J. G. Ballard - Having a Wonderful Time

3 July 1985. Hotel Imperial, Playa Inglaterra, Las Palmas

We arrived an hour ago after an amazing flight. For some reason of its own the Gatwick computer assigned us to first-class seats, along with a startled dentist from Bristol, her husband and three children. Richard, as ever fearful of flying, took full advantage of the free champagne and was five miles high before the wheels left the ground. I've marked our balcony on the twenty-seventh floor. It's an extraordinary place, about twenty miles down the coast from Las Palmas, a brand-new resort complex with every entertainment conceivable, all arranged by bedside push-button. I'm just about to dial an hour's water-skiing, followed by Swedish massage and the hairdresser! Diana.

10 July. Hotel Imperial

An unbelievable week! I've never crammed so much excitement into a few days - tennis, scuba-diving, water-skiing, rounds of cocktail parties. Every evening a group of us heads for the boItes and cabarets along the beach, ending up at one or more of the five nightclubs in the hotel. I've hardly seen Richard. The handsome cavalier in the picture is the so-called Beach Counsellor, a highly intelligent ex-public relations man who threw it all in two years ago and has been here ever since. This afternoon he's teaching me to hang-glide. Wish me happy landings! Diana.

17 July. Hotel Imperial

The times of sand are running out. Sitting here on the balcony, watching Richard ski-chute across the bay, it's hard to believe we'll be in Exeter tomorrow. Richard swears the first thing he'll do is book next year's holiday. It really has been an amazing success - heaven knows how they do it at the price, there's talk of a Spanish government subsidy. In part it's the unobtrusive but highly sophisticated organization - not a hint of Butlins, though it's Britishrun and we're all, curiously, from the West Country. Do you realize that Richard and I have been so busy we haven't once bothered to visit Las Palmas? (Late news-flash: Mark Hastings, the Beach Counsellor, has just sent orchids to the room!) I'll tell you all about him tomorrow. Diana.

18 July. Hotel Imperial

Surprise! That computer again. Apparently there's been some muddle at the Gatwick end, our aircraft won't be here until tomorrow at the earliest. Richard is rather worried about not getting to the office today. We blew the last of our traveller's cheques, but luckily the hotel have been marvellous, thanks largely to Mark. Not only will there be no surcharge, but the desk-clerk said they would happily advance us any cash we need. Hey-ho... A slight let-down, all the same. We walked along the beach this afternoon, together for the first time. I hadn't realized how vast this resort complex actually is - it stretches for miles along the coast and half of it's still being built. Everywhere people were coming in on the airport buses from Sheffield and Manchester and Birmingham, within half an hour they're swimming and water-skiing, lounging around the hundreds of pools with their duty-free Camparis. Seeing them from the outside, as it were, it's all rather strange. Diana.

25 July. Hotel Imperial

Still here. The sky's full of aircraft flying in from Gatwick and Heathrow, but none of them, apparently, is ours. Each morning we've waited in the lobby with our suitcases packed, but the airport bus never arrives. After an hour or so the desk-clerk rings through that there's been a postponement and we trudge back to another day by the pool, drinks and water-skiing on the house. For the fist few days it was rather amusing, though Richard was angry and depressed. The company is a major Leyland supplier, and if the axe falls, middle-management is the first to feel it. But the hotel have given us unrestricted credit, and Mark says that as long as we don't go over the top they'll probably never bother to collect. Good news: the company have just cabled Richard telling him not to worry. Apparently hordes of people have been caught the same way. An immense relief - I wanted to phone you, but for days now all the lines have been blocked. Diana.

15 August. Hotel Imperial

Three more weeks! Hysterical laughter in paradise... the English papers flown in here are full of it, no doubt you've heard that there's going to be a government inquiry. Apparently, instead of flying people back from the Canaries the airlines have been sending their planes on to the Caribbean to pick up the American holiday traffic. So the poor British are stuck here indefinitely. There are literally hundreds of us in the same boat. The amazing thing is that one gets used to it. The hotel people are charm itself, they've pulled out all the stops, organizing extra entertainments of every kind. There's a very political cabaret, and an underwater archaeology team are going to raise a Spanish caravel from the sea floor. To fill in the time I'm joining an amateur theatrical group, we're thinking of putting on The Importance of Being Ernest. Richard takes it all with surprising calm. I wanted to post this from Las Palmas, but there are no buses running, and when we set out on foot Richard and I lost ourselves in a maze of building sites. Diana.

5 September. Hotel Imperial

No news yet. Time moves like a dream. Every morning a crowd of bewildered people jam the lobby, trying to find news of their flights back. On the whole, everyone's taking it surprisingly well, showing that true British spirit. Most of them, like Richard, are management people in industry, but the firms, thank heavens, have been absolutely marvellous and cabled us all to get back when we can. Richard comments cynically that with present levels of industrial stagnation, and with the Government footing the bill, they're probably glad to see us here. Frankly, I'm too busy with a hundred and one activities to worry - there's a sort of mini-Renaissance of the arts going on. Mixed saunas, cordon bleu classes, encounter groups, the theatre, of course, and marine biology. Incidentally, we never did manage to get into Las Palmas. Richard hired a pedalo yesterday and set off up the coast. Apparently the entire island is being divided into a series of huge self-contained holiday complexes - human reserves, Richard called them. He estimates that there are a million people here already, mostly English working class from the north and midlands. Some of them have apparently been here for a year, living quite happily, though their facilities are nowhere as good as ours. Dress rehearsal tonight. Think of me as Lady Bracknell - it's mortifying that there's no one else quite mature enough to play the part, they're all in their twenties and thirties, but Tony Johnson, the director, an ex-ICI statistician, is being awfully sweet about it. Diana.

6 October. Hotel Imperial just a brief card. There was a crisis this morning when Richard, who's been very moody recently, finally came into collision with the hotel management. When I went into the lobby after my French conversation class a huge crowd had gathered, listening to him rant away at the desk clerks. He was very excited but extremely logical in a mad way, demanding a taxi (there are none here, no one ever goes anywhere) to take him into Las Palmas. Balked, he insisted on being allowed to phone the Governor of the Islands, or the Swiss Consul. Mark and Tony Johnson then arrived with a doctor. There was a nasty struggle for a moment, and then they took him up to our room. I thought he was completely out, but half an hour later, when I left the shower, he'd vanished. I hope he's cooling off somewhere. The hotel management have been awfully good, but it did surprise me that no one tried to intervene. They just watched everything in a glazed way and wandered back to the pool. Sometimes I think they're in no hurry to get home. Diana.

12 November. Hotel Imperial

An extraordinary thing happened today - I saw Richard for the first time since he left. I was out on the beach for my morning jog when there he was, sitting by himself under an umbrella. He looked very tanned and healthy, but much slimmer. He calmly told me a preposterous story about the entire Canaries being developed by the governments of Western Europe, in collusion with the Spanish authorities, as a kind of permanent holiday camp for their unemployables, not just the factory workers but most of the management people too. According to Richard there is a beach being built for the French on the other side of the island, and another for the Germans. And the Canaries are only one of many sites around the Mediterranean and Caribbean. Once there, the holiday-makers will never be allowed to return home, for fear of starting revolutions. I tried to argue with him, but he casually stood up and said he was going to form a resistance group, then strode away along the beach. The trouble is that he's found nothing with which to occupy his mind - I wish he'd join our theatre group, we're now rehearsing Pinter's The Birthday Party. Diana.

10 January 1986. Hotel Imperial

A sad day. I meant to send you a cable, but there's been too much to do. Richard was buried this morning, in the new international cemetery in the hills overlooking the bay. I've marked his place with an X. I'd last seen him two months ago, but I gather he'd been moving around the island, living in the half-constructed hotels and trying unsuccessfully to set up his resistance group. A few days ago he apparently stole an unseaworthy motor-boat and set off for the African coast. His body was washed ashore yesterday on one of the French beaches. Sadly, we'd completely lost touch, though I feel the experience has given me a degree of insight and maturity which I can put to good use when I play Clytemnestra in Tony's new production of Electra. He and Mark Hastings have been pillars of strength. Diana.

3 July 1986. Hotel Imperial

Have I really been here a year? I'm so out of touch with England that I can hardly remember when I last sent a postcard to you. It's been a year of the most wonderful theatre, of parts I would once never have dreamed of playing, and of audiences so loyal that I can hardly bear the thought of leaving them. The hotels are full now, and we play to a packed house every night. There's so much to do here, and everyone is so fulfilled, that I rarely find the time to think of Richard. I very much wish you were here, with Charles and the children - but you probably are, at one of the thousand hotels along the beach. The mails are so erratic, I sometimes think that all my cards to you have never been delivered, but lie unsorted with a million others in the vaults of the shabby post office behind the hotel. Love to all of you. Diana.