Geoff Dyer - The Colour of Memory

‘Nothing really,’ said Freddie without looking up.

‘I bet,’ Carlton said. ‘“Pound of tomatoes, loaf of bread, tin of corned beef, bag of potatoes. .” Have a look Steranko: I bet it’s his shopping list he’s working on. Just shout if you need any help with the spelling Freddie. Only one M in tomatoes. .’

‘You just concentrate on reading your comic,’ Freddie said.

Steranko was fiddling with the cassette player, unable to find the track he particularly wanted to hear. He spent the next five minutes rewinding and fast-forwarding, ejecting tapes and putting in new ones but whatever he played he became dissatisfied with quickly. Eventually he went charging down the stairs in search of another tape. Ten minutes later he resurfaced empty-handed and tried to find the track we’d been listening to originally.

This kind of behaviour was not unusual. Steranko at this time had developed the exhausting habit of constantly trying to improve the happiness of any given situation. In his efforts he frequently managed to disrupt and even destroy exactly the situation he was trying to improve. He would suddenly decide that we had to have some booze and at two minutes to two on a Sunday afternoon would run off in pursuit of an off-licence where he could beg and plead with them to sell him a couple of six-packs of lager. Freddie termed this constant attempt to nudge the moment a little closer to perfection the dilemma of the late urban romantic.

‘Let’s go swimming,’ Steranko exclaimed enthusiastically after a while.

‘Hey relax, man,’ Carlton said. ‘Take it easy. All this fucking around is really interfering with my quietness.’

‘Mine too,’ I said. I was barely awake. Carlton’s voice had floated thick into my ears; I had a book over my face and breathed in the sharp wet smell of the ink.

‘Steranko, what’s the matter with you?’ Foomie asked, laughing. ‘Why don’t you calm down, just for a few seconds?’ She said it with that tone of endless patience she had when she felt most affectionately towards him.

‘Why don’t you do something useful like roll a joint?’ suggested Carlton.

‘OK.’

‘Am I going brown?’ I said from beneath my book.

‘No.’

Later in the afternoon Belinda and Monica came over, giggly and stoned and wearing pale dresses.

Steranko suggested we get some beer and he and I walked over to the off-licence. Trudging back, clutching an American-style brown bag full of booze, I saw Fran walking up the road towards us, waving and smiling. I shifted the weight of the cans so that I could wave back.

‘Who’s that?’ Steranko asked.

‘My sister, Fran,’ I said when she reached us. Fran held my face between her hands and kissed me. She was wearing sandals, shorts held up by braces and a large blue T-shirt.

‘This is Steranko,’ I said. ‘And this is Fran.’ They shook hands and smiled. ‘You’ve come just at the right time. There’s a lot of people here. It looks like turning into a party.’

‘Shall I buy some drink?’

‘No there’s plenty here. It’s great to see you Fran.’

We were standing at the edge of Effra Road, waiting for a break in the traffic. Seeing a slight pause Steranko and Fran dashed to a bollard in the middle of the road. A car sounded its horn in an angry warning and then they walked to the opposite pavement. For the next thirty seconds the traffic was even heavier. I saw Steranko and Fran talking and laughing on the opposite side of the road but then a steady stream of lorries and buses blocked them from view completely. I crossed the road a few moments later. Fran put her arm through mine. We smiled at each other. Steranko walked slightly ahead. On the road behind us a police car roared past at high speed, siren wailing.

Back on the roof Fran kissed Monica and Foomie and said hello to Freddie and Carlton and soon she and Belinda were laughing together like they were old friends. Planes glinted in the sun as they passed through the perfect sky. A short time later, when we were all stoned and not wanting to do anything, Steranko declared that since everybody was here and the light was so spectacular we ought to take a photograph. He and I went down to the flat to look for my camera. It took us five minutes to find it and another five to discover that there was no film in it. Undeterred, Steranko borrowed my bike and set off looking for a shop that sold film.

He got back about a quarter of an hour later, a yellow cycling cap tilted back on his head. He was sweating, breathing heavily and snapping pictures without remembering to adjust the focus or the light setting.

‘Let’s take one with us all in,’ he said after wasting half the film. ‘It’s got a self-timer hasn’t it?’

Setting up the picture took a long time. To get us all in the frame the camera had to be placed on the low wall at the other side of the roof. To see through the viewfinder and check that we were all arranged properly Steranko had to hang from the railing over the side of the building while Freddie moved the camera fractionally in accordance with Steranko’s grunted instructions of ‘left a bit, right a bit’.

‘I feel like Bernie the Bolt from “The Golden Shot”,’ Freddie said.

‘Hurry up Steranko,’ Foomie said anxiously. All we could see of Steranko were his white knuckles gripping the railing and his cycling cap above the camera. We began to wonder how much longer he could hang there.

‘Are you alright Steranko?’ Freddie said, looking down anxiously.

‘No, I’m. I can’t. .’ Suddenly the hands slipped from the rail. There was a long scream and then a dull thud from the other side of the wall.

Freddie’s face mirrored the shock on all our faces.

‘Oh Jesus fucking Christ,’ he said quietly as we rushed over towards him. I was the first to get there. I looked over the wall and saw Steranko, grinning and standing on the narrow ledge that ran just above the top windows of the block. The others crowded round. There was a collective sigh of relief which turned immediately to a groan. Freddie and Steranko were laughing crazily.

‘What a wrister,’ said Carlton and then we all took up our positions again on the other side of the roof. Once he had hauled himself back over the rail Steranko shouted ‘Ready?’, depressed the timer and scampered over to rejoin the rest of us. Foomie was peeling an orange. Freddie and Carlton were trying to push each other out of the picture. Monica and Belinda posed with their arms around each other. I was standing between Fran and Foomie; Steranko was crouched down in front of everyone. We waited, smiling.

‘It’s not working,’ Freddie said.

‘Yes it is, you can hear the whirr of the thing going round.’ I took a sip of beer — and at that moment there was a sharp click from the camera.

‘Maybe now we can get some peace,’ Carlton said as Steranko walked over to pick up the camera and wind on the film.

I heard the drone of a propellor plane making its way nostalgically across the sky. Squinting into the bright sky I saw a plane circling slowly overhead.

‘Look!’ said Steranko suddenly.

Gradually, red, yellow and then green and dark blue smoke trails appeared in the sky like Christmas streamers. A few moments later there were two sudden twists of even brighter colour, ballooning out into perfect parachutes, one striped red and yellow, the other quartered into segments of black and gold. There was a third brief flicker and then another full canopy blossomed, a sudden poppy of colour in the blue sky. Up until this point the smoke trails had been stretched fine by the speed of the free-falling parachutists; now, with the parachutes stalled in mid-air, the smoke curled out thickly and lazily. Then the bottom of the fourth and last smoke trail ignited in a sudden flame of colour, twitching and falling through the sky — but this time it failed to burst into a perfect canopy. The sheet of colour was just hanging there, a faint speck tumbling away from it and dragging a stream of smoke like a scream. A huge second passed. There was another brief pinch of colour turning instantly to a bright parachute, clinging tight to the sky.