually I turned to Monica and said, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a Swiss army knife have you?’ She reached into her pocket and pulled one out. ‘You modern women.’

We talked for a while but by this time I was well past my best, not far off my worst in fact. I sprayed breadcrumbs when I spoke.

After not very long she said, ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘OK. I’ll call you sometime maybe.’

‘OK.’

‘Have you got a pen?’

‘No.’

‘Nor have I,’ I said, feeling in my pockets. ‘I’ll memorise it.’

‘You memorise it, man,’ Carlton laughed. ‘You can’t even remember your own phone number.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong Carlton. My memory has never been in better shape. I answered one of those ads in the Sunday paper. Now I can even remember what I was doing on the day George Best quit football.’

‘What were you doing?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea. Now Veronica, go ahead.’

‘Ready?’

‘Sure.’

‘Five. .’

‘Five. .’ I repeated.

‘Five. .’

‘Five. .’

‘Five. . Five. .’

‘Double five. .’ I said, concentrating hard.