The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1 by J. G. Ballard

Author:J. G. Ballard [Ballard, J. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Literary, Short Stories & Anthologies, Anthologies, Short Stories, Contemporary Fiction, British, Literary Fiction, British & Irish, Single Authors
ISBN: 0007242298
Amazon: B0084WTIMC
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Published: 2001-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

‘Paris Vogue, Neue Frankfurter, Tel Aviv Express – you’ve really been moving.’ She pulled a pack of Del Montes from the breast pocket of the coat, fumbled unfamiliarly with a large brass lighter. ‘First Europe, then Asia, now Africa. You’ll run out of continents soon.’ Hesitating, she volunteered: ‘Carole Sturgeon. Thanks for the lift.’

Gregory nodded, watching the bandage slide around her slim wrist. He wondered which hospital she had sneaked away from. Probably Cairo General, the old-style English uniforms were still worn there. Ten to one the briefcase was packed with some careless salesman’s pharmaceutical samples. ‘Can I ask where you’re going? This is the back end of nowhere.’

The girl shrugged. ‘Just following the road. Cairo, Alex, you know –’ She added: ‘I went to see the pyramids.’ She lay back, rolling slightly against his shoulder. ‘That was wonderful. They’re the oldest things on earth. Remember their boast: “Before Abraham, I was”?’

They hit a dip in the road and Gregory’s licence swung out under the steering column. The girl peered down and read it. ‘Do you mind? It’s a long ride to Tunis. “Charles Gregory, MD –”’ She stopped, repeating his name to herself uncertainly.

Suddenly she remembered. ‘Gregory! Dr Charles Gregory! Weren’t you – Muriel Bortman, the President’s daughter, she drowned herself at Key West, you were sentenced –’ She broke off, staring nervously at the windshield.

‘You’ve got a long memory,’ Gregory said quietly. ‘I didn’t think anyone remembered.’

‘Of course I remember.’ She spoke in a whisper. ‘They were mad what they did to you.’ For the next few minutes she gushed out a long farrago of sympathy, interspersed with disjointed details from her own life. Gregory tried not to listen, clenching the wheel until his knuckles whitened, deliberately forgetting everything as fast as she reminded him.

There was a pause, as he felt it coming, the way it invariably did. ‘Tell me, doctor, I hope you forgive me asking, but since the Mental Freedom laws it’s difficult to get help, one’s got to be so careful – you too, of course …’ She laughed uneasily. ‘What I really mean is –’

Her edginess drained power from Gregory. ‘– you need psychiatric assistance,’ he cut in, pushing the Jaguar up to 95, eyes swinging to the rear mirror again. The road was dead, palms receding endlessly into the night.

The girl choked on her cigarette, the stub between her fingers a damp mess. ‘Well, not me,’ she said lamely. ‘A close friend of mine. She really needs help, believe me, doctor. Her whole feeling for life is gone, nothing seems to mean anything to her any more.’

Brutally, he said: ‘Tell her to look at the pyramids.’

But the girl missed the irony, said quickly: ‘Oh, she has. I just left her in Cairo. I promised I’d try to find someone for her.’ She turned to examine Gregory, put a hand up to her hair. In the blue desert light she reminded him of the madonnas he had seen in the Louvre two days after

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