Super-Cannes

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‘Sorry. Better things to do.’

‘Interesting …’ Penrose leaned forward, so close to Jane that he seemed to be sniffing her neck. ‘Tell me more.’

‘You know …’ Straight-faced, Jane explained: ‘Wife-swapping, the latest designer amphetamines, kiddy porn. What else do we like, Paul?’

Penrose slumped back, chuckling good-humouredly. I noticed that he was forever glancing at the empty seat beside him. There was a fourth passenger in the car, the shade of a doctor defeated by the mirror-walled office buildings and manicured running tracks. I assumed that Greenwood had suffered a catastrophic cerebral accident, but one which probably owed nothing to Eden-Olympia.

Beyond the apartments was a shopping mall, a roofed-in plaza of boutiques, patisseries and beauty salons. Lines of supermarket trollies waited in the sun for customers who only came out after dark. Undismayed, Penrose gestured at the deserted checkouts.

‘Grasse and Le Cannet aren’t far away, but you’ll find all this handy. There’s everything you need, Jane – sports equipment, video-rentals, the New York Review of Books …’

‘No teleshopping?’

‘There is. But people like to browse among the basil. Shopping is the last folkloric ritual that can help to build a community, along with traffic jams and airport queues. Eden-Olympia has its own TV station – local news, supermarket best buys …’

‘Adult movies?’

Jane at last seemed interested, but Penrose was no longer listening. He had noticed a trio of Senegalese trinket salesmen wandering through the deserted café tables, gaudy robes blanched by the sun. Their dark faces, among the blackest of black Africa, had a silvered polish, as if a local biotechnology firm had reworked their genes into the age of e-mail and the intelsat. By some mix of guile and luck they had slipped past the guards at the gate, only to find themselves rattling their bangles in an empty world.

When we stopped, pointlessly, at a traffic light Penrose took out his mobile phone and pretended to speak into it. He stared aggressively at the salesmen, but the leader of the trio, an affable, older man, ignored the psychiatrist and swung his bracelets at Jane, treating her to a patient smile.

I was tempted to buy something, if only to irritate Penrose, but the lights changed.

‘What about crime?’ I asked. ‘It looks as if security might be a problem.’

‘Security is first class. Or should be.’ Penrose straightened the lapels of his jacket, ruffled by his involuntary show of temper. ‘We have our own police force. Very discreet and effective, except when you need them. These gewgaw men get in anywhere. Somehow they’ve bypassed the idea of progress. Dig a hundred-foot moat around the Montparnasse tower and they’d be up on the top deck in three minutes.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Not in the way you mean. Though it’s irritating to be reminded of the contingent world.’

‘A drifting leaf? A passing rain-shower? Bird shit on the sleeve?’

‘That sort of thing.’ Penrose smoothed himself down, hands pressing his burly chest. ‘There’s nothing racist, by the way. We’re truly multinational – Americans, French, Japanese. Even Russians and east Europeans.’

‘Black Africa?’

‘At the senior level. We’re a melting pot, as the Riviera always has been. The solvent now is talent, not wealth or glamour. Forget about crime. The important thing is that the residents of Eden-Olympia think they’re policing themselves.’

‘They aren’t, but the illusion pays off?’

‘Exactly.’ Penrose slapped my shoulder in a show of joviality. ‘Paul, I can see you’re going to be happy here.’

The road climbed the thickly wooded slopes to the north-east of the business park, cutting off our view of Cannes and the distant sea. We stopped at an unmanned security barrier, and Penrose tapped a three-digit number into the entry panel. The white metal trellis rose noiselessly, admitting us to an enclave of architect-designed houses, our home for the next six months. I peered through the wrought-iron gates at silent tennis courts and swimming pools waiting for their owners to return. Over the immaculate gardens hung the air of well-bred catatonia that only money can buy.

‘The medical staff…?’ Jane lowered her head, a little daunted by the imposing avenues. ‘They’re all here?’

‘Only you and Professor Walter, our cardiovascular chief. Call it enlightened self-interest. It’s always reassuring to know that a good heart man and a paediatrician are nearby, in case your wife has an angina attack or your child chokes on a rusk.’

‘And you?’ I asked. ‘Who copes with sudden depressions?’

‘They can wait till morning. I’m in the annexe on the other side of the hill. North facing, a kind of shadow world for the less important.’ Penrose beamed to himself, happy to speak frankly. ‘The company barons who decide our pecking order feel they’re beyond the need of psychiatric attention.’

‘Are they?’

‘For the time being. But I’m working on it.’ Penrose sat up and pointed through the plane trees. ‘Slow down, Jane. You’re almost home. From now on you’re living in a suburb of paradise …’