The Colour of Memory

by Geoff Dyer

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’

  The words broke over me. I stared into the dark sky above and around us. The night remembered the voice. The night remembered how the voice had needed the night. There were no stars, only the red and white blink of a plane, the steady flicker of the hurricane lamp.

  049

  Something about that evening made me think of a day several years ago when I hardly knew Steranko. I was sitting in the Arizona, a cafe near the house on Water Lane where we spent a lot of time, reading the papers, chewing bacon sandwiches and ordering tea. Stan, who ran it, thought we were students who’d squatted a place nearby. To him that made us the lowest form of life imaginable, exactly the kind of people, in other words, that his establishment took pride in catering for. When we started going there builders from a nearby site would come in at about eleven thirty and start wading into cardiac-sized plates of eggs, chips, beans and fried ketchup. Gradually the reputation of Stan’s cafe spread like the smell of eggs and soon its clientèle was made up entirely of squatters, students, anarchists and hopeful intellectuals looking for authentic proletarian experience. The builders drifted away; lorry drivers came from miles around to avoid the place. It got more and more crowded. One day the restaurant critic from Time Out showed up and selected it as one of the best vegetarian restaurants south of the river. It soon became the kind of place in which a working knowledge of the novels of Jack Kerouac was preferred if not actually required.

  It was a freezing January afternoon when Steranko came round. He’d called at the house and been directed over to Stan’s by our next door neighbour who said some of us were sure to be there. We shook hands and he ordered a plateful of everything.

  At that time Steranko was living in a house near Vauxhall. He suggested we spend the rest of the afternoon over there. I had nothing else to do so we paid and left.

  Outside the wind cut through our clothes and crashed into our nostrils. As soon as you set foot outside what you most wanted to do was get back inside. Even the wind wanted to be indoors. It howled and twisted round blocks of flats, trying to squeeze through windows and force its way in through a few inches of open door. The sky was a charcoal smudge of clouds. A couple of blown-out umbrellas rolled around. What I thought was some new kind of bird – square, black, shiny – turned out to be a piece of black polythene kicked around by the wind. The restless sound of empty cans.

  We saw a couple of buses coming and started to run for the stop. Two 3s and then, a little way behind them, another, hurtled past in convoy, half-empty.

  ‘Three 3s.’

  ‘That’s the best combination of buses you can get,’ Steranko said, breathing hard. ‘It beats anything.’

  ‘There won’t be any more buses for a couple of days now,’ I said peering at the timetable. It was all pearled up with frost, impossible to read.

  ‘Fuck it. Let’s walk,’ said Steranko.

  We walked quickly, both wearing the same dark grey overcoats that were several sizes too big and weighed so much that you slouched under them. Mine had no buttons left; I kept it together with a massive old belt my grandfather had used to strap my father. We had our collars turned up against the wind; our breath clouded and disappeared quickly. The pavement felt hard, cold and brittle beneath our feet. Our shoulders bumped together. Steranko sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Heavy with grit, the wind skated across the adventure playground and chiselled away at our faces.

  ‘I wish I had my gloves,’ I said. ‘I left them at home.’

  ‘At least you don’t have to worry about losing them,’ said Steranko.

  We took a short-cut to Stockwell across the railway bridge which was covered in a caged hoop of wire netting, either to stop people throwing themselves under trains or to stop kids throwing bricks through the driver’s window: both probably. A small boy trundled past us on one of those bikes that all the kids have. A white guy walked past looking desperate behind thick glasses.

  The wind swept down on us like a slide as we made our way towards the tundra wastes of Vauxhall. By now we were feeling warm from the walk. The wind blew back Steranko’s hair. His face looked hard and white, his lips pale. The sky was sooty with rain, full of all the misery of the city. It began to grow dark quickly. Bus windows became moving squares of light framing ghastly faces. Lights appeared in windows, brake lights left a ghost trail of red above the road.

  At Vauxhall, where the streets widen and routes converge until there is nothing but roadway, the streetlights glowed red and then yellow. The wind, damp with spray from the river, stung our faces. I pulled the lapels of my coat together again, trying to seal in the warmth generated by the walk. My nose was running. I sniffed and my breath rippled and fanned out into the air like fog. The neon lights of a garage stood out brightly against the dark blue sky and the darker grey of the clouds. Cars hurtled past each other, across the river and down under the railway bridge.

  Standing there, waiting for the lights to change, I felt a strong sense of converging definition. It was one of those moments which, even as experienced, is obscurely touched by the significance with which it will be invested by the future, by memory: this is how I was, this is how we were; this is how we spent our time, wasting whole afternoons and not caring because it was winter and there were so many afternoons still ahead.

  Steranko touched my sleeve: ‘Let’s cross,’ he said and we stepped out into the road, weaving our way between the red and white lights and the steaming breath of cars.

  ‘Look,’ said Steranko suddenly as we walked down a narrow street. A toy parachute was tangled up in some phone lines overhead. Lit by the yellow glow of a street-lamp the tattered parachute flapped quietly; hanging from damp strings a grey plastic soldier swayed stiffly in the wind.

  As we walked the last few hundred yards to Steranko’s house we passed the gas works. There were two gasometers, both full to the brim with gas and looking like huge, rusting drums.

  By the time I walked home later that night, one of them had become a skeleton frame of metal spars that held only the empty sky. The tattered parachute still hung from the phone lines.

  048

  Carlton, Steranko and I called for Freddie on our way to play football. His room was full of books and bits of paper; a record was playing so loudly on his new stereo – bought with the money from his inflated insurance claim after the break-in – that we all had to shout. Steranko had his football boots tied around his neck; Freddie was on his hands and knees, looking for his.

  ‘Where are they? I think the animal they made these boots out of is still alive. They’re always scurrying off somewhere.’

  ‘What’s this record?’ Steranko asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s this record?’

  ‘The Art Ensemble of Chicago,’ Freddie said, looking under his bed. ‘It’s a soundtrack for a film that was never made.’

  ‘Ah the avant garde,’ said Steranko. ‘Those were the days.’

  ‘I wonder if there’s an avant garde now,’ I yelled.

  ‘We’d definitely have heard of it if there was,’ Freddie yelled back. ‘Where the fuck are they?’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Yeah. We’d probably be it if there was one,’ Steranko said.

  ‘We’d be in the guard’s van more like,’ said Carlton.

  ‘There’s never been an avant garde in this country,’ Steranko said.

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Bohemia is the last refuge of the avant garde,’ said Freddie. ‘Actually maybe I’ve got that the wrong way round.’

  ‘How’s the writing going then Freddie?’ said Carlton, kicking the football skilfully from one foot to the other without letting it bounce.

  ‘Terrific. If that ball lands on my new turn
table, by the way, I’ll be very upset. I’ve got some work writing copy for police Wanted notices. Apparently the police have decided that they need them done in a more punchy kind of way, a bit livelier and not so off-putting. Steranko’s got some work there as well: he’s assistant Photo-fit arranger. It’s quite well paid.’

  As Freddie finished speaking the ball bobbled awkwardly off Carlton’s foot, hit the stereo and bounced towards Steranko.

  ‘Must be the most creative thing you’ve done in about two years then Steranko,’ said Carlton, glancing at Freddie who was storming round the room like a junkie, looking for his football boots.

  ‘On the head, on the head,’ said Carlton, gesturing at Steranko to throw the ball. Steranko did so and Carlton headed the ball as hard as he could into the door.

  ‘Jairzinho!’ he shouted. The 1970 World Cup in Mexico had made a deep impression on us all.

  The music came to an end just as Freddie found his boots.

  Steranko and Carlton were trying unsuccessfully to head the ball back and forth to each other.

  ‘You nearly ready Freddie?’ I asked.

  ‘Fuck! Now I can’t find my shinpads,’ he said.

  After the recent rain the grass was thick and green under the enamelled blue sky. Trees fanned the breeze. On the path beyond the touchline, old and young couples walked by or sat on benches.

  I knew most of the rest of our team from around Brixton or parties or just from playing football. Some of us changed shirts with people in the other team until we were more or less in white shirts and they were in an assortment of colours. I played as a sort of left-winger and after ten minutes I was breathing hard and starting to feel good. On the other wing Carlton tried to dribble past two or three men with occasional success; Steranko charged around the middle of the field (no one was quite sure where he was supposed to be playing); Freddie, who was surprisingly skilful and tenacious, played up front. As we rushed forwards and backwards my heart thumped in time with the pounding of our feet on the grass. Bracing my neck for the shock I headed the ball from a high clearance, catching it full in the forehead and hardly feeling it except for the sudden smack of impact. We dribbled, passed and ran back to tackle. Both teams clapped when their goalkeeper made a spectacular flying save from a shot by Carlton.

  At half-time we drank water and didn’t bother talking tactics. I lay on my back feeling the blood flowing through my limbs and the soft ground beneath my head, looking up at the still blue of the sky.

  In the second half both teams tried long shots at goal and eventually we scored after a header of Freddie’s bounced off the crossbar. Now that we were one-nil up they attacked more desperately but our defence tackled and headed the ball clear of danger. Steranko seemed to be concentrating on work-rate, charging around in circles.

  ‘Steranko,’ I shouted. ‘You sure you wouldn’t rather I just threw you a stick so you could chase after that?’ He grinned back at me. People stopped and watched for a few minutes. Young boys ran to fetch the ball when it bounced out of play. I looked around. The trees around the park were perfectly still as if time had stopped, as if every second of the afternoon were held in a single moment: Steranko frozen in his running, his feet barely touching the grass; Carlton bent down tying his shoe, the breeze rippling his shirt; the muscles straining in someone’s leg; players jumping for the ball, their feet suspended in mid-air, the goalkeeper’s hands rising above their floating hair; the ball hanging over them like a perfect moon. And everything around us: the crease of the corner flag, the wind-sculpted trees, the child’s swing at the top of its arc, the water from the drinking fountain bubbling towards the lips of the woman bent down to drink, the cyclist leaning into the curve of the path, a plane stalled in the sky, someone’s thrown tennis ball a small yellow planet in the distance.

  047

  The following week I embarked on a strict régime of spontaneity. It all started with a friend in Amsterdam asking if I wanted to spend a few days there before she moved on to Istanbul. In the event I spent three days changing my mind and dithering about whether or not I could afford the flight. By the time I had finally decided to go there were no cheap flights available. As soon as it became clear that I couldn’t go my desire to be in Amsterdam became almost overwhelming. I phoned back the travel agency and said I would take a slightly more expensive kind of ticket but by that time the only available tickets were for ambassador class with free champagne. The ferry was also out of the question: I would have arrived about twelve hours before my friend left. I called her, said I couldn’t make it and wished her luck in Istanbul. I put the phone down and after careful consideration decided that I needed to be more impulsive. The first thing I did was buy a pair of badly-fitting brogues from a store in Camberwell. Fifteen minutes after buying them my feet felt like they were wrapped in barbed wire. Undeterred, I resolved that whatever I felt like on the spur of the moment I would do. From now on I was going to live for the moment. I even looked forward to finding opportunities in which I could exercise my spontaneity.

  A couple of days later I impulsively went along to a party and spontaneously slurped five or six cans of Shaftmeister Pils. Soon after that I got into some kind of ridiculous argument with a guy of about my age and build. Things got surprisingly heated. This other guy looked pretty feeble and after a couple of minutes arguing I asked him what his problem was. He told me to go fuck myself.

  ‘Listen, there are two ways we can do this,’ I said. ‘Take it from me, this is the easiest.’

  I wanted it to sound full of dangerous calm and neurasthenic menace but it actually came out sounding improbable – like a film buff quoting from a movie – and inappropriate (partly because such a declaration had no logical connection with what had gone before). The guy looked at me. I tried him with an I know I’m tough and I hope for your sake I’m not going to have to prove it look. He responded with a Shit, it’s boring having to get into these things so we’d better get it over with glare.

  I gave him back one of the same, an OK if that’s the way you want it. He responded with a Right here it comes; I gave him my Right now you’re really going to reap the whirlwind. Privately I was thinking exactly the opposite: Wrong, now I’m going to reap the whirlwind. Neither of us moved a muscle. Tense seconds passed and I realised with great relief that the other guy had no more intention of fighting than I did. Eventually he shook his head and departed with a You’re not even worth the trouble and I just had time to get in a quick Lucky for you, mother-fucker before he walked off. All in all it was a completely satisfactory encounter, a harmless battle of facial rhetoric – all the thrills and spills of real fighting without any of the pain. Basically we were just two drunk guys who wanted to act tough for a couple of minutes. I bumped into him at the party a few minutes later and we had quite a laugh about it.

  A few minutes later somebody offered me a lift back to Brixton. Impulsively and happily I said yes and for the next half an hour I quivered in the back seat of a car with two other passengers while the driver, roaring drunk and sipping Sapporo, squealed around corners and kamikazied his way through the red lights of east and south London. Every couple of seconds I had a precise and frightening vision of a head-on collision, of getting oxy-acetylened out of the wreckage and coming round in hospital a week later while a doctor patiently explained that I was going to have to spend the rest of my life in a brain-damaged wheelchair. I got out of the car about a mile from home and walked the rest of the way, relieved to feel the blood pumping through the muscles of my still intact legs.

  Waking up the next morning with the odd sensation of being surprised to be alive I threw recklessness to the wind and abandoned my spontaneity programme then and there. I was fed up with the rigours of impulsive living anyway: I didn’t have the application for it. I couldn’t cope with being stoned at eleven thirty in the morning and that kind of thing. Spontaneity seemed constantly to tow regret in its wake. Living for the moment was all very well, I decided, but you had to pick your
moments carefully. Quite often there was another moment just around the corner which was much more worth living for than the one you were engaged in.

  The phone rang. I picked it up semi-spontaneously. It was Fran.

  ‘Hi! How’s things?’

  ‘Good. How are you?’

  ‘Fine. Listen,’ I said. ‘Dad phoned the other day. He said he’d been trying your number for a week and no one knew where you were.’

  ‘I’ve been all over the place. OK, I’ll phone him. How are you though? I haven’t seen you for ages.’

  We talked for a few more moments like that (neither of us really knew how to chat on the phone) and then arranged to meet.

  Fran, I reflected when we’d hung up, was much better suited to the spontaneous lifestyle than me. She had a knack for avoiding the consequences of things. Or rather, like Steranko, she was at ease with the consequences of things. When we were on holiday with our parents we would go swimming together and afterwards I would always want to get dry fast and change out of my wet trunks; Fran, on the other hand, would be happy to build sandcastles or go for a walk along the cliffs in her wet costume, letting the sun and the wind dry her off. And still, as an adult, she managed to inhabit a world of action and gesture rarely seen outside the cinema, where people walk through streams without taking their boots off, or rush out into the pouring rain wearing only a shirt, or throw plates at their lover across the room in a fit of passionate rage. I’d love to do all those things – but in real life you always have to get your boots dry, or wake up with a cold, or sweep up the broken pieces and fork out for new crockery. It’s the same with fighting: afterwards you have to hang around the hospital for three hours waiting to get your nose X-rayed and straightened, or you’ve got to take your best suit to the dry cleaners to get the blood out and the lapel stitched back on. In the cinema there are only the large consequences of plot; the mess is cleared up off-screen by stage hands; even a real trouncing leaves only a few cosmetic scars.