Free The Colour of Memory by Geoff Dyer

snaked out from the room next door. Laughing
loudly Belinda came through the door, followed by Carlton who was wearing the same dark suit he’d had on earlier. Picking up another can of warm beer I went over and kissed Belinda. As I
shook hands with Carlton someone kicked me lightly on the back of the leg.
    ‘Go on: give him a big kiss,’ Mary said, winking and then walking off again.
    Foomie came over and kissed Belinda and Carlton. Freddie came back, holding a plateful of chicken something.
    ‘Look at Steranko,’ Belinda said. ‘In a suit he always looks like he’s just got out of prison or the army.’
    ‘What bollocks,’ said Carlton. ‘He looks like he’s just got out of art school.’
    ‘I tell you, I’d hate to live in a time when men didn’t wear suits,’ said Freddie who wasn’t actually wearing one.
    ‘I’d hate to live in a time when women didn’t wear dresses,’ said Foomie.
    ‘Me too,’ said Belinda. ‘But I’d also hate to live in a time when you had to wear one.’
    ‘Suits and dresses,’ said Freddie. ‘When I’m wearing a suit I always wish I was wearing a shoulder-holster too.’
    ‘I even like the words connected with suits,’ I said. ‘Lapel, vent, turn-up . . .’
    ‘You feel good in a suit,’ Carlton said.
    ‘Not as good as you feel in a dress on a boiling hot day,’ said Foomie.
    ‘I don’t think I’ve ever had a suit that’s quite fitted properly,’ I said.
    ‘A suit shouldn’t fit properly,’ said Freddie, a sudden gleam of illumination in his eyes. ‘If it fits properly it doesn’t fit properly.’
    ‘What shit you talk Freddie.’
    ‘Let’s face it though,’ said Carlton, buttoning up his jacket for emphasis. ‘Suits always look better on black people.’
    ‘What about Lee Marvin in “Point Blank”? That’s a great suit.’
    ‘Not as good as Sidney Poitier’s in “In the Heat of the Night”.’
    I went to the bathroom for a piss, leafing through a couple of pamphlets on cystitis and thrush while I was at it. When I came back Freddie was giving everyone a lecture about Hemingway and the
lost generation, leaning against a wall as though he needed to.
    ‘It’s meaningless. Every generation wants to think it’s lost. Take us. Who could have been more lost than us? We’re so lost we’re virtually extinct,’ he said
and everyone laughed. ‘As far as I can see there are only two things to be glad about. We were just old enough and just young enough to realise the full joy of short hair. And we were just
about on cue for the jazz revival. Obviously it would have been better to have been in on it first time round but that’s the way things happen these days. History is like the Cup Final: if
you miss it in the afternoon you can always catch the highlights later on in the evening when it’s shown again. As for politics, well, you might as well forget it. I mean I wasn’t even
able to vote in the last election . . .’
    ‘Nor me,’ said Foomie. ‘I wasn’t registered in time.’
    ‘Nor me,’ said Steranko.
    ‘Me neither,’ I said.
    ‘What about you Lin?’ She nodded and so did Carlton.
    ‘Look at that. It’s incredible. Four people out of six – two people out of three – don’t even have the vote! Our being on the left means nothing. It means we hang
around with certain kinds of people – people like us – but beyond that it means nothing. All it does is underwrite our friendships and provide a kind of shared language, a foundation of
broadly shared values. None of us really has anything to do with politics. We sneer at the way the news is presented on TV but nothing we feel has any effect on anyone else. It’s not our
fault. That’s just how things have turned out.’
    I didn’t know whether I agreed with this or not and Freddie probably didn’t either.
    ‘People of our generation aren’t able to die for good causes any longer. We had all that done for us in the sixties when we were still kids,’ said