‘Your trouble is that you’re thinking too much,’ Franklin told him. ‘You’ve been rambling about these signs for weeks now. Tell me, have you actually seen one signalling?’
Hathaway tore a handful of leaves from the hedge, exasperated by this irrelevancy. ‘Of course I haven’t, that’s the whole point, Doctor.’ He dropped his voice as a group of nurses walked past, watching his raffish figure out of the corners of their eyes. ‘The construction gangs were out again last night, laying huge power cables. You’ll see them on the way home. Everything’s nearly ready now.’
‘They’re traffic signs,’ Franklin explained patiently. ‘The flyover has just been completed. Hathaway, for God’s sake, relax. Try to think of Dora and the child.’
‘I am thinking of them!’ Hathaway’s voice rose to a controlled scream. ‘Those cables were 40,000-volt lines, Doctor, with terrific switch-gear. The trucks were loaded with enormous metal scaffolds. Tomorrow they’ll start lifting them up all over the city, they’ll block off half the sky! What do you think Dora will be like after six months of that? We’ve got to stop them, Doctor, they’re trying to transistorize our brains!’
Embarrassed by Hathaway’s high-pitched shouting, Franklin had momentarily lost his sense of direction. Helplessly he searched the sea of cars for his own. ‘Hathaway, I can’t waste any more time talking to you. Believe me, you need skilled help, these obsessions are beginning to master you.’
Hathaway started to protest, and Franklin raised his right hand firmly. ‘Listen. For the last time, if you can show me one of these signs, and prove it’s transmitting subliminal commands, I’ll go to the police with you. But you haven’t got a shred of evidence, and you know it. Subliminal advertising was banned thirty years ago, and the laws have never been repealed. Anyway, the technique was unsatisfactory, any success it had was marginal. Your idea of a huge conspiracy with all these thousands of giant signs everywhere is preposterous.’
‘All right, Doctor.’ Hathaway leaned against the bonnet of one of the cars. His mood seemed to switch abruptly from one level to the next. He watched Franklin amiably. ‘What’s the matter – lost your car?’
‘All your damned shouting has confused me.’ Franklin pulled out his ignition key and read the number off the tag: ‘NYN 299-566-367-21 – can you see it?’
Hathaway leaned around lazily, one sandal up on the bonnet, surveying the square of a thousand or so cars facing them. ‘Difficult, isn’t it, when they’re all identical, even the same colour? Thirty years ago there were about ten different makes, each in a dozen colours.’
Franklin spotted his car and began to walk towards it. ‘Sixty years ago there were a hundred makes. What of it? The economies of standardization are obviously bought at a price.’
Hathaway drummed his palm on the roofs. ‘But these cars aren’t all that cheap, Doctor. In fact, comparing them on an average income basis with those of thirty years ago they’re about forty per cent more expensive. With only one make being produced you’d expect a substantial reduction in price, not an increase.’
‘Maybe,’ Franklin said, opening his door. ‘But mechanically the cars of today are far more sophisticated. They’re lighter, more durable, safer to drive.’
Hathaway shook his head sceptically. ‘They bore me. The same model, same styling, same colour, year after year. It’s a sort of communism.’ He rubbed a greasy finger over the windshield. ‘This is a new one again, isn’t it, Doctor? Where’s the old one – you only had it for three months?’
‘I traded it in,’ Franklin told him, starting the engine. ‘If you ever had any money you’d realize that it’s the most economical way of owning a car. You don’t keep driving the same one until it falls apart. It’s the same with everything else – television sets, washing machines, refrigerators. But you aren’t faced with the problem.’
Hathaway ignored the gibe, and leaned his elbow on Franklin’s window. ‘Not a bad idea, either, Doctor. It gives me time to think. I’m not working a twelve-hour day to pay for a lot of things I’m too busy to use before they’re obsolete.’
He waved as Franklin reversed the car out of its line, then shouted into the wake of exhaust: ‘Drive with your eyes closed, Doctor!’
On the way home Franklin kept carefully to the slowest of the four-speed lanes. As usual after his discussions with Hathaway, he felt vaguely depressed. He realized that unconsciously he envied Hathaway his footloose existence. Despite the grimy cold-water apartment in the shadow and roar of the flyover, despite his nagging wife and their sick child, and the endless altercations with the landlord and the supermarket credit manager, Hathaway still retained his freedom intact. Spared any responsibilities, he could resist the smallest encroachment upon him by the rest of society, if only by generating obsessive fantasies such as his latest one about subliminal advertising.
The ability to react to stimuli, even irrationally, was a valid criterion of freedom. By contrast, what freedom Franklin possessed was peripheral, sharply demarked by the manifold responsibilities in the centre of his life – the three mortgages on his home, the mandatory rounds of cocktail parties, the private consultancy occupying most of Saturday which paid the instalments on the multitude of household gadgets, clothes and past holidays. About the only time he had to himself was driving to and from work.
But at least the roads were magnificent. Whatever other criticisms might be levelled at the present society, it certainly knew how to build roads. Eight-, ten-and twelve-lane expressways interlaced across the country, plunging from overhead causeways into the giant car parks in the centre of the cities, or dividing into the great suburban arteries with their multi-acre parking aprons around the marketing centres. Together the roadways and car parks covered more than a third of the country’s entire area, and in the neighbourhood of the cities the proportion was higher. The old cities were surrounded by the vast motion sculptures of the clover-leaves and flyovers, but even so the congestion was unremitting.
The ten-mile journey to his home in fact covered over twenty-five miles and took him twice as long as it had done before the construction of the expressway, the additional miles contained within the three giant clover-leaves. New cities were springing from the motels, cafés and car marts around the highways. At the slightest hint of an intersection a shanty town of shacks and filling stations sprawled away among the forest of electric signs and route indicators.
All around him cars bulleted along, streaming towards the suburbs. Relaxed by the smooth motion of the car, Franklin edged outwards into the next speed-lane. As he accelerated from 40 to 50 m.p.h. a strident ear-jarring noise drummed out from his tyres, shaking the chassis of the car. Ostensibly an aid to lane discipline, the surface of the road was covered with a mesh of small rubber studs, spaced progressively farther apart in each of the lanes so that the tyre hum resonated exactly on 40, 50, 60 and 70 m.p.h. Driving at an intermediate speed for more than a few seconds became nervously exhausting, and soon resulted in damage to the car and tyres.
When the studs wore out they were replaced by slightly different patterns, matching those on the latest tyres, so that regular tyre changes were necessary, increasing the safety and efficiency of the expressway. It also increased the revenues of the car and tyre manufacturers. Most cars over six months old soon fell to pieces under the steady battering, but this was regarded as a desirable end, the greater turnover reducing the unit price and making more frequent model changes, as well as ridding the roads of dangerous vehicles.
A quarter of a mile ahead, at the approach to the first of the cloverleaves, the traffic stream was slowing, huge police signs signalling ‘Lanes Closed Ahead’ and ‘Drop Speed by 10 m.p.h.’. Franklin tried to return to the previous lane, but the cars were jammed bumper to bumper. As the chassis began to shudder and vibrate, jarring his spine, he clamped his teeth and tried to restrain himself from sounding the horn. Other drivers were less self-controlled and everywhere engines were plunging and snarling, horns blaring. Road taxes we
re now so high, up to thirty per cent of the gross national product (by contrast, income taxes were a bare two per cent) that any delay on the expressways called for an immediate government inquiry, and the major departments of state were concerned with the administration of the road systems.
Nearer the clover-leaf the lanes had been closed to allow a gang of construction workers to erect a massive metal sign on one of the traffic islands. The palisaded area swarmed with engineers and surveyors, and Franklin assumed that this was the sign Hathaway had seen unloaded the previous night. His apartment was in one of the gimcrack buildings in the settlement that straggled away around a near-by flyover, a low-rent area inhabited by service-station personnel, waitresses and other migrant labour.
The sign was enormous, at least a hundred feet high, fitted with heavy concave grilles similar to radar bowls. Rooted in a series of concrete caissons, it reared high into the air above the approach roads, visible for miles. Franklin craned up at the grilles, tracing the power cables from the transformers up into the intricate mesh of metal coils that covered their surface. A line of red aircraft-warning beacons was already alight along the top strut, and Franklin assumed that the sign was part of the ground approach system of the city airport ten miles to the east.
Three minutes later, as he accelerated down the two-mile link of straight highway to the next clover-leaf, he saw the second of the giant signs looming up into the sky before him.
Changing down into the 40 m.p.h. lane, Franklin watched the great bulk of the second sign recede in his rear-view mirror. Although there were no graphic symbols among the wire coils covering the grilles, Hathaway’s warnings still sounded in his ears. Without knowing why, he felt sure that the signs were not part of the airport approach system. Neither of them was in line with the principal air-lines. To justify the expense of siting them in the centre of the expressway – the second sign required elaborate angled buttresses to support it on the narrow island – obviously meant that their role related in some way to the traffic streams.
Two hundred yards away was a roadside auto-mart, and Franklin abruptly remembered that he needed some cigarettes. Swinging the car down the entrance ramp, he joined the queue passing the self-service dispenser at the far end of the rank. The auto-mart was packed with cars, each of the five purchasing ranks lined with tired-looking men hunched over their wheels.
Inserting his coins (paper money was no longer in circulation, unmanageable by the automats) he took a carton from the dispenser. This was the only brand of cigarettes available – in fact there was only one brand of everything – though giant economy packs were an alternative. Moving off, he opened the dashboard locker.
Inside, still sealed in their wrappers, were three other cartons.
A strong fish-like smell pervaded the house when he reached home, steaming out from the oven in the kitchen. Sniffing it uneagerly, Franklin took off his coat and hat. His wife was crouched over the TV set in the lounge. An announcer was dictating a stream of numbers, and Judith scribbled them down on a pad, occasionally cursing under her breath. ‘What a muddle!’ she snapped. ‘He was talking so quickly I took only a few things down.’
‘Probably deliberate,’ Franklin commented. ‘A new panel game?’
Judith kissed him on the cheek, discreetly hiding the ashtray loaded with cigarette butts and chocolate wrappings. ‘Hello, darling, sorry not to have a drink ready for you. They’ve started this series of Spot Bargains, they give you a selection of things on which you get a ninety per cent trade-in discount at the local stores, if you’re in the right area and have the right serial numbers. It’s all terribly complicated.’
‘Sounds good, though. What have you got?’
Judith peered at her checklist. ‘Well, as far as I can see the only thing is the infra-red barbecue spit. But we have to be there before eight o’clock tonight. It’s seven thirty already.’
‘Then that’s out. I’m tired, angel, I need something to eat.’ When Judith started to protest he added firmly: ‘Look, I don’t want a new infra-red barbecue spit, we’ve only had this one for two months. Damn it, it’s not even a different model.’
‘But, darling, don’t you see, it makes it cheaper if you keep buying new ones. We’ll have to trade ours in at the end of the year anyway, we signed the contract, and this way we save at least five pounds. These Spot Bargains aren’t just a gimmick, you know. I’ve been glued to that set all day.’ A note of irritation had crept into her voice, but Franklin stood his ground, doggedly ignoring the clock.
‘Right, we lose five pounds. It’s worth it.’ Before she could remonstrate he said: ‘Judith, please, you probably took the wrong number down anyway.’ As she shrugged and went over to the bar he called: ‘Make it a stiff one. I see we have health foods on the menu.’
‘They’re good for you, darling. You know you can’t live on ordinary foods all the time. They don’t contain any proteins or vitamins. You’re always saying we ought to be like people in the old days and eat nothing but health foods.’
‘I would, but they smell so awful.’ Franklin lay back, nose in the glass of whisky, gazing at the darkened skyline outside.
A quarter of a mile away, gleaming out above the roof of the neighbourhood supermarket, were the five red beacon lights. Now and then, as the headlamps of the Spot Bargainers swung up across the face of the building, he could see the massive bulk of the sign clearly silhouetted against the evening sky.
‘Judith!’ He went into the kitchen and took her over to the window. ‘That sign, just behind the supermarket. When did they put it up?’
‘I don’t know.’ Judith peered at him. ‘Why are you so worried, Robert? Isn’t it something to do with the airport?’
Franklin stared at the dark hull of the sign. ‘So everyone probably thinks.’
Carefully he poured his whisky into the sink.
After parking his car on the supermarket apron at seven o’clock the next morning, Franklin carefully emptied his pockets and stacked the coins in the dashboard locker. The supermarket was already busy with early morning shoppers and the line of thirty turnstiles clicked and slammed. Since the introduction of the ‘24-hour spending day’ the shopping complex was never closed. The bulk of the shoppers were discount buyers, housewives contracted to make huge volume purchases of food, clothing and appliances against substantial overall price cuts, and forced to drive around all day from supermarket to supermarket, frantically trying to keep pace with their purchase schedules and grappling with the added incentives inserted to keep the schemes alive.
Many of the women had teamed up, and as Franklin walked over to the entrance a pack of them charged towards their cars, stuffing their pay slips into their bags and shouting at each other. A moment later their cars roared off in a convoy to the next marketing zone.
A large neon sign over the entrance listed the latest discount – a mere five per cent – calculated on the volume of turnover. The highest discounts, sometimes up to twenty-five per cent, were earned in the housing estates where junior white-collar workers lived. There, spending had a strong social incentive, and the desire to be the highest spender in the neighbourhood was given moral reinforcement by the system of listing all the names and their accumulating cash totals on a huge electric sign in the supermarket foyers. The higher the spender, the greater his contribution to the discounts enjoyed by others. The lowest spenders were regarded as social criminals, free-riding on the backs of others.
Luckily this system had yet to be adopted in Franklin’s neighbourhood – not because the Professional men and their wives were able to exercise more discretion, but because their higher incomes allowed them to contract into more expensive discount schemes operated by the big department stores in the city.
Ten yards from the entrance Franklin paused, looking up at the huge metal sign mounted in an enclosure at the edge of the car park. Unlike the other signs and hoardings that proliferated everywhere, no attempt had been made to decorate it, or disguise the gaunt b
are rectangle of riveted steel mesh. Power lines wound down its sides, and the concrete surface of the car park was crossed by a long scar where a cable had been sunk.
Franklin strolled along. Fifty feet from the sign he stopped and turned, realizing that he would be late for the hospital and needed a new carton of cigarettes. A dim but powerful humming emanated from the transformers below the sign, fading as he retraced his steps to the supermarket.
Going over to the automats in the foyer, he felt for his change, then whistled sharply when he remembered why he had deliberately emptied his pockets.
‘Hathaway!’ he said, loudly enough for two shoppers to stare at him. Reluctant to look directly at the sign, he watched its reflection in one of the glass door-panes, so that any subliminal message would be reversed.
Almost certainly he had received two distinct signals – ‘Keep Away’ and ‘Buy Cigarettes’. The people who normally parked their cars along the perimeter of the apron were avoiding the area under the enclosure, the cars describing a loose semi-circle fifty feet around it.
He turned to the janitor sweeping out the foyer. ‘What’s that sign for?’
The man leaned on his broom, gazing dully at the sign. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Must be something to do with the airport.’ He had a fresh cigarette in his mouth, but his right hand reached to his hip pocket and pulled out a pack. He drummed the second cigarette absently on his thumbnail as Franklin walked away.
Everyone entering the supermarket was buying cigarettes.
Cruising quietly along the 40 m.p.h. lane, Franklin began to take a closer interest in the landscape around him. Usually he was either too tired or too preoccupied to do more than think about his driving, but now he examined the expressway methodically, scanning the roadside cafés for any smaller versions of the new signs. A host of neon displays covered the doorways and windows, but most of them seemed innocuous, and he turned his attention to the larger billboards erected along the open stretches of the expressway. Many of these were as high as four-storey houses, elaborate three-dimensional devices in which giant housewives with electric eyes and teeth jerked and postured around their ideal kitchens, neon flashes exploding from their smiles.
The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard Page 61
