J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

'I fell over. Zander was very drunk. He thinks he has serious problems at Eden-Olympia.'

'They want him out. He knows where the bodies are buried, and they've seen him sharpening his spade. What was he doing here?'

'Alain set up one of his little games. He didn't tell me Zander was going to play.'

'What happened?'

'They pushed him into the bedroom and locked the door.'

'Where were you?'

'In the bed.' Jane shrugged inside the dressing gown. 'He was too drunk.'

I sat on the floor and touched her bruised cheek. 'Jane, we should leave.'

'Now?' She gripped her bag, as if holding tight to a lifebelt. 'Can't leave, Paul. Taken my medicine.'

'All this diamorphine. You'll kill yourself.'

'I'm fine.' Jane squeezed my hand, the doctor reassuring an anxious relative. 'I know how much to take. That's what medical school is really for. All the doctors at the clinic need help to relax…'

'Let's pack tonight and set off for London. We can be in Lyons by morning. Jane, we've spent too long in Eden-Olympia.'

'I'll stay.' She spoke in a sleepy but firm voice. 'I'm really happy here. Aren't you? Talk to Wilder.'

'I have. He's downstairs, watching his pornographic films.'

'Lucky man. I have to cope with too much Belgian angst. Alain and Simone are quite prudish, in their own way.'

'They're degrading you.'

'I know. That's why I became a hippie, to see if I could cope with myself. Then all those caftans and dirty feet were a bit of a bore, so I turned into a doctor.'

'You kept the dirty feet.'

'And you still fell in love with me. I didn't wash for weeks. Now I have clean feet and I'm turning into a slut again. But I do my job and it doesn't matter.' Tired of me, she leaned her cheek against the tiled wall. 'Go, Paul. Just go… fly back to London.'

Fireworks leapt into the night sky, ruby and turquoise umbrellas that formed huge cupolas over Super-Cannes, canopies fit for a caliph's throne. Like a hashish dream, they faded and rejoined the dark. Along the Croisette the flicker of flashbulbs marked the end of another premiere, and headlights glowed through the palm fronds as a motorcade left the Palais des Festivals.

Forgotten above the crowds, the samurai on the roof of the Noga Hilton gestured with his sword at the beach restaurants, where the studio parties were in full swing.

I took a flute of champagne from a cruising waiter, and thought of Jane, asleep against the bidet in the fourth-floor suite. Despite my knee, I was strong enough to carry her to a taxi, pack her into the Jaguar and set off northwards with our passports. But once again I had hesitated, just as I had postponed my decision to report Wilder Penrose to the police. In part I resented Jane for no longer needing me. I knew that she would leave me at the first service station on the Paris autoroute and hitch a lift to Cannes without a backward glance. If anyone needed me now, it was Penrose and his faltering dream of social madness, a larger version of that plane crash from whose wreckage, as Jane had said, I had yet to free myself.

The band had turned up its amplifiers, filling the air with immense blocks of reverberating sound. The social stratification of the guests had at last collapsed. In a new-style peasants' revolt, the lawyers, civil servants and police officials had climbed the steps to the middle terrace, overwhelming the actors and film agents. As if expecting the worst, the bankers and producers on the upper terrace stood with their backs to the Villa Grimaldi, an ancien régime faced with the revolution it most feared, a rebellion of its indentured professional castes.

Frances Baring and Zander were alone on the lower terrace, dancing together by the swimming pool. Zander held his jacket like a matador's cape, urging Frances to lunge at him. Playfully, she let him chase her around the pool, watched by Halder, who sat on the diving board, his dark figure almost invisible against the night.

Seeing me, Frances waved her purse. She whispered something to Zander, ducked beneath his groping hands and ran from the pool. She embraced me, reeking of Zander's cologne.

'Paul… don't ever try dancing with a secret policeman. I'm probably pregnant. Do you mind if we go?'

'We'll leave now.' I was glad to see her, but turned to face Zander, who was searching for the sleeves of his dinner jacket.

'Just give me a moment.'

'What is it? Paul?'

'I need a word with Zander.' I flexed my shoulders. 'He's about to be the first policeman I've ever punched.'

'Why?' Frances held my arm. 'I was joking. You sound like a Victorian father. He scarcely touched me.'

'He touched Jane.' I waited while Zander strolled towards us, smiling with all his corrupt charm, as if our real evening together was about to begin. ' Frances, wait here… it won't take long.'

'Paul!' She shouted above the music, shaking her head when Halder caught up with the security chief. 'I'm too tired to watch you three brawling.'

'Right…' I saw Halder raise a slim hand in warning. I could deal with Zander, but Halder would be too fast for me. 'We'll go – I'll talk to Zander another time…'

'Is Jane all right?' Frances steered me down the path towards the car park. 'What happened to her?'

'Nothing. Zander came on a little too heavily.'

'I'm sorry.' Frances handed her ticket to the valet-parkers, and then gripped my arms. 'Forget about Zander. He doesn't matter. None of it matters.'

'That's what Jane said. I almost believe it…'

We moved down the drive towards the gates, queueing behind the Saudi ambassador's Cadillac. Trying not to think of Zander, I realized that once again I had yielded to the greater status quo that was Eden-Olympia. The business park set its own rules, and had effectively switched off our emotions. Violence and aggression were only allowed within the therapeutic regime administered by Wilder Penrose, like rationed doses of a rare and dangerous medicine.

Yet a brawl around the swimming pool of the Villa Grimaldi, in full view of the assembled judges and police chiefs, with Halder lightly hysterical and Zander wallowing in the deep end, would have been a breakthrough of almost surrealist proportions, a genuine lunge for freedom. I was tempted to tell Frances to turn back.

'Paul…' She tapped my injured knee, waking me from my reverie. 'Look up there…'

She pointed across the landscaped lawns to the conservatory entrance of the Villa Grimaldi, where we had parked after the Cardin Foundation robbery. Two immaculate black Mercedes straddled the flowerbeds, as if delivered straight from a showroom. Behind them was a commercial ambulance with curtained windows, its red-cross light switched off, the driver and his paramedic asleep in the front seat.

Frances fumbled with the headlight switch, trying to read the ambulance's numberplate.

' Toulon…' She seemed thrown by this. 'I told you they'd leased a lot of cars. Why bring an ambulance from Toulon?'

'Watch the Cadillac…' I held the wheel, avoiding the Saudi bumper. 'The ambulance is here for the party. Those elderly bankers have to be kept alive – as long as there's a pulse, the money flows.'

Frances stalled the engine, and clumsily restarted it. 'There's something on tonight, a ratissage…'

'Penrose would have told me. He's keen that I'm involved.'

'Only in the fun ones, the rugger club japes. This one is serious. Was Penrose here? He doesn't usually go to parties.'

' Frances, relax…' I moved her edgy hand from the gear lever, trying to calm her. 'He was upstairs, watching his videos. Nasty stuff – he's starting to prescribe some really violent therapy.'

'Then do something about it. At least six senior judges were at the party.'

'And several police commissaires. I appear in a lot of the video footage – I don't want to spend the next ten years in a Marseilles jail. Besides, they turn a blind eye. They won't admit it, but the French upper class are deeply racist.'