Geoff Dyer - The Colour of Memory

Even the telling made me flinch.

‘Surely you wouldn’t have put your fingers in the hoover like that,’ said Monica, back on her feet again.

‘I could have done, quite easily,’ I said, enjoying the sound of my own voice. ‘It didn’t occur to me that it was dangerous. Then, yesterday, my reading lamp went wrong. I took the bulb out, saw what the problem was and started trying to twist the metal back into shape with a pair of pliers. Next thing I knew I’d been thrown across the room. The appliances in my flat are on the brink of revolting.’

Monica cartwheeled along the length of the roof.

‘That’s fantastic. Such a beautiful thing to be able to do. Are you listening to me by the way?’

‘I catch the odd word here and there,’ said Monica walking back towards me.

‘That’s ample. Can you do a somersault?’

‘Not quite.’ Just then I heard someone calling my name. From the roof of my block Steranko and Foomie were waving to us. They were shouting and laughing, both wearing T-shirts and shorts. Steranko was holding a tennis racket. The sun bounced off a ridiculous green sun visor that made him look like an American student in a fraternity house.

‘Tennis?’ he shouted, holding up a yellow ball for our inspection. He was about twenty yards away.

‘Rough or smooth?’ he shouted, twirling the racket fast in his hand.

‘Rough,’ I called back.

With his thumb he stopped the racket spinning and looked closely at the head. ‘Smooth it is,’ he said, smiling again. ‘My serve.’

He adopted a serving stance, bounced the ball a couple of times, sighted along his racket and then threw the ball high above his head and served hard from my block to Monica’s. High above the street, the ball sped towards us, just cleared the low wall we were leaning against, hit the roof a couple of yards to our right and bounced against the wall behind us. I watched the ball ricochet on to the door of the stairs and roll quickly along the roof. Before it came to rest I heard Steranko guffawing and Foomie laughing wildly on the opposite roof. I had to admit, it was a good serve.

‘That guy’s a headcase,’ said Monica. ‘Either that or he’s a very good tennis player.’

‘Ace!’ Steranko shouted. ‘Fifteen love!’ Foomie was laughing. Steranko had one arm on her shoulder; with the other he waved the tennis racket triumphantly above his head.

I picked up the ball and threw it back across the road. Steranko caught it in one hand. Jesus.

‘We’re going to Brockwell Park for some proper tennis,’ he shouted after a few minutes. ‘See you later. What’re you doing?’

‘Nothing,’ I shouted. ‘I’ll be around.’

Monica and I waved and watched Steranko and Foomie walk towards the roof door.

‘Who is that guy?’ Monica asked when they had disappeared from view.

‘That’s Steranko,’ I said. ‘A friend of mine.’

Monica actually met Steranko and Foomie a few days later when we all went to a party on Ladbroke Grove. It was an afternoon party and by five o’clock people in the living-room were packed as tight as a deck of cards — there wasn’t room to dance but you could shuffle your feet. I moved out on the balcony with Freddie who was trembling so much that he was having trouble lighting a joint.

‘Jesus Freddie, you’re shaking like mad.’

‘I know.’

‘Shit: you’re practically vibrating. This has got to be your greatest affectation to date. No doubt about it. It’s even better than that stutter you put on sometimes.’

‘You like it do you?’

‘It’s terrific. You look like you might fall apart at any moment.’

‘I think it’s got something to do with last night. I was power-drinking over in Finsbury Park.’

‘Oh yeah, you went to that party? Did you have a good time?’

‘I got blind drunk. I definitely saw the midnight rat. No question about it.’

‘It’s a shame about the shaking though,’ I said. ‘I was hoping the shaking was pure affectation.’

Deep tan and shadow from the wavering match flickered over his face. I could see the interior of the kitchen reflected in his eyes like a tiny party in his head.

‘And what about the writing? How’s that going?’ Freddie liked to be asked questions like this when he was wearing his corduroy jacket.

‘Oh I don’t know. The time I most feel like a writer is at exactly the moment when I’m too out of it to even write my name.’

Monica joined us on the balcony.

‘That was good timing,’ I said. ‘Freddie was about to start on his Malcolm Lowry routine.’

‘Oh I’d like to have seen that,’ Monica said.

‘Me too,’ said Freddie, drinking white wine from the bottle. They’d met earlier that afternoon and Freddie had instantly reeled off a list of his favourite writers. Monica had responded by asking if he worked in a bookshop. I could tell they liked each other.

I pushed past the people in the living-room and queued up for a piss. When I came out Foomie had joined the queue.

‘Have you seen Steranko?’ she said.

‘He went out to score some grass about half an hour ago,’ I said. ‘He’s probably been arrested.’

Someone touched me on the shoulder. I heard a familiar jangle of bracelets and turned round.

‘Fran! I don’t believe it,’ I said, hugging her.

‘I was sure you’d be here,’ she said, laughing. ‘Look I only dropped in for a moment to see if you were here. I’ve really got to rush.’

‘How come?’

‘Oh I’ve had such a weird day. I was waiting for a tube and the sign said “Next train ten minutes”. When I looked again it said fourteen minutes. About five minutes later it said sixteen. I thought time was going backwards. I was already late so I thought “fuck it” and went to get a bus. Then the bus broke down in the Wandsworth triangle where all public transport mysteriously disappears. Luckily some friend drove past in a car — on their way to the same place I was going — and winched me to safety. And then since we were driving past here I persuaded them to stop for a moment.’

There were dark smudges round Fran’s eyes. She looked beautiful and worn out — that was another thing about Fran: looking tired actually suited her.

‘Hey this is Foomie,’ I said, seeing her come out of the bathroom. ‘This is Fran, my sister.’ They smiled and laughed. ‘And this is Carlton,’ I added as he joined the queue. ‘Freddie’s over there somewhere too. You remember him?’

Fran ended up staying about twenty minutes. She talked at high speed with Foomie and Carlton, smoked a joint and met Freddie and Monica out on the balcony. She was still there when a stationary car began hooting.

‘I’ve really got to go,’ she said, laughing. ‘I told them I’d only be a minute and we’re about two hours late already.’ With that she said goodbye to everyone, promised she’d come down to Brixton soon and left.

Steranko arrived back just after Fran had left and for some reason I felt vaguely relieved that he hadn’t got back a few minutes earlier.

More people were crowding out on to the narrow balcony, pushing Monica and me up into the far corner. There was still some brightness in the sky but beneath us the street was shaded and dark. On the pavements families, couples, young women with kids, middle-aged West Indian men, awkward punks and some teenagers on skateboards passed by. Most cars had their lights on. To the left, heading north, the traffic thinned out; to the right it congealed as it passed under the Westway and disappeared from view. The car lights formed a shifting red and yellow stream that flowed in both directions at once. As the volume of traffic increased to our right it became a thick river of volcanic colour that hardly moved. On the Westway, spanning this red and gold medal ribbon of colour, the grey shapes of cars, vans and lorries whizzed past, blurs of rapid motion against the deepening grey of the sky. Every five minutes or so the traffic on the flyover would be blotted out by a train moving slowly across the railway bridge from Ladbroke Grove station.