Millennium People
As he searches for the truth behind the Heathrow bomb that killed his ex-wife, psychologist David Markham infiltrates a shadowy protest group based in the comfortable Chelsea Marina.Led by a charismatic doctor, it aims to rouse the docile middle classes and to free them from the burdens of civic responsibility. Soon Markham is swept up in a campaign that spirals out of control – as the cornerstones of middle England become targets and growing panic grips the capital.
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Millennium People
J.G. Ballard
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Flamingo in 2003
Copyright © J. G. Ballard 2003
J. G. Ballard asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN:9780006551614
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2010 ISBN: 9780007371907
Version: 2017-01-04
Contents
1 The Rebellion at Chelsea Marina
10 Appointment with a Revolution
13 A Neuroscientist Looks at God
14 From Guildford to Terminal 2
19 The Siege of Broadcasting House
24 The Defence of Grosvenor Place
A SMALL REVOLUTION was taking place, so modest and well behaved that almost no one had noticed. Like a visitor to an abandoned film set, I stood by the entrance to Chelsea Marina and listened to the morning traffic in the King’s Road, a reassuring medley of car stereos and ambulance sirens. Beyond the gatehouse were the streets of the deserted estate, an apocalyptic vision deprived of its soundtrack. Protest banners sagged from the balconies, and I counted a dozen overturned cars and at least two burnt-out houses.
Yet none of the shoppers walking past me showed the slightest concern. Another Chelsea party had run out of control, though the guests were too drunk to realize it. And, in a way, this was true. Most of the rebels, and even a few of the ringleaders, never grasped what was happening in this comfortable enclave. But then these likeable and over-educated revolutionaries were rebelling against themselves.
Even I, David Markham, a trained psychologist infiltrated into Chelsea Marina as a police spy – a deception I was the last to discover – failed to see what was going on. But I was distracted by my unusual friendship with Richard Gould, the hard-working paediatrician who was the leader of the revolt – the Doctor Moreau of the Chelsea set, as our shared lover, Kay Churchill, christened him. Soon after our first meeting, Richard lost interest in Chelsea Marina and moved on to a far more radical revolution, which he knew was closer to my heart.
I approached the crime-scene tapes that closed the King’s Road entrance to the estate, and showed my pass to the two policemen waiting for the Home Secretary’s arrival. The driver of a florist’s delivery van was arguing with them, pointing to a large display of arum lilies on the seat beside him. I guessed that a local resident, some happily married solicitor or account executive, had been too busy with the revolution to cancel his wife’s birthday bouquet.
The constables were unmoved, refusing to let the driver into the estate. They sensed that something deeply suspect had taken place in this once law-abiding community, an event that required the presence of a cabinet minister and his retinue of worthies. The visitors – Home Office advisers, concerned churchmen, senior social workers and pyschologists, including myself – would begin their tour at noon, in an hour’s time. No armed police would guard us, on the safe assumption that a rebellious middle class was too well mannered to pose a physical threat. But, as I knew all too well, that was the threat.
Appearances proved nothing and everything. The policemen waved me through, barely glancing at my pass. Having been harangued for weeks by articulate mothers in the scruffiest jeans, they knew that my fashionable haircut, courtesy of BBC make-up, dove-grey suit and sunbed tan ruled me out as a native of Chelsea Marina. The residents would die rather than resemble a minor television guru, a renegade intellectual from the dubious world of video-conferencing and airport seminars.
