Free Kingdom Come by J. G. Ballard

dealt with quickly. My father had been a man who wanted to stay awake.
    I carried my suitcase into the second bedroom, and opened the windows with their view of the Metro-Centre. Its presence was curiously inviting, filled with those treasures I had spent my childhood coveting. Despite our large house and Mercedes, the home my mother made for us was bleak. Very rarely did anything new enter our lives. We made do with an elderly TV set, an electric clock that tried bravely to guess the time, and a central heating system that whined ceaselessly to itself. Shops and department stores were places of magic. I was forever showing my mother advertisements for new toasters and washing machines, hoping that they would ease the strain of existence for her. Even my presents were rationed. A proportion of birthday gifts sent to me by her sister and friends was carefully set aside, locked away for future use, so that I was always outgrowing my gifts.
    Surprisingly, I turned out to be rather spartan as an adult, living in large apartments that I kept almost unfurnished. I worked all day devising ways of selling people a host of consumer goods, but rarely bought anything unless I needed to. Childhood had inoculated me against the consumer world I longed for so eagerly.
    SEARCHING FOR SHEETS and pillowcases in the utility room, I noticed the workstation in the corner with its computer. My father’s emails were still stacking up, messages and fixture lists from local sports clubs that he supported. I scrolled through the details of ice-hockey matches, archery and basketball contests. My father supported a huge number of teams, and must have exhausted himself trailing around from ice rink to football stadium to athletics ground.
    But the books on the nearby shelf were even more of a surprise. Next to the yearbook of a small-arms manufacturer were biographies of Perón, Goering and Mussolini, and a history of Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. I pulled down an illustrated guide to Nazi regalia and the ceremonial uniforms of the Third Reich. The heavy, laminated paper was soft from frequent handling, and I could almost feel my father sitting at this desk and turning the pages as he scanned the illustrations of Reichsmarschalls’ batons and leather SS overcoats.
    A darker scent had crept into the flat. I sat back from the desk and pulled open the metal drawer. There was a clutter of Metro-Centre knick-knacks, loyalty gold cards and season passes, invitations to consumer clubs and sports events. A bulldog clip held a dozen issues of a Metro-Centre newsletter, filled with photographs of sporting club dinners, everyone in their St George’s shirts. The teams looked as smart and disciplined as paramilitary units.
    Present in several of the group portraits was David Cruise, the Metro-Centre cable-channel presenter, with his actor’s handsome but empty face, a suntan like an advertising campaign and a smile that owed nothing to humour. His fleshy jaw made me think of Wernher von Braun posing beside a Redstone rocket in Arizona, Nazi past behind him and the future on hold.
    Was my father a National Front supporter? Sleep would be less easy in the flat than I hoped. I opened the window, trying to let out the unpleasant aura, and noticed a banner hanging from the wall behind the door. This bore the emblem of a local football club, the Brookland Eagles. Embroidered in gold thread, two raptors with grotesquely hooked talons grimaced from the scarlet field.
    My father’s interests had taken him into some threatening arenas. The modest workstation was almost a neo-fascist altar. I paused by the neatly pressed laundry on the ironing board. Lifting one of the shirts, I unfolded the familiar St George’s Cross, armorial eagles stitched to its left shoulder. I held the shirt to my chest, and imagined my elderly father wearing this threatening costume with its screaming eagles, the oldest football hooligan in Brooklands.
    I stared at myself in