Rushing to Paradise by J.G. Ballard

Author:J.G. Ballard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 1994-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

PART II

10

The Attack on the Beach

The attack was about to begin. Parting the ferns with a cautious hand, Neil crept towards the trees above the beach as the other members of the raiding party took up their positions. Led by Carline, they had crawled down the hillside through the undergrowth, unnoticed by the sunbathing hippies, and were now ready to launch their punitive assault.

Twenty feet away, Professor Saito and his wife waited in a shallow gulley beside the stream, a camouflage of forest debris taped to their foreheads, hands clasping the bamboo spears they had freshly sharpened after breakfast. Neil was still surprised by their new-found taste for action. For a few hours they ceased to be dedicated botanists and reverted to the spirit of the Japanese infantrymen who tenaciously defended the Pacific atolls during the Second World War, waiting above the beaches for the American marines to wade ashore. The Saitos were eager to defend Saint-Esprit against waves of hippies, hotel developers and documentary makers, and their casualty rate might be equally heavy, to judge by their grim expressions.

Bored by the long wait, Neil pulled a parasol of dead palm fronds over his head, converting his shallow lair into a hunter’s blind. Lying on his back, he raised his wooden club and aimed it at the largest of the albatross soaring above the wreck of the Dugong. He was about to squeeze his trigger finger when the blind collapsed in a flurry of dirt and leaves, and a sweating figure flung herself onto the ground beside him.

“Neil, what are you doing? This isn’t a game!”

Monique crawled into the space under the parasol, her face streaked with mud. As usual on these raiding parties, she had lost herself in the undergrowth and emerged with a spitting temper.

“Where are the Saitos? Neil! Have you been playing with yourself? Dr Barbara told me to watch you.”

She stared short-sightedly at the surrounding ferns, like a harassed hostess who had mislaid her passengers. Even on Saint-Esprit her world seemed to be populated by rowdy tourists refusing to wear their seat-belts, unruly teenagers such as Neil, or misfits who were potential hijackers. They hovered in the aisles of her mind, ignoring her demonstrations of the oxygen mask and life-jacket.

“The Saitos – are they here yet?”

“Monique, they’ve been here for half an hour.” Neil pointed to the Japanese couple in the gulley. “We can all have a rest now.”

“There’s no time to rest.” Monique crawled forward, her strong shoulders and buttocks pressed against him. Neil looked at the dark freckles on her neck and the scar on the lobe of her left ear – a love-bite, perhaps, left by some handsome co-pilot in a stop-over hotel? More likely, he decided, she had been nuzzled by one of her over-eager bears. Yet her fierce, unplucked brows guarded surprisingly delicate eyelashes. The heady scent of her body, the dark curves of her neglected breasts, had transformed the blind into an arbour of adolescent lust.

She thumped his head with her elbow.

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