High-Rise: A Novel, page 19
He spoke in the reassuring, childlike voice he had used during his hospital training with the duller of his child patients, a tone at variance with the intelligent and bored gaze of the two women in the bed.
‘You’re filling the place with smoke,’ Eleanor told him. ‘Are you sending up signals again?’
‘No . . . it’s the telephone directories. The paper must be made of plastic.’
Alice shook her head wearily. ‘What about Eleanor’s batteries? You promised to find her some. She’s got to start reviewing again.’
‘Yes, I know . . .’ Laing looked down at the blank screen of the portable television set sitting on the floor beside Eleanor. He felt stumped for an answer—despite all his efforts, the last of the batteries had been used.
Eleanor stared at him severely. She had opened the wound on her wrist and was coyly exposing it to the cat watching with interest from the far side of the room. ‘We’ve been discussing whether you should move to another apartment.’
‘What?’ Unsure whether the pantomime had become serious, Laing laughed delightedly, excited all the more when Eleanor refused to let her customary slow smile cross her mouth. The two women lay side by side, so close that they seemed to be merging into each other. At intervals throughout the day he brought them their food, but he was never sure exactly whose bodily needs and functions he was satisfying. They had moved into the same bed for warmth and security, but really, Laing suspected, so that they could synchronize their supervision over him. They knew that they were dependent on Laing. Despite the ‘pantomime’ their behaviour was entirely geared to meeting Laing’s private needs in return for his attention to the business of their physical survival. The exchange suited Laing admirably, just as it suited him to have them in bed together—he was faced with only one set of wheeling demands, one repertory of neurotic games.
He liked to see Eleanor’s old spirit emerge. Both women suffered seriously from malnutrition, and it encouraged him when they were well enough to play their parts in this loosely evolving pantomime, treating him like two governesses in a rich man’s ménage, teasing a wayward and introspective child. At times Laing liked to carry the game to its logical conclusion, and imagine that it was the two women who were in charge, and that they despised him totally. This ultimate role had helped him on one occasion, when a marauding band of women led by Mrs Wilder had entered the apartment. Seeing Laing being abused, and assuming him to be Eleanor’s and Alice’s prisoner, they had left. On the other hand, perhaps they understood all too well what was really taking place.
Whatever the answer, Laing was free for the time being to live within this intimate family circle, the first he had known since his childhood. The situation allowed him ample freedom to explore himself, and the strong element of unpredictability kept everyone alert. Although he might wheedle at their breast he could easily become vicious. The women admired him for this. A substantial number of morphine ampoules were left, and he planned to introduce the two women to this heady elixir. Their addiction would tilt the balance of authority in his direction again, and increase their dependence on him. Ironically, it was here, in the high-rise, that he had found his first patients.
Later, after he had carved the dog and served generous but not excessive portions to the two women, Laing thought about his good fortune as he sat on the balcony with his back to the railing. Above all, now, it no longer mattered how he behaved, what wayward impulses he gave way to, or which perverse pathways he chose to follow. He was sorry that Royal had died, as he owed the architect a debt of gratitude for having helped to design the high-rise and make all this possible. It was strange that Royal had felt any guilt before his death.
Laing waved reassuringly to the two women, who sat on the mattress with the tray across their knees, eating from the same plate. Laing finished the dark, garlic-flavoured meat, and looked up at the face of the high-rise. All the floors were in darkness, and he felt happy at this. His affection for the two women was real, like his pride in keeping them alive, but this in no way interfered with his new-found freedom.
On the whole, life in the high-rise had been kind to him. To an increasing extent, everything was returning to normal. Laing had begun to think again of the medical school. He might well pay a visit to the physiology laboratory the next day, and perhaps take a supervision. First, though, he would clean up. He had noticed two women neighbours sweeping the corridor. It might even be possible to get an elevator working. Perhaps he would take over a second apartment, dismantle the barricades and begin to refurnish it. Laing thought of Eleanor’s threat to banish him. He toyed with the notion, feeling an illicit thrill of pleasure at the prospect. He would have to think of something with which to win their favour again.
However, all this, like the morphine he would give them in increasing doses, was only a beginning, trivial rehearsals for the real excitements to come. Feeling these gather within him, Laing leaned against the railing.
Dusk had settled, and the embers of the fire glowed in the darkness. The silhouette of the large dog on the spit resembled the flying figure of a mutilated man, soaring with immense energy across the night sky, embers glowing with the fire of jewels in his skin.
Laing looked out at the high-rise four hundred yards away. A temporary power failure had occurred, and on the 7th floor all the lights were out. Already torch-beams were moving about in the darkness, as the residents made their first confused attempts to discover where they were. Laing watched them contentedly, ready to welcome them to their new world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When J.G. Ballard passed in April 2009, the reading world lost one if its most prophetic writers. Over the last century, no other modern fiction writer examined the deleterious effects of technology on culture more unerringly than Ballard, and his surreal, yet richly atmospheric prose has had an indelible effect on Western literature.
Born in Shanghai on November 15, 1930, James Graham Ballard wrote such legendary novels as The Drowned World and Cocaine Nights, but he is most well-known for Crash (1973) and his autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun (1984), both of which were made into movies and became box office hits. The author of eighteen novels and twenty short story collections, including The Complete Short Stories of J.G. Ballard, which was published to great acclaim in 2009, Ballard has been praised as “the most original English writer of the last century” (Martin Amis, The Guardian) and “the ideal chronicler of our disturbed modernity” (Jason Cowley, The Observer). That his body of work has remained so fresh and shocking makes him a truly unique literary giant, one whose singular imagination will continue to captivate readers for generations to come.
Further praise for
High-Rise
“Ballard’s finest novel . . . a triumph.”
—The Times (London)
“J.G. Ballard has constructed a parabolic tale . . . reminiscent of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.”
—New York Times
“A modern fable—a commentary on the hideous possibilities of advanced technology and the rat-like nature of trapped human beings. The writing is cool, the observation exact, the idea bold and well-developed; everything seems to demand attention and analysis.”
—Financial Times
“Another eerie glimpse into the future. A fast-moving, spine-tingling fable of the concrete jungle.”
—Daily Express
“High-Rise is about a 40-storey apartment block, and how from innocent beginnings it reduces people to murder, incest and above all a passionate love for chaos. A gripping read, particularly if you like your thrills chilly, bloody and with claims to social relevance.”
—Time Out London
“Harsh and ingenious. . . . High-Rise is an intense and vivid bestiary, which lingers unsettlingly in the mind.”
—Martin Amis, New Statesman
Copyright ©1975 by J. G. Ballard
First published as a Liveright paperback 2012
All rights reserved
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ballard, J. G., 1930–2009.
High-rise / J.G. Ballard.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-87140-402-2 (pbk.)
I. Title.
PR6052.A46H54 2012
823’.914—dc23
2011046886
Liveright Publishing Corporation
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J. G. Ballard, High-Rise: A Novel
