Super-Cannes

by J. G. Ballard

  ‘I did.’ Jane seemed genuinely indignant. ‘Alain and Simone both said I went down to Zander with my valise.’

  ‘I must have missed that. Did you see the accident?’

  ‘More or less. It happened so quickly. The cars barely touched.’

  ‘They didn’t need to.’ I watched the coffee grounds sinking through the water. ‘Three tons of black Merc swerving after you … most people would do anything to get out of the way. Who was in the first car?’

  ‘Yasuda and someone from Du Pont. And a chauffeur I haven’t seen before.’

  ‘He was good. That was highly skilled offensive driving. Alain probably brought in a police pursuit specialist.’

  ‘Paul…’ Jane stared into my pupils, as if suspecting that I had overdosed myself. ‘You’re getting obsessive again. First David, now this accident. It was tragic for Zander, but …’

  ‘No one liked him?’

  ‘He was too fleshy for me.’ Jane grimaced, exposing the fine cracks in her make-up. ‘Still, at least he was human.’

  ‘Human enough to play Alain’s games with you?’

  ‘Paul, we agreed not to talk about that. It’s my way of relaxing. Men get so nervous when we hitch up our skirts – they think mummy’s going to have sex with the milkman.’

  I took her discoloured hands, with their chipped nails. ‘Jane, listen to me for once. Alain is dangerous. I watched his eyes while you were dancing with Halder. I saw something your telemetric links will never diagnose – the purest strain of plantation owner. The Belgian Congo under Leopold II, very nasty and very racist. Conrad wrote a novel about it.’

  ‘It was a set book at school.’

  ‘You actually read it?’

  ‘The course notes. It was too frightening.’ She stood up and straightened her skirt. ‘I’m late for work. Paul, why don’t you go back to London for a while?’

  ‘I need to look after you.’

  ‘That’s sweet – I mean it. How is Frances? There haven’t been any messages for days.’

  ‘She’s away. Zander’s death shocked her badly.’

  ‘Find her. You need her, Paul.’

  ‘Should I marry her?’

  ‘If you want to. I’d be happy for you …’

  I walked Jane down to the drive and watched her as she reversed, admiring her wristy gear changes. She looked very elegant and cool in her linen suit, but I noticed a coffee stain on her sleeve. She treated me to the long smile and slow slide of the eyes that I remembered from our happy days. Our marriage would soon be over, but that made me all the more determined to save her.

  My knee throbbed again, counting the hours as reliably as Big Ben. I sat on my bed in the Alice room, the hypodermic wallet on my lap, and listened to Jane’s Peugeot leave the residential enclave and set off for the clinic. Its third gear screamed in the French mode that Jane had adopted. Top was a sign of weakness, of defensive driving reserved for the elderly and infirm, an evolutionary relic that had survived into a more advanced age. Jane belonged to an epoch that accelerated and braked, but never cruised.

  Through the window I could see Simone Delage on her balcony, setting out her toiletries on the table like the pieces on a chessboard. A thick cosmetic cream covered her face, a mask that hid nothing. On the day after Zander’s death we had met while we walked to our cars, but her expression was as depthless as the artificial lakes in Eden-Olympia. Only the presence of Jane brought a tremor of life to her impassive features.

  Yet there was nothing prurient about her exploitation of Jane. She and Alain approached the freeports of sex like sophisticated tourists in a strange souk, exploring any alleyway that might offer an intriguing cuisine. To these educated travellers even human flesh would prompt no more than a mild query about the recipe. At Eden-Olympia they dined on the à la carte pathologies prepared for them by Wilder Penrose.

  I knew that they saw me as a rather dull, voyeurist husband, enjoying my wife’s infidelities. They had showed no surprise when I stepped through the cannabis smoke and took Jane from Halder’s arms, assuming that I was sexually excited by the sight of them dancing together. By watching our wives have sex with strangers, we dismantled the mystery of exclusive love, and dispelled the last illusion that each of us was anything but alone.

  I turned from Simone and considered my knee, as gnarled and rooted in itself as the bole of a lightning-scarred oak. I inserted the needle into the phial of painkiller and drew the pale fluid into the syringe. As I checked the meniscus my eyes strayed to the Alice characters on the wardrobe door. Carroll had furnished his young heroine with every manner of threats to her sanity, but she had survived them all with her unstoppable good sense.

  Pondering this, I thought of Sergeant Jucaud’s comment that I had been seen acting aggressively towards Zander. It had taken the detective five days to question me, which suggested that his information was part of a deliberate tip-off. He had pretended to admire the Jaguar, but had clearly been searching for signs of collision damage.

  Was I being set up as Zander’s killer? Months might pass, as I limped around the business park, my mind clouded by Jane’s painkillers, a drugged lab animal being saved for a last injection, the final sacrifice when a scapegoat was needed. I could rely on Wilder Penrose to protect me, but Alain Delage might want me out of the way so that he and Simone could have Jane to themselves …

  I searched the veins under my knee, a Mandelbrot pattern of shrivelled capillaries that mapped its own kind of addiction. Then I thought again of the ever-sensible Alice, swallowing her ‘drink me’ potion. I put down the hypodermic and held the phial to the light. The label was printed with my name, but ‘inject me’ might well have been stamped across it in bold letters.

  My knee waited for relief, but for once I put away the syringe and fastened the leather wallet. I needed to be alert if I was to cope with Zander’s death and the danger facing me, since other deaths would soon take place. I needed my infected ligaments and the metal pins clawing at my kneecap. I needed to think, and I needed pain.

  35

  The Analysis

  THE SUPERMARKET ON the main concourse of Antibes-les-Pins was filled with a bounty of attractive merchandise: plates of charcuterie, olive breads, pyramids of a new super-detergent, dory and gurnard fresh enough for the surf to twinkle on their scales. But there were no customers. The residents of the high-security complex might have retreated so deeply into their defensible space that they had eliminated the need for food, bread and wine. The advertising displays in the estate office overlooking the roundabout on the RN7 had the look of museum tableaux, and the artist’s impression of a concourse as crowded as the Champs-Elysées, lined with boutiques and thronged by high-spending customers, seemed to describe a forgotten twentieth-century world.

  Only the cyber-café next door was serving any customers. The computer terminals facing the bar were out of use, but three bikers in metallized boots and Mad Max leathers sat at the outdoor tables. They formed a feral presence in the hyper-modern complex, like carrion-birds on a skyscraper cornice, filling an unplanned niche in the ecology of the future.

  The supermarket might have been empty, but the retinal impact of its deserted aisles still surprised me. In the week since putting away the hypodermic syringe my senses had sharpened, as if an anaesthetized world had woken up and seized me in its grip. Reality had come into sudden focus, and for the first time in many months I was reaching into levels of my mind that had been closed like the floors of an empty telephone exchange. Each morning, after Jane left for the clinic, I drew a measure of painkiller from the phial that she prepared for me, then vented the pale liquid into the washbasin. Curiously, not only was my mind clearer, but the pain in my knee had eased. For once, Alice’s example had not been the best to follow …

  I saw Isabel Duval as soon as she entered the supermarket. Disguised in a headscarf and dark glasses, she hovered like an inexperienced shoplifter beside a display of gourmet cat food. She was pale and self-possessed, but gl
anced warily over her shoulder as if sensing a pursuer, only to realize that she had seen herself in a display mirror.

  I was glad to meet her again. After speaking on the phone, I mailed the small package to her from a post office in Le Cannet, and expected her to take a month or more to deal with it. But she contacted me within the week.

  ‘Madame Duval … you look well.’ I held her hand before she could draw it away from me. ‘It’s good of you to help me.’

  ‘Not at all…’ She peered at me over her sunglasses, unsettled by my restless and eager manner. ‘I’m happy to do what I can. You were David’s friend.’

  ‘Exactly. I’m still concerned for him. That’s why I thought of you. There’s a café next door – we’ll be less conspicuous.’

  We passed a shallow tank filled with lobsters, sidling around each other like airliners looking for a runway. I took Madame Duval’s arm and steered her towards the entrance. She frowned at the bikers lounging in the sun, irritated by their presence on her doorstep.

  ‘Mr Sinclair, these young men … are they messengers?’

  ‘Let’s hope not. I hate to think what the message might be.’ We sat down at the empty tables, and I ordered mineral water from the waitress. ‘Madame Duval, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t meet.’

  ‘No?’ She sounded doubtful.

  ‘My wife was a colleague of David’s, and you’re one of the last people who knew him well. Now, you have the analysis with you?’

  ‘As I promised.’ She took off her glasses, her eyes turned inward as she thought about Greenwood. ‘When we met, you were looking into the events around David’s death. Can I ask if you found anything?’

  ‘Nothing, to be honest. Everyone liked him.’

  ‘That’s good. He was an admirable doctor.’ She ventured a sip of water. ‘Time stands still at Antibes-les-Pins. But the dead go on opening doors in our minds.’

  ‘Isabel, please – the analysis?’

  ‘Forgive me.’ She took an envelope from her handbag and drew out a sheet of typewritten paper. ‘First, can I ask why you came to me?’

  ‘I didn’t want to involve the clinic. One never knows what complications might follow.’

  ‘Any pharmacy would have arranged the analysis. There must be fifty in Cannes.’

  ‘True. But I had no idea what was in the sample. An ordinary pharmacy might contact the police. It struck me that you would know of a suitable laboratory, one that would be …’

  ‘Discreet?’ Madame Duval shook her head, finding me a clumsy conspirator. ‘What was the source of this phial?’

  ‘I found it in the house.’ Doing my best to lie fluently, I said: ‘It was among David’s old things. It might give a clue to his mood. If he suffered from diabetes …’

  ‘He didn’t. I contacted a small laboratory in Nice. David used them for special preparations before the clinic expanded. I may say that the chief pharmacist was surprised.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s an unusual cocktail.’ She put on her reading glasses and scanned the sheet. ‘There were vitamins, B group and E, an anti-inflammatory preparation and a postoperative painkiller.’

  ‘Good.’ I thought of Jane putting together this potion, measuring the constituents like a mother preparing her baby’s feed. ‘Then it’s in order?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Madame Duval placed the sheet on the table, watching me warily as I fiddled with my mineral water. ‘They were in very low concentrations, only fifteen per cent of the total. The remaining eighty-five per cent was made up of a powerful tranquillizer, amitryptiline. It’s used as a long-term sedative in mental hospitals.’

  I took the analysis from her and studied the French orthography with its vagrant decimal points. ‘That sounds like a large dose.’

  ‘Very. Assuming five ccs per day, the patient would find himself in a cloudy world like a steam bath. Nothing would bother him, either internally or from surrounding events.’

  ‘It sounds useful.’

  ‘For people under stress, or faced with a mental crisis they are unwilling to resolve.’ Madame Duval provided a judicious pause. ‘It’s unusual to prescribe such a powerful tranquillizer for people in postoperative pain. Surgical patients are encouraged to move about, not sit in a chair all day.’

  ‘There might be other reasons…’ I took the analysis sheet and tucked it into my pocket. ‘I’m grateful, Madame Duval. You’ve been a huge help.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She steadied the table as my left knee bounced up and down. ‘You’re still happy at Eden-Olympia?’

  ‘On the whole, yes.’

  ‘It’s a demanding place. Everything seems clear, but … at least pain sharpens the mind.’

  I shook her hand warmly, glad that I did not have to spell everything out for this intelligent woman.

  When we left the café the bikers were rearranging their legs around the open-air tables. Madame Duval stepped over an outstretched boot, but I waited for its owner to beat a loose heel plate against the pavement. As I leaned against the door I noticed a sandy-haired man with a straw hat in his hand, standing near a parked Renault. Printed notices intended to pacify the police and traffic wardens were peeling from the inner surface of the windscreen, hinting that the driver was a doctor or vet on urgent call. He turned his back to the café, and perused a map of the Côte d’Azur.

  ‘Meldrum …’ I recognized the Australian manager of Riviera News. He was watching Isabel Duval’s reflection in the car’s passenger window, and I guessed that he already knew who would follow her from the cyber-café.

  I paid my respects to Madame Duval, and waited until she reached the entrance to her apartment wing. Walking to the car-park lift I saw that Meldrum was now sitting in the Renault fifty yards from the garage exit.

  I rode the lift down to the lower level, where the Jaguar was parked. When I opened the driver’s door a card fell to the floor at my feet. Someone had unlocked the door and then carefully closed it, trapping the card against the sill. Only one person had a spare set of the Jaguar’s keys. I read:

  Paul, leave the Jaguar here. My car is parked in the next aisle with the roof up. Keys under your seat. Try not to be seen as you drive out. We’ll meet in the Church of La Garoupe by the lighthouse on Cap d’Antibes.

  36

  Confession

  PRESIDING OVER THE gloomy silence, the gilded wooden statue of Our Lady of Safe Homecoming was barely visible in the darkness that filled the adjoining chapels of the modest church. Two women in bombazine dresses and dark headscarves sat in the front pew, lost in their thoughts of departed husbands or children. I bought a candle for ten francs, and carried the trembling flame down the side aisle. Dozens of votive offerings hung from the walls, memorials to disasters at sea, to air and road accidents, many illustrated with fading photographs and newspaper cuttings. Faces of the dead hung in brass lockets and plastic frames: a cheerful schoolgirl who had perished in a Nice ferry sinking, sailors who had died during a wartime naval action, fishermen from Antibes run down by a tanker, three scuba divers who had drowned within sight of the church that memorialized their deaths. Among the antique clutter of dusty silk flags and models of nineteenth-century steam yachts was a box with a transparent lid and a plasticine model of an air crash. A child’s fingerprints were visible in the broken wings.

  The door opened, throwing a brief light across this warehouse of grief. A woman in a wide-brimmed hat and black trouser suit closed the door behind her and searched the darkness.

  ‘Frances?’ Carrying the candle, I walked between the pews and held the flame to the woman’s face. Shadows wavered across a nervous mouth and lowered eyes. ‘Madame, excuse me … are you –?’

  ‘Paul? Good. We’ll go outside.’

  She pulled at the wooden door, flooding herself with light like a corpse in an opened coffin. Behind me, the two women rose from their seats and walked towards the exit. As they emerged into the sun I recognized Madame Cordier and Madame Ménard, the chauffeu
rs’ widows I had last seen in the apartment at Port-la-Galère.

  When they spoke to Frances they turned their backs to me, as if fearing that I might report them to the authorities at Eden-Olympia. After the briefest thanks they walked quickly to a waiting taxi in the car park.

  Frances waved to them, but seemed too tired to look at me. Her hand fell under its own weight and hung by her side. She was thinner than I remembered, and hesitated before touching my shoulder, unsure whether I was still the person she had known. She held my hand for a moment, trying to remind herself that we had once been lovers. The ghosts of emotions past seemed to gather and dissolve in her troubled face.

  ‘Frances …? It’s good to see you.’

  ‘Wait. I can’t breathe here.’

  I followed her across the uneven ground outside the church, and we walked towards the fir trees that shielded the plateau of La Garoupe. A coin-in-the-slot telescope pointed towards the Antibes peninsula, a panorama of the Riviera from Super-Cannes to Juan-les-Pins, and from the crowded Antibes harbour beyond the Napoleonic battlements to the apartment city of Marina Baie des Anges. An airliner made its descent towards Nice Airport, its winged shadow trembling across the faces of the hotels that overlooked the glide path.

  ‘Frances … try to relax. No one followed me.’ I wanted to embrace her, but she stepped away from me and clasped the telescope with her hand. I knew that she was thinking of everything except myself. Tapping the telescope, she watched the taxi leave with the two widows.

  ‘The chauffeurs’ wives?’ I asked. ‘What were they doing here?’

  ‘They wanted to see the chapel – it’s dedicated to the souls of travellers. I collected them from the station at Antibes.’

  ‘Did I spoil it for them?’

  ‘I doubt it – why?’

  ‘They looked at me …’

  ‘They’re very suspicious. Word gets around. You’ve been seen at some of the ratissages. They think you’re part of Eden-Olympia.’

  ‘I am.’