Geoff Dyer - The Colour of Memory

The four parachutes rocked and pendulumed slowly downwards, smoke trails aerosoling elaborate and curly signatures on the wall of the sky. As they descended it was possible to see the parachutists themselves, hanging beneath their canopies on invisible strings. One drifted out wide from the rest and for a moment it seemed possible that he might land here on the roof. Gradually the radius of descent narrowed and he drifted away from us, heading with the others towards Brockwell Park. Two disappeared behind trees, their smoke trails exhausted; then the third and fourth until there was nothing left except fading loops and wisps of smoke: pink, faint lemon, pale green and blue. Soon there was just a mist; and then only the haze of memory.

Late that night we all made a drunken arrangement to meet up at Brockwell Lido at eleven o’clock the next morning but it was gone twelve by the time Fran and I set off. We walked the long way round, past the old garage on Effra Road that looked like a painting by Edward Hopper with its faded red and blue petrol pumps and the people and cars no longer there. A little further on there was a white building with a sign for ‘Cool Tan’. Fran thought it was advertising some technique for getting brown without getting hot but it was for a fizzy drink in the fifties or sixties that never really caught on. All that remained was the sign.

Brockwell Lido was built in the 1930s. The pool itself was an unheated rectangle of blue water surrounded by wooden changing huts and two high chairs for lifeguards. With the barbed wire on the surrounding walls the whole place looked like a camp, converted for leisure now that the refugees or prisoners had gone. It was a nice pool but I could never quite rid myself of the feeling that it was the kind of place where you got issued with verrucas when you exchanged your wire basket of clothes for a faded rubber ankle-band with ink-smudged number. Toes curled up reflexively, I splashed quickly through the disinfectant footbath. Fran emerged from the women’s changing-room, thin, tanned and wearing a blue one-piece bathing suit borrowed from Monica. Wrapped around her shoulders, a brightly striped towel soaked up the sun. The pool was already fairly crowded but there was no sign of any of the others. A group of dripping adolescents stood about five yards from the edge of the deep end, watching attentively until someone walked by fully clothed. Suddenly they rushed towards the pool and plunged into the water, sending drenching waves over the unsuspecting passer-by. The lifeguard whistled and shouted.

We found a space to spread out our towels and books on the warm paving stones. There were cigarette butts lying around, impossible to ignore. The air was full of the tinsel shimmer of radios playing pop music. The sun shuddered overhead like a bronze gong struck. Nearby three young white guys in boxer shorts passed round joints of strong-smelling grass.

‘Oh shit I left my grass at your house,’ Fran said, arms around her knees.

‘Maybe the others’ll bring some. If they don’t we can send Freddie off to the frontline in his swimming trunks to score.’

After a moment Fran said, ‘It’s lovely here isn’t it?’

‘Last year it had only been open for a couple of weeks when some kids threw a load of toxic chemicals in that turned the water purple. It was closed for the rest of the summer while the bottom was scraped and cleaned.’

‘What a shame. It’s not as nice as the Lido at home though is it?’

I shook my head. It was funny hearing Fran say ‘home’ like that.

‘I remember getting the bus from school down to that pool,’ I said. ‘It was a big old double-decker and the branches of trees used to whack the top of it. On the journey there this bus used to have to go round a very steep bend and when it did everybody on the top deck used to charge over to the left-hand side to try and topple it over. About fifty kids all crammed into the front four seats on one side of the bus. “Come on — one more push and it’ll go!” We really wanted the bus to go over.’

A guy in tourniquet swimming trunks strolled past, his body a dark map of muscle that the sun navigated easily. A few yards away a woman with spiky bleached hair was reading an old Penguin Modern Classic. At the edge of the pool a young punk was wondering whether to take off his pyramid-studded wrist-band before getting in the water.

‘Am I going brown?’ I asked Fran.

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

‘Shall we have a swim?’ Fran said.

‘We could have a bit of a paddle.’

‘Come on.’

I was still a couple of feet from the edge of the pool when Fran dived past me and entered the water in a low, perfect arc. I saw her shape, wiggly beneath the water. After several seconds she came to the surface, smiling and rubbing her eyes. She swam back to the edge.

‘Come on!’ She flicked an armful of icy water on to my shoulders.

‘Fran, please don’t. I hate being splashed.’

‘Sorry,’ she said, smiling and kicking up another freezing scoop of water. I did a scorching belly-flop into the cold shock of water. Still gasping from the cold I thrashed my way up the pool. Fran swam alongside in long easy strokes and then pulled away, straight and fast as a torpedo. The shock of the cold faded quickly and I did a couple of lengths as fast as I could. I’d never really liked swimming — I’d never got the hang of breathing properly and the idea of doing fifty lengths a day or whatever it is you need to do to keep fit bored the crap out of me.

After four lengths I climbed out and wrapped myself in a towel. After a few minutes Fran clambered out of the pool too. A hand slapped my shoulder — ‘Drug squad!’

‘Shit!’ I jumped and turned around. ‘Approximately how many times have I asked you not to do that Carlton?’

‘Ten or twelve,’ he said grinning. Beside him Foomie was doing the same. She and Fran kissed and held each other; Carlton and I just stood there. Foomie was wearing a loose white T-shirt and a pair of Steranko’s shorts. Her hair was pulled back tight, making her eyes look large and oval. Carlton was in a vest, shorts, red baseball cap and tennis shoes. We expanded our encampment of bags and towels and sat down.

‘Nobody else coming?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, Steranko and Freddie should be. What about Monica?’

‘She’s got to do a lunchtime shift at the restaurant. She’ll be down later.’

‘There’s Freddie look. Yoh!’ Carlton called, waving. ‘Freddie!’ He saw us and, just too late, just as he was waving back, he saw the three kids running to bomb him. The next moment he was lost in an explosion of water. Everyone laughed.

Wrapped up in the towel I slithered out of my wet trunks and pulled on my shorts. Freddie picked his way between towels and people and eventually stood before us in dripping shirt and trousers.

‘Good job you didn’t have the corduroy jacket on, Freddie,’ said Carlton.

Foomie was reading the paper. Freddie was carefully rolling a large all-grass joint. I picked up my book but lost concentration after about five lines. It dawned on me that I was actually becoming more badly read as I got older. Fran was stretched out on her front, absorbed in the book she had curled up in her fist. Freddie asked if anyone had anything to use as a roach.

‘Here you are,’ Fran said, tearing a large corner off the back cover of her book.

‘Jesus Fran. For a bad moment I thought that was my book,’ I said. ‘That’s why she reads so fast. She has to get through them quickly — before they fall apart. Look at that: it’s got about two hours’ life left in it at most, that book.’

Fran put down the book and smiled. Freddie lit the joint and passed it to her. When it had gone round once more she got up and asked if anyone was swimming.