Super-Cannes

by J. G. Ballard

  ‘I’ll try to. No murders?’

  ‘None. Who put the idea into your head? Be careful with Zander. He’s an unhappy man, driven by powerful resentments. Some of his personal habits are disgusting. He may well be the only natural psychopath in Eden-Olympia.’

  ‘And our very own police chief?’

  ‘Sadly, there’s a long tradition of the two roles coinciding. Senior policemen are either philosophers or madmen …’

  The suites on the fourth floor were dark and unoccupied. Following Penrose’s directions, I walked the long corridor, past the gilt-framed mirrors whose surfaces had been dulled by time. In the entrance to the west wing I noticed that a pair of carved oak doors stood ajar. I stepped through them, switched on a table lamp and found myself in a well-stocked gunroom. The barred cabinets were filled with shotguns and sporting weapons. Six Nato-issue automatic rifles occupied one cabinet, chained together through their trigger guards.

  A notice-board leaned against an easel, listing the fixtures of the Eden-Olympia gun club. The names of the members, all senior executives at the business park, formed a set of rival leagues that I assumed were run independently of Wilder Penrose. Pinned to the board were photographs of well-set men in their fifties, clipped from the financial pages of a local Arab-language newspaper.

  In a corner, behind one of the double doors, was a large department-store dumpbin, filled with what I first thought were gunnery-range targets in the form of animal cutouts. I held several of them to the light, and then recognized stuffed-toy versions of the dormouse, the Hatter and little Alice herself.

  I laid the Alice back in the bin, and watched the eyelids swivel and close over the glassy stare, almost the first untroubled sleep I had seen in Eden-Olympia.

  To the rear of the west wing, far from the terrace party and the fireworks, a waiter was moving a drinks trolley into the corridor. I stopped beside him, and scanned the debris of glasses and crushed napkins. Sharing a tumbler with a champagne cork was an empty syrette.

  ‘Madame Delage?’ I asked. ‘Doctor Sinclair?’

  ‘Monsieur? They sleep now.’

  ‘Good. Like Alice …’ I pressed a few coins into his hand, stepped past him into the suite and closed the door. A single standard lamp lit the empty sitting room, its glow warming the deep pile of a fur stole lying across an armchair.

  A coarse masculine odour hung in the air, a blend of sweat and genital steroids, the unmistakable spoor of a man in rut. A bottle of Laphroaig stood on the mantelpiece, and I guessed that a passionate suitor had fortified himself for the rigours of the bed. Pools of malt whisky lay around the legs of a carriage clock, and stained a Palais des Festivals film programme.

  The sound of running water came from the bathroom. I listened with my hand on the doorknob, uneager to catch Simone Delage in the act of clipping her toenails.

  ‘Jane …?’

  She was sitting on the tiled floor between the bath and the bidet, knees drawn against her chest, her left hand trailing in the flow of water from the bath tap. She wore a man’s black silk dressing gown that lay like a shadow across the white tiles. Her face was composed, but the blush of a hard slap still burned on one cheek. Propped in the bidet was the patent-leather handbag that served as her off-duty medical valise. Her hand covered the syringe lying on the porcelain rim.

  ‘Paul?’ She greeted me with a faint tremor of the lips. She raised her chin, focusing on my eyes and mouth, and then took my hands, as if she needed to assemble in stages a recognizable image of her husband. She seemed almost asleep, her voice slurred. ‘Glad you came, Paul. I wasn’t sure …’

  ‘I had to come. I guessed you’d be here.’

  ‘So many parties in Cannes tonight. We saw the Eden-Olympia film.’

  ‘Any good?’

  ‘Depressing. Everyone’s so happy in Cannes and they make these depressing films. Did you see any?’

  ‘One or two. Not the kind in competition.’

  ‘Depressing?’

  ‘Very.’ I sat on the edge of the bath and turned off the tap. I pointed to the inner door. ‘Is …?’

  ‘Simone? She’s sleeping in the bedroom.’ Jane tightened the dressing gown, her childlike shoulders swamped by the black silk. ‘You look smart, Paul. I like the dinner jacket.’

  ‘It was David’s. It doesn’t really fit.’

  She nodded at this, and touched my sleeve. ‘It suits you. Wear it all the time.’

  ‘Frances Baring loaned it to me. God knows why she kept it.’

  ‘So she won’t forget David. He’s everywhere still, isn’t he?’ She straightened her hair in the wall-mirror. ‘Too many mirrors in this house. Paul, tell me how you escape inside them.’

  ‘You don’t need to escape. Just take things easier. Wilder agrees you work too hard.’

  ‘Wilder agrees with you about everything. That way you do what he wants.’ She smiled with the first affection I had seen since our decision to stay. ‘Dear Paul. You crash-landed your plane here and can’t climb out …’

  I listened to the boom of rock music, a dull pulse like a weeklong headache. An odd smell caught my nostrils.

  ‘Jane … was Zander here?’

  ‘Zander?’ She closed her eyes. ‘Why ask?’

  ‘I saw him on the terrace. The cologne he was using – I could smell it when I came in.’

  ‘Nasty, isn’t it? Reminds him of Beirut.’ She felt the bruise on her cheek. ‘It doesn’t matter, Paul. High up here in Super-Cannes, nothing matters.’

  I held her hand, chilled by the cold tap water, and noticed the torn skin on her wrist, blood clotting between the tendons. ‘Did Zander do this?’

  ‘I fell over. Zander was very drunk. He thinks he has serious problems at Eden-Olympia.’

  ‘They want him out. He knows where the bodies are buried, and they’ve seen him sharpening his spade. What was he doing here?’

  ‘Alain set up one of his little games. He didn’t tell me Zander was going to play.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They pushed him into the bedroom and locked the door.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘In the bed.’ Jane shrugged inside the dressing gown. ‘He was too drunk.’

  I sat on the floor and touched her bruised cheek. ‘Jane, we should leave.’

  ‘Now?’ She gripped her bag, as if holding tight to a lifebelt. ‘Can’t leave, Paul. Taken my medicine.’

  ‘All this diamorphine. You’ll kill yourself.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Jane squeezed my hand, the doctor reassuring an anxious relative. ‘I know how much to take. That’s what medical school is really for. All the doctors at the clinic need help to relax …’

  ‘Let’s pack tonight and set off for London. We can be in Lyons by morning. Jane, we’ve spent too long in Eden-Olympia.’

  ‘I’ll stay.’ She spoke in a sleepy but firm voice. ‘I’m really happy here. Aren’t you? Talk to Wilder.’

  ‘I have. He’s downstairs, watching his pornographic films.’

  ‘Lucky man. I have to cope with too much Belgian angst. Alain and Simone are quite prudish, in their own way.’

  ‘They’re degrading you.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I became a hippie, to see if I could cope with myself. Then all those caftans and dirty feet were a bit of a bore, so I turned into a doctor.’

  ‘You kept the dirty feet.’

  ‘And you still fell in love with me. I didn’t wash for weeks. Now I have clean feet and I’m turning into a slut again. But I do my job and it doesn’t matter.’ Tired of me, she leaned her cheek against the tiled wall. ‘Go, Paul. Just go … fly back to London.’

  33

  The Coast Road

  FIREWORKS LEAPT INTO the night sky, ruby and turquoise umbrellas that formed huge cupolas over Super-Cannes, canopies fit for a caliph’s throne. Like a hashish dream, they faded and rejoined the dark. Along the Croisette the flicker of flashbulbs marked the end of another premiere, and headlights glowed thro
ugh the palm fronds as a motorcade left the Palais des Festivals. Forgotten above the crowds, the samurai on the roof of the Noga Hilton gestured with his sword at the beach restaurants, where the studio parties were in full swing.

  I took a flute of champagne from a cruising waiter, and thought of Jane, asleep against the bidet in the fourth-floor suite. Despite my knee, I was strong enough to carry her to a taxi, pack her into the Jaguar and set off northwards with our passports. But once again I had hesitated, just as I had postponed my decision to report Wilder Penrose to the police. In part I resented Jane for no longer needing me. I knew that she would leave me at the first service station on the Paris autoroute and hitch a lift to Cannes without a backward glance. If anyone needed me now, it was Penrose and his faltering dream of social madness, a larger version of that plane crash from whose wreckage, as Jane had said, I had yet to free myself.

  The band had turned up its amplifiers, filling the air with immense blocks of reverberating sound. The social stratification of the guests had at last collapsed. In a new-style peasants’ revolt, the lawyers, civil servants and police officials had climbed the steps to the middle terrace, overwhelming the actors and film agents. As if expecting the worst, the bankers and producers on the upper terrace stood with their backs to the Villa Grimaldi, an ancien régime faced with the revolution it most feared, a rebellion of its indentured professional castes.

  Frances Baring and Zander were alone on the lower terrace, dancing together by the swimming pool. Zander held his jacket like a matador’s cape, urging Frances to lunge at him. Playfully, she let him chase her around the pool, watched by Halder, who sat on the diving board, his dark figure almost invisible against the night.

  Seeing me, Frances waved her purse. She whispered something to Zander, ducked beneath his groping hands and ran from the pool. She embraced me, reeking of Zander’s cologne.

  ‘Paul … don’t ever try dancing with a secret policeman. I’m probably pregnant. Do you mind if we go?’

  ‘We’ll leave now.’ I was glad to see her, but turned to face Zander, who was searching for the sleeves of his dinner jacket. ‘Just give me a moment.’

  ‘What is it? Paul?’

  ‘I need a word with Zander.’ I flexed my shoulders. ‘He’s about to be the first policeman I’ve ever punched.’

  ‘Why?’ Frances held my arm. ‘I was joking. You sound like a Victorian father. He scarcely touched me.’

  ‘He touched Jane.’ I waited while Zander strolled towards us, smiling with all his corrupt charm, as if our real evening together was about to begin. ‘Frances, wait here … it won’t take long.’

  ‘Paul!’ She shouted above the music, shaking her head when Halder caught up with the security chief. ‘I’m too tired to watch you three brawling.’

  ‘Right …’ I saw Halder raise a slim hand in warning. I could deal with Zander, but Halder would be too fast for me. ‘We’ll go – I’ll talk to Zander another time …’

  ‘Is Jane all right?’ Frances steered me down the path towards the car park. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Nothing. Zander came on a little too heavily.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Frances handed her ticket to the valet-parkers, and then gripped my arms. ‘Forget about Zander. He doesn’t matter. None of it matters.’

  ‘That’s what Jane said. I almost believe it …’

  We moved down the drive towards the gates, queueing behind the Saudi ambassador’s Cadillac. Trying not to think of Zander, I realized that once again I had yielded to the greater status quo that was Eden-Olympia. The business park set its own rules, and had effectively switched off our emotions. Violence and aggression were only allowed within the therapeutic regime administered by Wilder Penrose, like rationed doses of a rare and dangerous medicine. Yet a brawl around the swimming pool of the Villa Grimaldi, in full view of the assembled judges and police chiefs, with Halder lightly hysterical and Zander wallowing in the deep end, would have been a breakthrough of almost surrealist proportions, a genuine lunge for freedom. I was tempted to tell Frances to turn back.

  ‘Paul …’ She tapped my injured knee, waking me from my reverie. ‘Look up there …’

  She pointed across the landscaped lawns to the conservatory entrance of the Villa Grimaldi, where we had parked after the Cardin Foundation robbery. Two immaculate black Mercedes straddled the flowerbeds, as if delivered straight from a showroom. Behind them was a commercial ambulance with curtained windows, its red-cross light switched off, the driver and his paramedic asleep in the front seat.

  Frances fumbled with the headlight switch, trying to read the ambulance’s numberplate.

  ‘Toulon …’ She seemed thrown by this. ‘I told you they’d leased a lot of cars. Why bring an ambulance from Toulon?’

  ‘Watch the Cadillac …’ I held the wheel, avoiding the Saudi bumper. ‘The ambulance is here for the party. Those elderly bankers have to be kept alive – as long as there’s a pulse, the money flows.’

  Frances stalled the engine, and clumsily restarted it. ‘There’s something on tonight, a ratissage …’

  ‘Penrose would have told me. He’s keen that I’m involved.’

  ‘Only in the fun ones, the rugger club japes. This one is serious. Was Penrose here? He doesn’t usually go to parties.’

  ‘Frances, relax …’ I moved her edgy hand from the gear lever, trying to calm her. ‘He was upstairs, watching his videos. Nasty stuff – he’s starting to prescribe some really violent therapy.’

  ‘Then do something about it. At least six senior judges were at the party.’

  ‘And several police commissaires. I appear in a lot of the video footage – I don’t want to spend the next ten years in a Marseilles jail. Besides, they turn a blind eye. They won’t admit it, but the French upper class are deeply racist.’

  We left the gates of the Villa Grimaldi and set off along the high corniche. Despite her edginess, Frances drove at a leisurely pace, reluctant to change up from second gear. I lay back, and let the last traces of Zander’s cologne blow away on the night air.

  When we reached the Vallauris road Frances stopped at the green traffic lights. Without moving her head, she pointed to the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Frances? Let’s go.’

  ‘There’s a car following us.’

  I gazed back at the darkened road, briefly lit by a salvo of fireworks. A car with dipped headlights approached us, drifting from the verge to the centre line as if the driver suffered from defective night vision.

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘It’s all right. He’s looking for someone’s villa.’

  ‘No. He’s after us. The car has Eden-Olympia plates.’

  The car, a grey Audi, was fifty yards behind us when the traffic lights turned to red. Frances let out the clutch and accelerated across the empty intersection, turning right towards Golfe-Juan. The Audi driver cruised through the red lights, and at the last moment swung round to follow us, his nearside wheel clipping the kerb.

  I pointed to the first side road. ‘Take a left here. He’ll go by.’

  We turned into an avenue of small houses with well-stocked gardens. The reflector discs of parked cars glowed in our headlights. The Audi had stopped, as if the driver was unsure where we had gone. Then he pulled off the Vallauris road and resumed his unhurried pursuit.

  ‘Right,’ I told Frances. ‘He’s tailing us. It’s probably one of Halder’s chums, keeping a routine watch over you. He’s a real amateur – we’ll soon lose him.’

  ‘Him? It might be a woman.’

  ‘Jane? She was too stoned to switch off the bath taps. Anyway, she doesn’t care about us.’

  Leaning against the door, I watched the Audi over my headrest. It swayed across the steep camber and its wing mirror struck a parked van. The driver caught himself and straightened out, but soon drifted from left to right across the road.

  Below us, at the end of the avenue, was the RN7, the brightly lit coastal highway from Cannes to Golfe-Juan. We
drove through the underpass, then paused at the junction. In the amber glare of the sodium lights I watched our pursuer stop thirty yards behind us. A hand emerged from the driver’s window and tried to reset the broken wing mirror on its mount.

  ‘Frances, you look exhausted …’ Concerned for her, I tried to take the controls. ‘Pull in here – I’ll get out and talk to him.’

  But Frances pressed on, joining the coast road towards Juan-les-Pins and Antibes. She gripped the wheel and glanced over her shoulder, as if fleeing from the night.

  ‘Frances … slow down.’

  ‘Not now, Paul. Our friend isn’t alone.’

  A few yards behind the stationary Audi were two large Mercedes limousines, similar models to those we had seen at the Villa Grimaldi. As the Audi followed us, they pulled out onto the RN7, moving nose to tail with their headlights dimmed. The Audi driver seemed unaware of his black escort, and was still grappling with the broken wing mount.

  We passed the old Ali Khan house beyond the railway tracks, a crumbling deco ghost above the beach. A slip road crossed the railway line and led to the harbour and waterfront bars of Golfe-Juan. Frances accelerated and hurled the little BMW through the dark air, wheels almost losing their grip on the unlit macadam. At the last moment she braked as we reached the railway bridge. The Audi was now a hundred yards behind us, the driver irritated by the Mercedes trying to crowd him off the slip road. I saw a fist raised through the window, and his headlights flared when the tank-like limousine jolted his bumper.

  ‘Brake now! Harder!’ I leaned across Frances and switched off the lights. I forced the wheel from her hands and slewed the BMW across the beach road. We hurtled into the car park of Tétou’s and came to a neck-jarring halt, startling the young attendant who was dozing in an open-topped Bentley.

  The Audi sped past, its burly driver hunched over his wheel, followed by the two Mercedes, headlights on full beam, horns blaring as their drivers jockeyed like chariot-racers.

  Too breathless to speak, Frances waved away the puzzled attendant. She lay back in the darkness, and stared at the diners in the beach restaurant across the road. She seemed stunned but relieved, as if she had completed an exhilarating fairground ride and was ready to rejoin the strolling crowd.