Super-Cannes

by J. G. Ballard

  Parked beyond the perimeter wire, the aircraft had kept me company during the night. Unable to sleep, I listened to the traffic along the autoroute, Paris-bound tourist buses and lorries from Italy loaded with courgettes and vacuum cleaners and mobile phones. Meanwhile, my damaged Harvard sat in the storage hangar at Elstree, the caked soil embedded in its engine. Flight was an element missing from Eden-Olympia, the certainties of wind-speed, gravity and lift. Absent, too, was the need to explore any interior space, to pioneer the mail routes inside our heads. Only Wilder Penrose had furnished us with an atlas of destinations, a black geography sketched on his prescription pads, populated by menageries of perverse creatures like Simone and Alain Delage.

  The scent of Jane’s dress clung to my hands, and reminded me of our embrace in the Rue Valentin. She would have arrived in Marseilles, and be sitting with Halder in a café near the Old Port, embarrassed by her whore’s frock as she listened to him unfold the secret history of Eden-Olympia. By nine o’clock she would be rousing the British Consul, and soon after be on her way to the airport. While she flew back to London, high above the Rhône valley, Frances Baring would still lie on her bed at Marina Baie des Anges, the zebra dress around her waist and Greenwood’s dinner jacket across her legs. And no doubt the film of her death was being hawked by Dmitri Golyadkin around the villas of Super-Cannes …

  A Mobylette passed me, engine clacking, its slim-shouldered rider in a large safety helmet. Fishing tackle was tied to the pillion seat in a green canvas bag. Searching for the sea, he circled the next roundabout and drove back towards me, then cut the engine and stopped outside the showroom of Nostalgic Aviation. After dismounting, he pushed up his visor, and I recognized Philippe Bourget, brother of the murdered hostage.

  When I stepped from the Range Rover he stared in surprise at the blue uniform jacket I was wearing, as if expecting to be arrested.

  ‘Paul Sinclair? That’s a relief. For a moment, I thought …’

  ‘I’m glad you came.’ I held his hands, surprised by how cold they were. ‘When I phoned last night you weren’t sure.’

  ‘Well … at the last moment there are always doubts. I’ve thought about it for many months.’ He watched me warily, not wholly convinced that I was the man he had met at Port-la-Galère. He pointed to the Range Rover. ‘You’re alone?’

  ‘Yes. No one will know I called you.’

  He took off his helmet and held it under his arm. His schoolmaster’s face was paler than I remembered, and I guessed that he had not slept since my call. Reassured that I was in command of myself, he placed the helmet on the seat of the Mobylette and untied his fishing tackle. He paused to blow on his fingers, taking a little too long to warm them.

  ‘Monsieur Bourget?’

  ‘I need a minute. It’s a large decision, I can’t visualize all the consequences.’ He spoke in a low voice, as if clearing his conscience. ‘Last night I listened carefully to what you said.’

  ‘It’s all true – the murder of my friend, the stockpiling of weapons …’

  ‘I decided it was time to act. We’ve heard many stories – violent attacks in La Bocca, rapes of immigrant women. And everyone is bought off. It’s a kind of weekend fascism, where the stormtroopers clean up afterwards.’

  ‘But the blood-stains remain. You’ve spoken to the chauffeurs’ widows?’

  ‘No. It would upset them. They will testify for you if it’s necessary. The investigation into their husbands’ deaths is now closed. The magistrate said they were hostages and they’re content to believe that. But it’s not right, Mr Sinclair.’

  ‘That’s why I’m going to act.’

  ‘By yourself? Is that wise? I can come with you.’

  ‘No. Three dead hostages is enough.’

  ‘You’re going to Eden-Olympia? How will you get in? There’s good security.’

  ‘It’s Sunday morning. I have the Range Rover and a special pass.’ Trying to reassure this worried schoolmaster, I said: ‘I’ll arrest a few key people and take them to the TV centre. There’s a link to TF1 in Paris.’

  ‘A public confession? Good. That’s the best justice available today.’ He unpacked the long canvas shroud containing his fishing rod. ‘I don’t like afternoon television, but I’ll be watching. Good luck, Mr Sinclair.’

  He shook my hand and managed a smile of encouragement, and then left me before he could reveal his doubts.

  I watched him putter away, his face hidden inside his helmet. Without looking back, he waved for a last time. The Cherokee’s engines were warming up, too loud to let me think, and I stepped into the rear seat of the Range Rover. I unclipped the canvas shroud and looked down at the pump-action shotgun. A pack of large-bore shells, the heavy duck-load with which Hemingway had blown out his brains, was taped to the stock. Jacques Bourget’s weapon would take his revenge.

  Twenty yards away was the showroom of Nostalgic Aviation, with its collection of memorabilia, ejection seats and radial engines, an Aladdin’s Cave of possibilities far more potent and enduring than anything Wilder Penrose could offer. Looking at the forties flying helmets, I thought of the blonde-haired passenger sitting behind the Green pilot who had strafed the Eden II ceremony. She had worn a pair of antique goggles, bought or borrowed from Nostalgic Aviation, a tribute to her beauty and quirky tongue from one of her pilot-admirers. I only wished that I could have flown Frances Baring towards the sun …

  It was 6.45. Even the most sympathetic British Consul would take his time, and it would be noon before Jane could board a scheduled flight to London. The news of what was about to happen at Eden-Olympia would not break until the evening, when whoever was left to run the business park finally decided to call in the police.

  With luck, or without it, I would make my case on the international news, the bodies of the guilty laid out behind me like hunting trophies. Within a few days, if Jane flew back to the south of France, she would see me in custody and later be the first witness for the defence. A host of others would follow: Isabel Duval and the chauffeurs’ widows, Señora Morales and Philippe Bourget, the wives and brothers of Arab labourers who met their deaths in the dark streets of La Bocca, Japanese film technicians flown in from Tokyo, jewellery store managers in Nice, retired prostitutes and waiters from the Villa Grimaldi. To save the embarrassment of the local police and judiciary, and to preserve the dream of Eden II, a deal would be done with my defending counsel, and if necessary a Presidential pardon would be arranged.

  I loaded the shotgun, and then stowed it under the rear seat. By the time I reached Eden-Olympia my targets would still be asleep. I would start with Alain and Simone Delage, drowsy after their late night in the Rue Valentin. Jane had told me that Simone kept a small chromium pistol in her bedside table, so she would be the first. I would kill her while she slept, using Halder’s handgun, and avoid having to stare back into her accusing eyes. Then I would shoot Alain as he sat up, drenched in his wife’s blood, moustache bristling while he reached for his glasses, unable to comprehend the administrative blunder that had led to his own death.

  The Delages slept with their air-conditioning on, and no one would hear the shots through the sealed windows. Wilder Penrose would be next, ordered from his bed at gunpoint and brought down to the bare white room where he had set out his manifesto. He would be amiable, devious and concerned for me to the end, trying to win me with his brotherly charm while unsettling my eyes with the sight of his raw fingernails. I admired him for his hold over me, but I would shoot him down in front of the shattered mirror, one more door to the Alice world now closed for ever. Destivelle and Kalman would follow, and the last would be Dmitri Golyadkin, asleep in his bunk in the security building. I would reach the TV centre in time for a newsflash on the early-afternoon news, but whatever happened I knew that Eden-Olympia would lead the bulletins. This time there would be questions as well as answers.

  I listened to the Cherokee taxi towards the runway, then stop and begin its take-off checks. Its propellers threw the
morning light back into the sun, and the high drone of its engines seemed a warning call to the people of the Riviera, rousing them from their torpor.

  I started the Range Rover, reversed outside the showroom of Nostalgic Aviation and set off through the airport access roads to the coastal highway. The Cherokee moved down the runway, rose confidently into the air and made a wide turn over the sea towards the heights of Super-Cannes. I watched it disappear beyond Eden-Olympia and Sophia-Antipolis, its passengers briefing themselves for their board meetings at Sandoz and Ciba, Roche and Rhône-Poulenc, the pharmaceutical companies who blessed the deepest sleep of the townsfolk and tourists lying behind their shuttered balconies. The beaches beside the coastal road were littered with forgotten film magazines and empty bottles of suntan cream, the debris of a dream washed ashore among the driftwood. I drove on, thinking of Jane and Frances Baring and Wilder Penrose, ready to finish the task that David Greenwood had begun.

  The Enormous Space

  by J.G. Ballard

  I made my decision this morning – soon after eight o’clock, as I stood by the front door, ready to drive to the office. All in all, I’m certain that I had no other choice.Yet, given that this is the most important decision of my life, it seems strange that nothing has changed. I expected the walls to tremble, at the very least a subtle shift in the perspectives of these familiar rooms.

  In a sense, the lack of any response reflects the tranquil air of this London suburb. If I were living, not in Croydon but in the Bronx or West Beirut, my action would be no more than sensible local camouflage. Here it runs counter to every social value, but is invisible to those it most offends.

  Even now, three hours later, all is calm. The leafy avenue is as unruffled as ever. The mail has arrived, and sits unopened on the hall stand. From the dining-room window I watch the British Telecom engineer return to his van after repairing the Johnsons’ telephone, an instrument reduced to a nervous wreck at least twice a month by their teenage daughters. Mrs Johnson, dressed in her turquoise track-suit, closes the gate and glances at my car. A faint vapour rises from the exhaust. The engine is still idling, all these hours after I began to demist the windscreen before finishing my breakfast.

  This small slip may give the game away. Watching the car impatiently, I am tempted to step from the house and switch off the ignition, but I manage to control myself. Whatever happens, I must hold to my decision and all the consequences that flow from it. Fortunately, an Air India 747 ambles across the sky, searching none too strenuously for London Airport. Mrs Johnson, who shares something of its heavy-bodied elegance, gazes up at the droning turbo-fans. She is dreaming of Martinique or Mauritius, while I am dreaming of nothing.

  My decision to dream that dream may have been made this morning, but I assume that its secret logic had begun to run through my life many months ago. Some unknown source of strength sustained me through the unhappy period of my car accident, convalescence and divorce, and the unending problems that faced me at the merchant bank on my return. Standing by the front door after finishing my coffee, I watched the mist clear from the Volvo’s windscreen. The briefcase in my hand reminded me of the day-long meetings of the finance committee at which I would have to argue once again for the budget of my beleaguered research department.

  Then, as I set the burglar alarm, I realised that I could change the course of my life by a single action. To shut out the world, and solve all my difficulties at a stroke, I had the simplest of weapons – my own front door. I needed only to close it, and decide never to leave my house again.

  Of course, this decision involved more than becoming a mere stay-at-home. I remember walking into the kitchen, surprised by this sudden show of strength, and trying to work out the implications of what I had done. Still wearing my business suit and tie, I sat at the kitchen table, and tapped out my declaration of independence on the polished formica.

  By closing the front door I intended to secede not only from the society around me. I was rejecting my friends and colleagues, my accountant, doctor and solicitor, and above all my ex-wife. I was breaking off all practical connections with the outside world. I would never again step through the front door. I would accept the air and the light, and the electric power and water that continued to flow through the meters. But otherwise I would depend on the outside world for nothing. I would eat only whatever food I could find within the house. After that I would rely on time and space to sustain me.

  The Volvo’s engine is still running. It is 3 p.m., seven hours after I first switched on the ignition, but I can’t remember when I last filled the tank. It’s remarkable how few passers-by have noticed the puttering exhaust – only the retired headmaster who patrols the avenue morning and afternoon actually stopped to stare at it. I watched him mutter to himself and shake his walking-stick before shuffling away.

  The murmur of the engine unsettles me, like the persistent ringing of the telephone. I can guess who is calling: Brenda, my secretary; the head of marketing, Dr Barnes; the personnel manager, Mr Austen (I have already been on sick-leave for three weeks); the dental receptionist (a tender root canal reminds me that I had an appointment yesterday); my wife’s solicitor, insisting that the first of the separation payments is due in six months’ time.

  Finally I pick up the telephone cable and pull the jack on this persistent din. Calming myself, I accept that I will admit to the house anyone with a legitimate right to be there – the TV rental man, the gas and electricity meter-readers, even the local police. I cannot expect to be left completely on my own. At the same time, it will be months before my action arouses any real suspicions, and I am confident that by then I will long since have moved into a different realm.

  I feel tremendously buoyant, almost lightheaded. Nothing matters any more. Think only of essentials: the physics of the gyroscope, the flux of photons, the architecture of very large structures.

  Five p.m. Time to take stock and work out the exact resources of this house in which I have lived for seven years.

  First, I carry my unopened mail into the dining room, open a box of matches and start a small, satisfying fire in the grate. To the flames I add the contents of my briefcase, all the bank-notes in my wallet, credit cards, driving licence and cheque-book.

  I inspect the kitchen and pantry shelves. Before leaving, Margaret had stocked the freezer and refrigerator with a fortnight’s supply of eggs, ham and other bachelor staples – a pointed gesture, bearing in mind that she was about to sail off into the blue with her lover (a tedious sales manager). These basic rations fulfil the same role as the keg of fresh water and sack of flour left at the feet of a marooned sailor, a reminder of the world rejecting him.

  I weigh the few cartons of pasta in my hand, the jars of lentils and rice, the tomatoes and courgettes, the rope of garlic. Along with the tinned anchovies and several sachets of smoked salmon in the freezer, there are enough calories and protein to keep me going for at least ten days, three times that period if I ration myself. After that I will have to boil the cardboard boxes into a nutritious broth and rely on the charity of the wind.

  At 6.15 the car’s engine falters and stops.

  In every way I am marooned, but a reductive Crusoe paring away exactly those elements of bourgeois life which the original Robinson so dutifully reconstituted. Crusoe wished to bring the Croydons of his own day to life again on his island. I want to expel them, and find in their place a far richer realm formed from the elements of light, time and space.

  The first week has ended peacefully. All is well, and I have stabilised my regime most pleasantly. To my surprise, it has been remarkably easy to reject the world. Few people have bothered me. The postman has delivered several parcels, which I carry straight to the dining room fireplace. On the third day my secretary, Brenda, called at the front door. I smiled winningly, reassured her that I was merely taking an extended sabbatical. She looked at me in her sweet but shrewd way – she had been strongly supportive during both my divorce and the crisis at t
he office – and then left with a promise to keep in touch. A succession of letters has arrived from Dr Barnes, but I warm my hands over them at the fireplace. The dining-room grate has become an efficient incinerator in which I have erased my entire past – passport; birth, degree and share certificates; uncashed traveller’s cheques and 2000 French Francs left from our last unhappy holiday in Nice; letters from my broker and orthopaedic surgeon. Documents of a dead past, they come to life briefly in the flame, and then write themselves into the dust.

  Eliminating this detritus has kept me busy. I have pulled down the heavy curtains that hung beside the windows. Light has flooded into the rooms, turning every wall and ceiling into a vivid tabula rasa. Margaret had taken with her most of the ornaments and knickknacks, and the rest I have heaved into a cupboard. Suffused with light, the house can breathe. Upstairs the windows are open to the sky. The rooms seem larger and less confined, as if they too have found freedom. I sleep well, and when I wake in the morning I almost feel myself on some Swiss mountain-top, with half the sky below me.

  Without doubt, I am very much better. I have put away the past, a zone that I regret ever entering. I enjoy the special case that comes from no longer depending on anyone else, however well-intentioned.

  Above all, I am no longer dependent on myself. I feel no obligation to that person who fed and groomed me, who provided me with expensive clothes, who drove me about in his motor-car, who furnished my mind with intelligent books and exposed me to interesting films and art exhibitions. Wanting none of these, I owe that person, myself, no debts. I am free at last to think only of the essential elements of existence – the visual continuum around me, and the play of air and light. The house begins to resemble an advanced mathematical surface, a three-dimensional chessboard. The pieces have yet to be placed, but I feel them forming in my mind.