J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

I thought of Frances 's talk of a special action. But I was too easy a target, a crippled ex-pilot barely able to pump the clutch pedal of his rebored Jaguar, with a wife who was a key member of the clinic.

But the threat nagged at me, as Frances had intended. She was forever playing with my emotions and loyalties, skilfully weaving them through the woof and warp of her own insecurities. Lying in bed beside me at Marina Baie des Anges, surrounded by the vast, curved night, she would watch me as I caressed her thighs, confused by the affection I felt for her. She had never understood the secret rationale of Eden-Olympia, and still assumed that its senior executives were giving in to a repressed taste for thuggery and violence.

'Paul?' She gripped my arm as I stopped to scan the traffic.

'You've seen something?'

I pointed to the central reservation, sealed off by railings to protect the palms from the graffiti artists. A stout man with reddish hair and a bottle nose stood on a patch of grass, staring over the crowd.

'The Riviera News manager…' Frances turned her back.

'Is that -?'

'Meldrum. Do you want to talk to him?'

'No. He's watching us. He knows something is on tonight.'

'There is. You're in the middle of it.' I waited as the Australian jotted something into a notebook. 'He's a reporter, Frances. He's covering his beat.'

'Let's get away. Here, anywhere…' I could feel her shaking as she dragged me up the steps of a short-let apartment building.

The flats had been rented out to small independent producers, and every balcony was draped with banners advertising the company's latest film.

'"Where Teachers Dare"… "Schoolgirl Killers"…' I read out. ' Manila, Phuket, Taiwan. What Meldrum calls one man, a boy and a dog operations…'

'The man holds the camera while the boy… Paul, are you interested?' Frances had calmed herself, and waited for me to reply. 'They're all on video. You sit on a bed and take your pick from six television sets.'

'Group sex, donkeys, water sports? Krafft-Ebing meets Video-8?'

'Please… this isn't Surbiton or Maida Vale. It's all very normal – paunchy men in their fifties having straight sex with fourteen-year-olds. Nothing pervy, thank you.' She took my arm like a helpful tour guide. 'Cahiers du Cinéma says the porn movie is the true future of film.'

'In that case…'

We entered the lobby of the apartment building. Beyond the glass doors was the reception bureau, which resembled the registration office of a paediatric conference. Two middle-aged Asian women with the faces of retired croupiers sat at a baize-draped table, beside a display board covered with room numbers and film stills. Leaflets and advertisement flyers were stacked on a desk, showing a selection of well-groomed and smiling children barely on the edge of puberty, as if illustrating a seminar on rubella or whooping cough.

' Frances… hold on.'

'What is it? Spoilt for choice?'

'This isn't for me.'

'How do you know? Are you sure, Paul?'

'Absolutely. You've had me wrong from the beginning.'

'Fair enough.' She seemed relieved, but added offhandedly: 'David loved it here.'

' Greenwood? That surprises me.'

'It was a laugh. A huge joke. He was curious – in a way, he was working in the same field.'

'A joke?' I watched the Asian women. One of them was trying to smile, and a strange crevice appeared in the area of her mouth, a vent of hell.

I stepped into the Croisette and the safety of the television lights.

A stretch limousine with Eden-Olympia pennants slowed to a halt, held up by the crowd that surged aimlessly along the pavement like a tide swilling to and fro among the piers of a tropical harbour. I could see clearly into the rear seat, where Jane sat between Alain and Simone Delage. All were in evening dress, Jane with Wilder Penrose's mink stole around her shoulders. She was staring at the sea, as if unaware of the film festival and lost in her thoughts of modem links and mass medical screenings. She was tired but all the more beautiful for it, and I felt proud of her and glad to be her husband, despite what Eden-Olympia had done to us.

On the jump seat sat Pascal Zander, eyes fixed on Jane's cleavage.

He was aggressively drunk, gesturing in a coarse way at Alain Delage, who seemed bored by him. Simone held Jane's hand, trying to distract her from Zander, murmuring a commentary on the crowd into her ear.

When the traffic failed to move, Alain spoke to the chauffeur.

The front passenger door opened and Halder stepped from the car, smartly dressed in dinner jacket and black cummerbund, gold cufflinks flashing at his wrists. He noticed me on the steps of the apartment building, and glanced at the display of film titles hanging from the balconies. Barely pausing, he raised his palms to the night air, as if puzzled by my choice of film fare for the evening.

'Paul, who was that?' Frances waved as the limousine moved off. 'I think I saw Halder…'

'Jane with the Delages and Pascal Zander. She seemed very happy.'

'Good. No one died of boredom during the film. They're off to the party at the Villa Grimaldi.'

'Zander looked drunk. Too drunk for a security chief.'

'People worry about him. They say he's going to be replaced. Pity me, Paul. I have to see him at the party. Those roving hands should be up there on the Noga Hilton with the samurai…'

I watched the tail lights of the limousine, and for a moment thought that Jane had turned to look back at me. 'The Villa Grimaldi? I'll come with you.'

'Did they send you a ticket?'

'I'll gate-crash.'

'You haven't seen the gates.' She stared gloomily at my stained shirt and leather sandals. 'I can get you in, but it's black tie.'

'They'll think I'm one of the security guards.'

'They're dressed like Cary Grant.' She pondered this sartorial impasse, still trying to integrate me into her scheme. 'We'll go back to Marina Baie des Anges. David's old dinner jacket is there. I think you're allowed to borrow it.'

'David's old tux…?' I took her arm. 'Yes, I'd like to wear it. Something tells me it's going to fit…'

Behind us, Marina Baie des Anges wrapped itself into the night, its curved towers enclosing a deeper darkness of sleep, dreams and seconal. We set off towards Antibes on the RN7, the beach of Villeneuve-Loubet to our left. A windsurfer tacked across the waves, watched by his wife and teenage son, sitting on the shingle slope below their parked car. As the sail caught the shifting air it seemed to vanish for a few seconds, then appeared again as if emerging from a defective space-time.

Frowning at the prospect of the Villa Grimaldi party, Frances leaned into the steering wheel, following the BMW's headlamps as they swerved across the steep camber. I lay back in the passenger seat and let the night air sweep across me, carrying away the last musty scents of Greenwood 's dinner jacket.

The dead man's tuxedo was a tight squeeze, the seams straining against my armpits. Frances had taken the suit from the wardrobe in her bedroom, holding the garment to her shoulders and reluctant to share it with me. She sat on the bed and watched while I smoothed the bruised lapels. A scent of past time clung to the fabric, memories of medical society dinners in London, cigar smoke and long-forgotten aftershave that rose from the worn silk lining.

Yet I felt surprisingly comfortable in the dead doctor's hand-me- down. Gazing at myself in the wardrobe mirror, I sensed that I had become Greenwood and assumed his role. Frances was almost deferential, aware that through me her former lover had returned to her bedroom.

With one of her white yachting shirts and a black tie fashioned from a crepe hatband, I passed muster. We were leaving the flat when I noticed my leather sandals.