Geoff Dyer - The Colour of Memory

‘My head is,’ said Carlton.

Fran walked to the edge of the pool and dived smoothly into the water.

Steranko showed up a few minutes later, a large bag slung over his shoulder. He grinned and said hello to everybody and kissed Foomie. Freddie said he could finish the joint.

‘Well Steranko, you must have quite a hangover.’

‘That’s putting it mildly. Jesus, was I ever drunk.’

‘Did you see the midnight rat?’

‘I must have done. I can’t remember what it looked like though.’

‘If you’d seen it you’d remember it.’

Foomie put her arm around Steranko’s shoulders. A man bounced towards us, his Hawaiian shirt fully inflated by a wrap-around gut.

‘That guy looks so much like a beach-ball I’m surprised nobody’s taken a kick at him,’ Carlton said. The lifeguard nearest us blew his whistle, shouted something at two kids and then leant back in his chair. Nice job, just sitting there, telling people off and getting tanned.

By the time Fran pulled herself out of the pool we were all stoned. For a moment she stood by the edge of the pool, smiling, her wet hair dripping. The sun caught her earring. No one was speaking. Steranko looked at her, at her neck and shoulders, her waist, her legs. They held each other’s eyes and then Fran looked away quickly, conscious suddenly of the way her feet were moving over the warm ground. Foomie saw the way Steranko was watching Fran as she walked towards us, pearls of water clinging to her short hair.

For a moment we were all trapped by the chains of our gaze. Then Steranko looked down to the trail of wet footprints stretching towards us from the blue pool, turning quickly to damp smudges and then melting away to nothing.

Fran reached for her towel and draped it around her shoulders. A pair of kids flicked their towels at each other like whips, soaking the corners so they stung more.

Someone had to speak.

‘What’s the water like?’ Carlton said.

‘Lovely,’ said Fran, clearing her throat. ‘You should go in.’

‘He can’t swim,’ Freddie said and everyone laughed.

Fran stretched out on her towel and stared at her book. I glanced at Foomie who looked quickly away. Steranko put on a pair of sunglasses.

The sun slipped and slid over the blue water.

On Friday Carlton and I went to a bad party near the Elephant and Castle. We left early and sober, grumbling about the party as we walked along. We turned a corner and almost bumped into three young white guys. One of them mumbled something to Carlton who said nothing, kept walking. It looked like nothing would happen. Then they trotted after us and blocked our path.

‘What was that you said?’ one of them said.

Carlton said nothing.

‘I’m talking to you.’ All three of them were looking at Carlton; nobody was paying any attention to me. They all smelled of beer and had the same look of tabloid malice.

‘I didn’t say anything,’ Carlton said. ‘I was just going about my business.’

I took a step nearer the guy.

‘Come on mate. He didn’t say anything. .’ I said but it was pointless. Whatever you say in situations like this becomes part of the ritual of provocation which is a necessary prelude to violence. There must always be some excuse.

‘Stay out of this you,’ the guy said. The same guy was doing all the talking. He’d been through this scene so many times in his head — maybe in real life too — that he now spoke his lines without any real enthusiasm or threat. The other two hadn’t said a word yet. The talker and the one to my right were both thick-set and ugly. The third one, standing slightly behind his mates, looked wiry and spiteful. The other two looked like thumpers; this one was the potential slasher, the vicious kid who was also a little scared. He would wait till you were on the ground before getting stuck in. He was the one who would end up killing somebody one day.

The smell of booze in the night.

I was starting to tremble. There was no one around. I looked at Carlton.

‘So what was it you were saying?’ The bloke walked towards Carlton, the other two watching. I took another step forward.

One of the other guys — the other big one — pushed me in the chest with the palm of his hand: ‘This isn’t your fight. Unless you want it. Stay there and you won’t get hurt.’

He half turned away from me and faced Carlton while the other guy also started crowding Carlton. I tried to control my trembling, tried to remember stuff I’d read about the way that everyone is frightened by violence, about how you master fear, but all I could feel was the fear of getting hurt. How to turn all that fear into adrenalin or whatever it is that makes you able to fight? I started breathing deeply. Whatever happens, you’ve just got to help Carlton, whatever happens Jesus fucking Christ. Carlton glanced at me and I don’t know what he saw. One of the white guys had moved to within inches of him.

I thought: whatever happens is going to happen soon. It was too late to stop anything now. I tried to steady myself again, to gain control of my limbs, to make myself not be scared.

The guy spoke straight into Carlton’s face: ‘I’m talking to you, you bla —’

Suddenly Carlton’s head snapped forward into the guy’s face, his fist into his stomach, his foot into the guy’s knee. He was already turning when he shouted: ‘RUN!’

Carlton was a couple of feet clear of me when I started running. As soon as my limbs began moving my fear ignited all at once in a burst of energy which took me to just behind his shoulder. We were both running flat out. My head was thrown back so that my lungs could take in more oxygen which my heart pumped out all over my body. I didn’t look back once. My feet flew over the pavement. Without realising where we were we charged into a main road. The yellow light of a cab came towards us through the dark. Carlton waved frantically, looking round fast to see if we were being chased. We were still running and the cab drove past, not wanting to get involved in whatever it was we were running away from. I glanced round quickly. About twenty yards back I saw the three of them running.

‘Carlton!’ He looked round. Up ahead there was a bus at a stop, indicator flashing, waiting to pull out into traffic. Without speaking we sprinted for the bus. By the time we were close to it it was out in the road and gathering speed. With a final burst of acceleration Carlton leapt on. I was a few steps behind — the bus was going faster and faster, in another few seconds it would be accelerating away. I lunged for the hand-rail. My grip slid down the pole but I got my hip on the platform and slithered on board. The conductor started bawling us out and for a moment it looked like he was going to throw us off the bus.

‘Don’t stop,’ I panted. All the passengers were looking at us, wondering if we were running from the cops, unsure what to do. We were breathing like we were trying to suck every drop of oxygen out of the bus. The bus stopped and an old woman got on but the conductor didn’t give the starting signal. There was blood on Carlton’s forehead. I looked out of the back of the bus. I could still see the three of them, a good way back down the road.

Something about the way we looked — maybe he could see the ashes of all that burnt fear in my eyes — convinced the conductor that we weren’t running from the scene of any murder except our own. He tugged the cord twice. The bus groaned and pushed its way again into the night traffic.

I knocked on Foomie’s door and watched her shape swim and lurch toward me through the pebbled glass. I kissed her on the cheek and followed her inside. Her hair was wet and she showed me into the kitchen while towelling it dry. The flat was full of the warm smell of cooking. Her eyes looked big and clear.