Cocaine Nights

by J. G. Ballard

  Sanger led me into a lounge overlooking a small, walled garden almost entirely filled by a swimming pool. The long room was furnished with two armchairs and a low table. Books had once lined the walls, but now filled a collection of cardboard cartons. The air seemed motionless, as if the windows and doors to the garden were never opened.

  'I can see you're moving,' I commented. 'In or out?'

  'Out. I've found that this house has certain drawbacks, as well as memories of a rather painful kind. Now, sit down and try to calm yourself Sanger steered me from the garden door, whose handle I was trying to turn, concerned for my overexcited state. His sensitive hands raised my chin, and I could smell the faint perfume of grave lilies on his fingertips. He touched the fading bruises on my neck, and then sat in the leather chair facing me, as if ready to begin my analysis. 'Paula Hamilton told me about the attack in your brother's apartment. From what she said, the intruder decided not to kill you. Have you any idea why? You seem to have been completely at his mercy.'

  'I was. I think he wanted to see how I'd react. It was a kind of initiation. Almost an invitation to…'

  'The underworld? The real Estrella de Mar?' Sanger frowned at me, disapproving of my lack of concern for myself. 'You've unsettled a great many people since you arrived, understandably so. All these questions…'

  'They had to be asked.' Sanger's defensive manner irritated me. 'Five people died in the Hollinger fire.'

  'An horrific crime, if it was deliberate.' Sanger leaned forward, trying to smile away my brief show of testiness. 'These questions you've asked-they may not be the sort of questions that have answers in Estrella de Mar. Or not the answers you'll want to hear.'

  I stood up and paced along the empty bookshelves. 'There's not much chance of that. I've had no real answers at all. I'd like to think there was some kind of conspiracy going on, but there may not have been. All the same, I must free Frank from prison.'

  'Of course. His confession is so out of character. Inevitably, as the older brother you hold yourself responsible. Do sit down, and I'll bring you some mineral water.'

  He excused himself, smoothing his silver hair in a mirror as he set off for the kitchen. I tried to visualize him living in this airless villa with the sedated Bibi Jansen, a curious menage even by the standards of Estrella de Mar. There was something almost feminine about Sanger, a constant attentiveness that might have reassured the dazed drug-addict and persuaded her to invite him into her bed. I imagined him making love with all the unobtrusiveness of a ghost.

  At the same time there was an evasive strain running through him that roused my suspicions. Sanger, too, had a motive for setting fire to the Hollinger house-the foetus in Bibi's womb. The discovery that he had made one of his patients pregnant would have led to him being struck from the medical register.

  Yet he had clearly cared for the young woman, and had mourned her in his ambiguous way, braving the hostile crowd at the funeral and then flushing with embarrassment when I caught him alone by the headstone. Vanity and self-reproach shared the same suede glove, and despite myself I wondered if he had selected the exact shade of silver marble to match his suit and hair.

  I searched for a telephone, eager to call a taxi. The excitements of chasing Crawford around Estrella de Mar, the discovery of the keys, and my duel with the hang-glider had left me ready for even more action. I walked to the garden windows and peered down at the drained pool. Someone had thrown a can of yellow paint over the wall, and a canary sunburst leaked towards the drainage vent.

  'Another abstract painting,' I remarked to Sanger when he returned with the mineral water. 'I can understand why you're moving.'

  'There's a time to stay and a time to leave.' He shrugged, resigned to his own rationalizations. 'I own some property in the Costasol development along the coast, a few bungalows I let out in the summer. I've decided to take one of them for myself.'

  'The Residencia Costasol? It's very quiet…'

  'Of course, practically somnambulistic. But that's what I'm looking for. The security arrangements are more advanced than anywhere else on the coast.' Sanger opened a window and listened to the evening sounds of Estrella de Mar, like an exiled political leader resigned to his heavily-guarded villa and the company of his books. 'I won't say I've been driven out, but I'm looking forward to a quieter life.'

  'Will you practise there? Or are the people of the pueblos beyond psychiatric help?'

  'That's a little unfair.' Sanger waited for me to return to the armchair. 'No one would ever dare to retire if dozing in the sun was forbidden.'

  I sipped the tepid water, thinking of Frank's bracing malts. 'Strictly speaking, Doctor, few of the people in the Residencia Costasol are retired. They're mostly in their forties and fifties.'

  'Everything comes sooner these days. The future rushes towards us like a tennis player charging the net. People in the new professions peak in their late thirties. As it happens, I've a fair number of Costasol patients. It makes sense to move now that my practice here has dried up.'

  'So the residents of Estrella de Mar are made of sturdier stuff? Few conflicts or psychic stresses?'

  'Very few. They're too busy with their theatre clubs and choral societies. One needs a great deal of idle time to feel really sorry for oneself. There's something special in the air here – and I'm not thinking of your hang-glider.'

  'But you do mean Bobby Crawford?'

  Sanger stared at the rim of his glass, as if searching for his reflection in the crazed surface. 'Crawford, yes. He's a remarkable man, as you've seen. He has certain dangerous qualities, of which he isn't really aware. He excites people, and stirs them in ways they don't understand. But on the whole he's a force for good. He's put so much energy into Estrella de Mar, though not everyone can stand the pace. Some have to retreat to the sidelines.'

  'Someone like Bibi Jansen?'

  Sanger turned to stare at the patio, where a deckchair waited by the pool. Here, I guessed, the young Swede had relaxed in the sun under her psychiatrist's melancholy and wistful gaze. At the mention of her name he seemed to slip into a shallow reverie of happier times.

  'Bibi… I was very fond of her. Before she was taken in by the Hollingers she would often ring my door-bell and ask if she could stay with me. I'd treated her for one addiction after another and always let her in. It was a chance to wean her from everything that was crippling her mind. She knew the beach bars were too much for her to take. Crawford and his friends were testing her to destruction, as if she were a Piaf or Billie Holiday with a huge talent to sustain her. In fact she was desperately vulnerable.'

  'Everyone seems to have liked her – I saw that at the funeral.'

  'The funeral?' Sanger re-focused his eyes, returning himself to the present. 'Not one of Andersson's better days. A sweet boy, the last of the hippies who found that he was a talented mechanic. She reminded him of his teenage years, backpacking in Nepal. He wanted Bibi to remain a child, living on the beach like a gypsy.'

  'He felt she belonged there. Perhaps the world needs a few people ready to burn themselves out. By the way, Andersson thinks you were the father of her child.'

  Sanger smoothed his silver hair with the back of his hand. 'So does everyone else at Estrella de Mar. I tried to protect her, but we were never lovers. Sadly, I don't think I ever touched her.'

  'They say you sleep with your patients.'

  'But, Mr Prentice…' Sanger seemed surprised by my naivete. 'My patients are my friends. I came here six years ago when my wife died. The women I met asked me for help-they were drinking too much, addicted to sleeping pills but never getting any real sleep. Some of them had travelled to the far side of boredom. I went after them and brought them back, and tried to give their lives some meaning. For one or two, that meant a personal involvement. With others – Bibi, and the Hollingers' niece – I was no more than a guide and counsellor.'

  'Anne Hollinger?' I grimaced at the memory of the gutted bedroom. 'You didn't bring her back – she was a he
roin addict.'

  'Absolutely not.' Sanger spoke sharply, as if correcting an incompetent junior. 'She was completely clear. One of the Clinic's few successes, I can assure you.'

  'Doctor, she was shooting up at the time of the fire. They found her in the bathroom with a needle in her arm.'

  Sanger raised his pale hands to silence me. 'Mr Prentice, you rush to judgement. Anne Hollinger was a diabetic. What she injected into herself was not heroin, but insulin. Her death was tragedy enough without further stigmatizing her 'I'm sorry. For some reason I took it for granted. Paula Hamilton and I visited the house with Cabrera. She assumed that Anne had relapsed.'

  'Dr Hamilton no longer treated her. There was a coldness between the two women, which I can't explain. Anne's diabetes was diagnosed in London six months ago.' Sanger stared bleakly at the sun setting above the miniature garden, with its drained pool like a sunken altar. 'After all she endured, she had to die with Bibi in that senseless fire. It's still hard to believe that it ever happened.'

  'And even harder to believe that Frank was behind it?'

  'Impossible.' Sanger spoke in measured tones, watching me for my response. 'Frank is the last person in Estrella de Mar who could have started that fire. He loved ambiguity, and sentences that end in question marks. The fire was too definite an act, it stops all further discussion of anything. I knew Frank well – we played bridge together at the Club Nautico in the early days. Tell me, did Frank steal as a child?'

  I hesitated, but Sanger had slipped the question in so casually that I almost warmed to him. 'Our mother died when we were young. It left us… a broken family. Frank was desperately unsettled.'

  'He did steal?'

  'It brought us together. I'd cover up and try to take the blame. Not that it mattered – our father rarely punished us.'

  'And you never stole yourself?'

  'No. I think Frank was doing that for me.'

  'And you envied him?'

  'I still do. It gave him a kind of freedom I didn't have.'

  'And now you're again assuming your child role, rescuing Frank from another of his scrapes?'

  'I knew that from the start. The curious thing is that part of me suspects he may have started the Hollinger fire.'

  'Of course, you envy him his "crime". No wonder you find Bobby Crawford so intriguing.'

  'That's true-there's something mesmerizing about all that promiscuous energy. Crawford charms people, always sailing so close to the rocks. He graces their Uves with the possibilities of being genuinely sinful and immoral. At the same time, why do they put up with him?' Too restless to sit in the chair, I stood up and paced among the cartons of books, while Sanger listened to me, constructing a series of steeples with his slender fingers. 'I followed him this afternoon – he could have been arrested a dozen times. He's a genuinely disruptive presence, running a network of drug-dealers, car thieves and prostitutes. He's likeable and enthusiastic, but why don't people send him packing? Estrella de Mar would be a paradise without him.'

  Sanger collapsed his steeple, vigorously shaking his head. 'I think not. In fact, Estrella de Mar is probably a paradise because of Bobby Crawford.'

  'The theatre clubs, galleries, choral societies? Crawford has nothing to do with them at all.'

  'He has everything to do with them. Before Crawford arrived Estrella de Mar was just another resort on the Costa del Sol. People drifted about in a haze of vodka and Valium – I had a great many patients then, I may say. I remember the silent tennis courts at the club, a single member lying by the pool. The water's surface wasn't broken from one day to the next. You could see the dust lying on it.'

  'And how did Crawford bring everything to life? He's a tennis player 'But it wasn't his cross-court backhand that revived Estrella de Mar. He made use of other talents.' Sanger stood up and walked to the window, listening to a nearby security alarm that shrilled through the evening air. 'In a sense Crawford may be the saviour of the entire Costa del Sol, and even wider world beyond that. You've been to Gibraltar? One of the last proud outposts of small-scale greed, openly dedicated to corruption. No wonder the Brussels bureaucrats are trying to close it down. Our governments are preparing for a future without work, and that includes the petty criminals. Leisure societies lie ahead of us, like those you see on this coast. People will still work – or, rather, some people will work, but only for a decade of their lives. They will retire in their late thirties, with fifty years of idleness in front of them.'

  'A billion balconies facing the sun. Still, it means a final goodbye to wars and ideologies.'

  'But how do you energize people, give them some sense of community? A world lying on its back is vulnerable to any cunning predator. Politics are a pastime for a professional caste and fail to excite the rest of us. Religious belief demands a vast effort of imaginative and emotional commitment, difficult to muster if you're still groggy from last night's sleeping pill. Only one thing is left which can rouse people, threaten them directly and force them to act together.'

  'Crime?'

  'Crime, and transgressive behaviour – by which I mean all activities that aren't necessarily illegal, but provoke us and tap our need for strong emotion, quicken the nervous system and jump the synapses deadened by leisure and inaction.' Sanger gestured at the evening sky like a planetarium lecturer pointing to the birth of a star. 'Look around you – the people of Estrella de Mar have already welcomed this.'

  'And Bobby Crawford is the new Messiah?' I drank the last of Sanger's water, trying to wash the flatness out of my mouth. 'How did a small-time tennis pro discover this new truth?'

  'He didn't. He tripped across it in despair. I remember how he paced those empty courts, playing endless games with his serving machine. One afternoon he left the club in disgust and spent a few hours stealing cars and shoplifting. Perhaps it was coincidence, but the very next morning two tennis lessons were booked.'

  'Does one follow the other? I don't believe it. If someone burgles my house, shoots the dog and rapes the maid my reaction isn't to open an art gallery.'

  'Not your first reaction, perhaps. But later, as you question events and the world around you… the arts and criminality have always flourished side by side.'

  I followed him to the door and waited while he telephoned for a taxi. As he spoke he watched himself in the mirror, touching his eyebrows and adjusting his hair like an actor in his dressing room. Was he telling me that Bobby Crawford had started the fire at the Hollinger house, and had in some way forced Frank to be his scapegoat?

  As we stood on the steps, the graffiti glowing beside us under the security lights, I said: 'One thing is missing in your scheme of things-a sense of guilt. You'd expect people here to be crippled by remorse.'

  'But there is no remorse in Estrella de Mar. We've had to forgo that luxury, Mr Prentice. Here transgressive behaviour is for the public good. All feelings of guilt, however old and deep-rooted, are assuaged. Frank discovered that. And you may, too.'

  'I hope I do. One last question – who killed the Hollingers? Bobby Crawford? He has a taste for fire.'

  Sanger's nose was lifted to the night air. He seemed sensitive to every sound, to every squeal of brakes and blare of music. 'I doubt it. That fire was too destructive. Besides, he was very fond of Bibi and Anne Hollinger.'

  'He disliked the older couple.'

  'Even so.' Sanger steered me across the gravel as the taxi's headlights swept the drive. 'You won't find who was responsible by looking for motives. In Estrella de Mar, like everywhere in the future, crimes have no motives. What you should look for is someone with no apparent motive for killing the Hollingers.'

  17 A Change of Heart

  Frank, unpredictable to the end, had decided to see me. Senor Danvila brought the good news to the Club Nautico, certain that a breakthrough of importance had taken place. He was waiting for me in the lobby as I returned from the swimming pool and seemed unsurprised when I failed to recognize him against the background of English sporting prints.r />
  'Mr Prentice…? Is there a problem?'

  'No. Senor Danvila?' Taking off my sunglasses, I identified the harassed figure with his perpetually shuffled briefcases. 'Can I help you?'

  'It's an urgent matter, concerning your brother. I heard this morning that he will now receive you.'

  'Good…'

  'Mr Prentice?' The lawyer followed me to the elevator and placed his hand over the call button. 'Can you understand me? You may visit your brother. He's agreed to see you.'

  'That's… wonderful. Do you know why he's changed his mind?'

  'It doesn't matter. It's important that you meet him. He may have something to tell you. Perhaps some new evidence about the case.'

  'Of course. It's excellent news. He's probably had time to think everything over.'

  'Exactly.' For all his air of a dogged but tired schoolmaster, Danvila was watching me with unexpected shrewdness. 'Mr Prentice, when you see your brother give him time to speak for himself. The visiting hour is four-thirty this afternoon. He asked you to bring Dr Hamilton.'

  'That's even better. I'll call her at the Clinic. I know she's very keen to talk to him. What about the trial-will this affect it?'

  'If he withdraws his confession I will petition the court in Marbella. Everything depends on your meeting this afternoon. It's necessary to be gentle, Mr Prentice.'

  We arranged to rendezvous in the visitors' car park at the prison. I walked Danvila to his car, and as he stowed his briefcases in the passenger seat I took from the pocket of my towelling robe the set of keys I had found in the lemon orchard. I tested them against the door lock and, as I assumed, saw that they failed to fit. But Danvila had noticed the shift in my eyes.

  'Mr Prentice, are you enjoying your stay in Estrella de Mar?'

  'Not exactly. But it's a place of great charm-it even has a certain magic.'

  'Magic, yes.' Danvila held the steering wheel, restraining it from any rash behaviour. 'You begin to look like your brother…'