The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard

by J. G. Ballard

  ‘Never mind the old crafts,’ I told him irritably. ‘All I’m interested in is getting some copy together for the next issue. If your set is working we’re saved.’

  ‘Well there, wait a minute, Paul. I’ve been slightly preoccupied recently, haven’t had a chance to see the set.’

  I waited while he wandered off. From the sounds of his footsteps and an impatient shout of the girl’s, to which he replied distantly, it seemed he had gone outside into the yard. A door slammed open somewhere and there was a vague rummaging. A curious place to keep a VT set, I thought. Then there was a loud hammering noise.

  Finally Tristram picked up the phone again. ‘Sorry, Paul, but it looks as if she paid me a visit too. The set’s a total wreck.’ He paused while I cursed the air, then said: ‘Look, though, is she really serious about the hand-made material? I take it that’s what you were calling about?’

  ‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘Believe me, I’ll print anything. It has to get past Aurora, though. Have you got any old copy lying around?’

  Tristram chuckled again. ‘You know, Paul, old boy, I believe I have. Rather despaired of ever getting it into print but I’m glad now I held on to it. Tell you what, I’ll tidy it up and let you have it tomorrow. Few sonnets, a ballad or two, you should find it interesting.’

  He was right. Five minutes after I opened his parcel the next morning I knew he was trying to fool us.

  ‘This is the same old thing,’ I explained to Tony. ‘That cunning Adonis. Look at these assonances and feminine rhymes, the drifting caesura – the unmistakable Caldwell signature, worn tapes on the rectifier circuits and a leaking condenser. I’ve been having to re-tread these for years to smooth them out. He’s got his set there working away after all.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Tony asked. ‘He’ll just deny it.’

  ‘Obviously. Anyway, I can use the material. Who cares if the whole issue is by Tristram Caldwell.’

  I started to slip the pages into an envelope before taking them round to Aurora, when an idea occurred to me.

  ‘Tony, I’ve just had another of my brilliancies. The perfect method of curing this witch of her obsession and exacting sweet revenge at the same time. Suppose we play along with Tristram and tell Aurora that these poems were hand-written by him. His style is thoroughly retrograde and his themes are everything Aurora could ask for – listen to these – “Homage to Cleo”, “Minerva 231”, “Silence becomes Electra”. She’ll pass them for press, we’ll print this weekend and then, lo and behold, we reveal that these poems apparently born out of the burning breast of Tristram Caldwell are nothing more than a collection of cliché-ridden transcripts from a derelict VT set, the worst possible automatic maunderings.’

  Tony whooped. ‘Tremendous! She’d never live it down. But do you think she’ll be taken in?’

  ‘Why not? Haven’t you realized that she sincerely expects us all to sit down and produce a series of model classical exercises on “Night and Day”, “Summer and Winter”, and so on. When only Caldwell produces anything she’ll be only too glad to give him her imprimatur. Remember, our agreement only refers to this issue, and the onus is on her. She’s got to find material somewhere.’

  So we launched our scheme. All afternoon I pestered Tristram, telling him that Aurora had adored his first consignment and was eager to see more. Duly the next day a second batch arrived, all, as luck would have it, in longhand, although remarkably faded for material fresh from his VT set the previous day. However, I was only too glad for anything that would reinforce the illusion. Aurora was more and more pleased, and showed no suspicions whatever. Here and there she made a minor criticism but refused to have anything altered or rewritten.

  ‘But we always rewrite, Aurora,’ I told her. ‘One can’t expect an infallible selection of images. The number of synonyms is too great.’ Wondering whether I had gone too far, I added hastily: ‘It doesn’t matter whether the author is man or robot, the principle is the same.’

  ‘Really?’ Aurora said archly. ‘However, I think we’ll leave these just as Mr Caldwell wrote them.’

  I didn’t bother to point out the hopeless fallacy in her attitude, and merely collected the initialled manuscripts and hurried home with them. Tony was at my desk, deep in the phone, pumping Tristram for more copy.

  He capped the mouthpiece and gestured to me. ‘He’s playing coy, probably trying to raise us to two cents a thousand. Pretends he’s out of material. Is it worth calling his bluff?’

  I shook my head. ‘Dangerous. If Aurora discovers we’re involved in this fraud of Tristram’s she might do anything. Let me talk to him.’ I took the phone. ‘What’s the matter, Tristram, production’s way down. We need more material, old boy. Shorten the line, why are you wasting tapes with all these alexandrines?’

  ‘Ransom, what the hell are you talking about? I’m not a damned factory, I’m a poet, I write when I have something to say in the only suitable way to say it.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I rejoined, ‘but I have fifty pages to fill and only a few days in which to do it. You’ve given me about ten so you’ve just got to keep up the flow. What have you produced today?’

  ‘Well, I’m working on another sonnet, some nice things in it – to Aurora herself, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Great,’ I told him, ‘but careful with those vocabulary selectors. Remember the golden rule: the ideal sentence is one word long. What else have you got?’

  ‘What else? Nothing. This is likely to take all week, perhaps all year.’

  I nearly swallowed the phone. ‘Tristram, what’s the matter? For heaven’s sake, haven’t you paid the power bill or something? Have they cut you off?’

  Before I could find out, however, he had rung off.

  ‘One sonnet a day,’ I said to Tony. ‘Good God, he must be on manual. Crazy idiot, he probably doesn’t realize how complicated those circuits are.’

  We sat tight and waited. Nothing came the next morning, and nothing the morning after that. Luckily, however, Aurora wasn’t in the least surprised; in fact, if anything she was pleased that Tristram’s rate of progress was slowing.

  ‘One poem is enough,’ she told me, ‘a complete statement. Nothing more needs to be said, an interval of eternity closes for ever.’

  Reflectively, she straightened the petals of a hyacinth. ‘Perhaps he needs a little encouragement,’ she decided.

  I could see she wanted to meet him.

  ‘Why don’t you ask him over for dinner?’ I suggested.

  She brightened immediately. ‘I will.’ She picked up the telephone and handed it to me.

  As I dialled Tristram’s number I felt a sudden pang of envy and disappointment. Around me the friezes told the story of Melander and Corydon, but I was too preoccupied to anticipate the tragedy the next week would bring.

  During the days that followed Tristram and Aurora Day were always together. In the morning they would usually drive out to the film sets at Lagoon West, the chauffeur at the wheel of the huge Cadillac. In the evenings, as I sat out alone on the terrace, watching the lights of Studio 5 shine out into the warm darkness, I could hear their fragmented voices carried across the sand, the faint sounds of crystal music.

  I would like to think that I resented their relationship, but to be truthful I cared very little after the initial disappointment had worn off. The beach fatigue from which I suffered numbed the senses insidiously, blunting despair and hope alike.

  When, three days after their first meeting, Aurora and Tristram suggested that we all go ray-fishing at Lagoon West, I accepted gladly, eager to observe their affair at closer quarters.

  As we set off down the Stars there was no hint of what was to come. Tristram and Aurora were together in the Cadillac while Tony Sapphire, Raymond Mayo and I brought up the rear in Tony’s Chevrolet. We could see them through the blue rear window of the Cadillac, Tristram reading the sonnet to Aurora which he had just completed. When we climbed out of the cars at Lagoon West and made our way over t
o the old abstract film sets near the sand reefs, they were walking hand in hand. Tristram in his white beach shoes and suit looked very much like an Edwardian dandy at a boating party.

  The chauffeur carried the picnic hampers, and Raymond Mayo and Tony the spear-guns and nets. Down the reefs below we could see the rays nesting by the thousands, scores of double mambas sleek with off-season hibernation.

  After we had settled ourselves under the awnings Raymond and Tristram decided on the course and then gathered everyone together. Strung out in a loose line we began to make our way down into one of the reefs, Aurora on Tristram’s arm.

  ‘Ever done any ray-fishing?’ Tristram asked me as we entered one of the lower galleries.

  ‘Never,’ I said. ‘I’ll just watch this time. I hear you’re quite an expert.’

  ‘Well, with luck I won’t be killed.’ He pointed to the rays clinging to the cornices above us, wheeling up into the sky as we approached, whistling and screeching. In the dim light the white tips of their stings flexed in their sheaths. ‘Unless they’re really frightened they’ll stay well away from you,’ he told us. ‘The art is to prevent them from becoming frightened, select one and approach it so slowly that it sits staring at you until you’re close enough to shoot it.’

  Raymond Mayo had found a large purple mamba resting in a narrow crevice about ten yards on our right. He moved up to it quietly, watching the sting protrude from its sheath and weave menacingly, waiting just long enough for it to retract, lulling the ray with a low humming sound. Finally, when he was five feet away, he raised the gun and took careful aim.

  ‘There may seem little to it,’ Tristram whispered to Aurora and me, ‘but in fact he’s completely at the ray’s mercy now. If it chose to attack he’d be defenceless.’ The bolt snapped from Raymond’s gun and struck the ray on its spinal crest, stunning it instantly. Quickly he stepped over and scooped it into the net, where it revived after a few seconds, threshed its black triangular wings helplessly and then lay inertly.

  We moved through the groynes and galleries, the sky a narrow winding interval overhead, following the pathways that curved down into the bed of the reef. Now and then the wheeling rays rising out of our way would brush against the reef and drifts of fine sand would cascade over us. Raymond and Tristram shot several more rays, leaving the chauffeur to carry the nets. Gradually our party split into two, Tony and Raymond taking one pathway with the chauffeur, while I stayed with Aurora and Tristram.

  As we moved along I noticed that Aurora’s face had become less relaxed, her movements slightly more deliberate and controlled. I had the impression she was watching Tristram carefully, glancing sideways at him as she held his arm.

  We entered the terminal fornix of the reef, a deep cathedral-like chamber from which a score of galleries spiralled off to surface like the arms of a galaxy. In the darkness around us the thousands of rays hung motionlessly, their phosphorescing stings flexing and retracting like winking stars.

  Two hundred feet away, on the far side of the chamber, Raymond Mayo and the chauffeur emerged from one of the galleries. They waited there for a few moments. Suddenly I heard Tony shouting out. Raymond dropped his spear-gun and disappeared into the gallery.

  Excusing myself, I ran across the chamber. I found them in the narrow corridor, peering around in the darkness.

  ‘I tell you,’ Tony was insisting. ‘I heard the damn thing singing.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Raymond told him. They argued with each other, then gave up the search for the mysterious song-ray and stepped down into the chamber. As we went I thought I saw the chauffeur replace something in his pocket. With his beaked face and insane eyes, his hunched figure hung about with the nets of writhing rays, he looked like a figure from Hieronymus Bosch.

  After exchanging a few words with Raymond and Tony I turned to make my way back to the others, but they had left the chamber. Wondering which of the galleries they had chosen, I stepped a few yards into the mouth of each one, finally saw them on one of the ramps curving away above me.

  I was about to retrace my steps and join them when I caught a glimpse of Aurora’s face in profile, saw once again her expression of watchful intent. Changing my mind, I moved quietly along the spiral, just below them, the falls of sand masking my footsteps, keeping them in view through the intervals between the overhanging columns.

  At one point I was only a few yards from them, and heard Aurora say clearly: ‘Isn’t there a theory that you can trap rays by singing to them?’

  ‘By mesmerizing them?’ Tristram asked. ‘Let’s try.’

  They moved farther away, and Aurora’s voice sounded out softly, a low crooning tone. Gradually the sound rose, echoing and re-echoing through the high vaults, the rays stirring in the darkness.

  As we neared the surface their numbers grew, and Aurora stopped and guided Tristram towards a narrow sun-filled arena, bounded by hundred-foot walls, open to the sky above.

  Unable to see them now, I retreated into the gallery and climbed the inner slope on to the next level, and from there on to the stage above. I made my way to the edge of the gallery, from which I could now easily observe the arena below. As I did so, however, I was aware of an eerie and penetrating noise, at once toneless and all-pervading, which filled the entire reef, like the high-pitched sounds perceived by epileptics before a seizure. Down in the arena Tristram was searching the walls, trying to identify the source of the noise, hands raised to his head. He had taken his eyes off Aurora, who was standing behind him, arms motionless at her sides, palms slightly raised, like an entranced medium.

  Fascinated by this curious stance, I was abruptly distracted by a terrified screeching that came from the lower levels of the reef. It was accompanied by a confused leathery flapping, and almost immediately a cloud of flying rays, frantically trying to escape from the reef, burst from the galleries below.

  As they turned into the arena, sweeping low over the heads of Tristram and Aurora, they seemed to lose their sense of direction, and within a moment the arena was packed by a swarm of circling rays, all diving about uncertainly.

  Screaming in terror at the rays whipping past her face, Aurora emerged from her trance. Tristram had taken off his straw hat and was striking furiously at them, shielding Aurora with his other arm. Together they backed towards a narrow fault in the rear wall of the arena, which provided an escape route into the galleries on the far side. Following this route to the edge of the cliffs above, I was surprised to see the squat figure of the chauffeur, now divested of his nets and gear, peering down at the couple below.

  By now the hundreds of rays jostling within the arena almost obscured Tristram and Aurora. She reappeared from the narrow fault, shaking her head desperately. Their escape route was sealed! Quickly Tristram motioned her to her knees, then leapt into the middle of the arena, slapping wildly at the rays with his hat, trying to drive them away from Aurora.

  For a few seconds he was successful. Like a cloud of giant hornets the rays wheeled off in disorder. Horrified, I watched them descend upon him again. Before I could shout Tristram had fallen. The rays swooped and hovered over his outstretched body, then swirled away, soaring into the sky, apparently released from the vortex. Tristram lay face downwards, his blond hair spilled across the sand, arms twisted loosely. I stared at his body, amazed by the swiftness with which he had died, and looked across to Aurora.

  She too was watching the body, but with an expression that showed neither pity nor terror. Gathering her skirt in one hand, she turned and slipped away through the fault –

  The escape route had been open after all! Astonished, I realized that Aurora had deliberately told Tristram that the route was closed, virtually forcing him to attack the rays.

  A minute later she emerged from the mouth of the gallery above. Briefly she peered down into the arena, the black-uniformed chauffeur at her elbow, watching the motionless body of Tristram. Then they hurried away.

  Racing after them, I began to shout at the top of my v
oice, hoping to attract Tony and Raymond Mayo. As I reached the mouth of the reef my voice boomed and echoed into the galleries below. A hundred yards away Aurora and the chauffeur were stepping into the Cadillac. With a roar of exhaust it swung away among the sets, sending up clouds of dust that obscured the enormous abstract patterns.

  I ran towards Tony’s car. By the time I reached it the Cadillac was half a mile away, burning across the desert like an escaping dragon.

  That was the last I saw of Aurora Day. I managed to follow them as far as the highway to Lagoon West, but there, on the open road, the big car left me behind, and ten miles farther on, by the time I reached Lagoon West, I had lost them completely. At one of the gas stations where the highway forks to Vermilion Sands and Red Beach I asked if anyone had seen a cerise Cadillac go by. Two attendants said they had, on the road towards me, and although they both swore this, I suppose Aurora’s magic must have confused them.

  I decided to try her villa and took the fork back to Vermilion Sands, cursing myself for not anticipating what had happened. I, ostensibly a poet, had failed to take another poet’s dreams seriously. Aurora had explicitly forecast Tristram’s death.

  Studio 5, The Stars, was silent and empty. The rays had gone from the drive, and the black glass door was wide open, the remains of a few streamers drifting across the dust that gathered on the floor. The hallway and lounge were in darkness, and only the white carp in the pool provided a glimmer of light. The air was still and unbroken, as if the house had been empty for centuries.

  Cursorily I ran my eye round the friezes in the lounge, then saw that I knew all the faces of the figures in the panels. The likenesses were almost photographic. Tristram was Corydon, Aurora Melander, the chauffeur the god Pan. And I saw myself, Tony Sapphire, Raymond Mayo, Fairchild de Mille and the other members of the colony.

  Leaving the friezes, I made my way past the pool. It was now evening, and through the open doorway were the distant lights of Vermilion Sands, the headlights sweeping along the Stars reflected in the glass roof-tiles of my villa. A light wind had risen, stirring the streamers, and as I went down the steps a gust of air moved through the house and caught the door, slamming it behind me. The loud report boomed through the house, a concluding statement upon the whole sequence of fantasy and disaster, a final notice of the departure of the enchantress.