Concrete Island

by J. G. Ballard

  ‘I don’t really live here,’ she answered with a flourish. ‘I’m staying with some … friends, near the Harrow Road. I used to have my own study as a child, I don’t like too many people around me —you probably understand.’

  ‘Jane –’ Maitland cleared his throat. Eating the hard rusks and scalding egg had opened a dozen sore places in his mouth. His gums and lips, the soft palate, stung from the unaccustomed bite. He looked down unsteadily at the young woman, realizing the extent of his dependence on her. Seventy yards away the traffic moved along the motorway, carrying people to their family lunches. Sitting over a primus stove with her in this shabby room for some reason reminded him of the first months of his marriage to Catherine, and their formal meals. Although Catherine had furnished the apartment herself, virtually without consulting Maitland, he had felt the same dependence on her, the same satisfaction at being surrounded by strange furniture. Even their present house had been designed to avoid the hazards of over-familiarity.

  He realized that Jane had spoken the truth about saving his life, and felt a sudden debt to her. He was puzzled by her mixture of warmth and aggression, her swerves from blunt speaking to outright deviousness. More and more, he found himself looking at her body, and was irritated by his own sexual response to the offhand way in which she exploited herself.

  ‘Jane, I want you to call Proctor now. You and he can carry me up the embankment and leave me there. I’ll be able to stop a driver.’

  ‘Of course.’ She looked frankly into his eyes, giving him a small smile. A hand stroked the hair behind her neck. ‘Proctor won’t help you, but I’ll try – you’re awfully heavy, even if you have been starving. Too many expense-account lunches, terrible tax evasion goes on. Still, you’re supposed to get some kind of emotional security from over-eating…’

  ‘Jane!’ Exasperated, Maitland drummed with his blackened fist on the packing case, scattering the paper plates on to the floor. ‘I’m not going to call the police. I won’t report either you or Proctor. I’m grateful to you – if you hadn’t found me I would probably have died here. No one will find out.’

  Jane shrugged, already losing interest in what Maitland was saying. ‘People will come…’

  ‘They won’t! The breakdown men who tow my car away won’t give a damn about anything here. The last three days have proved that to me a hundred times over.’

  ‘Is your car worth a lot of money?’

  ‘No – it’s a write-off. I set fire to it.’

  ‘I know. We watched that. Why not leave it here?’

  ‘The insurance people will want to see it.’ Maitland looked at her sharply. ‘You saw the fire? Good God, why didn’t you help me then?’

  ‘We didn’t know who you were. How much did the car cost?’

  Maitland gazed into her open and childlike face, with its expression of naïve corruption.

  ‘Is that it? Is that why you’re in no hurry to see me go?’ He put a hand reassuringly on her shoulder, holding it there when she tried to push it away. ‘Jane, listen to me. If you want money I’ll give it to you. Now, how much do you want?’

  Her question was as matter-of-fact as a bored cashier’s. ‘Have you got any money?’

  ‘Yes, I have – in the bank. There’s my wallet in the car, with about thirty pounds in it. You’ve got the keys, get there before Proctor does. You look fast enough on your feet.’

  Ignoring his hostility, she reached into her handbag. After a pause she took out the oil-stained wallet. She tossed it on to the bed beside Maitland.

  ‘It’s all there – count it. Go on! Count it!’

  Maitland opened the wallet and glanced at the bundle of damp notes. Calming himself, he started again.

  ‘Jane, I can help you. What do you want?’

  ‘Nothing from you.’ She had found a piece of gum and was chewing on it aggressively. ‘You’re the one who needs help. You were screwed up by being on your own too much. Let’s face it, you’re not really unhappy with your wife. You like that cool scene.’

  Maitland waited for her to finish. ‘All right, maybe I do. Then help me get away from here.’

  She stood in front of him, blocking his path to the door, eyes furious.

  ‘You’re making these assumptions all the time! No one owes you anything, so stop all this want, want, want! You crashed your car because you drove too fast, now you’re complaining about it like a child. We only found you last night…’

  Maitland avoided her fierce gaze, and pulled himself along the wall to the doorway. This deranged young woman needed someone to be angry with – the old tramp was too dim, but he himself, starving and half-crippled by a broken leg, made the perfect target. The first show of gratitude was enough to set her going …

  As he passed her she stepped forward and took his arm. She slipped it around her small shoulders. Like a dance-hall instructress leading a helpless novice, she steered him towards the stairs.

  Maitland stepped into the bright sunlight. The long grass seethed around his legs, greeting him like an affectionate dog. Fed by the spring rain, the grass was over four feet deep, reaching to Maitland’s chest. He leaned unsteadily aginst the young woman. The high causeway of the overpass spanned the air a hundred yards to the east, and he could see the concrete caisson on which he had scrawled his messages. The island seemed larger and more contoured, a labyrinth of dips and hollows. The vegetation was wild and lush, as if the island was moving back in time to an earlier and more violent period.

  ‘The messages I wrote – did you wipe them off?’

  ‘Proctor did. He never learned to read and write. He hates words of any kind.’

  ‘And the wooden trestles?’ Maitland felt no resentment towards either Proctor or the young woman.

  ‘He straightened them – right after the crash, while you were still stunned in the car.’

  She supported him, standing against his shoulder, one hand pressed against his stomach. The scent of her warm body contrasted with the smell of the grass and the automobile exhaust gases. Maitland sat down on a truck tyre lying on the ground. He gazed at the high wall of the motorway embankment. The newly seeded grass was growing more densely on the surface. Soon it would hide all traces of his accident, the deep ruts left by the tyres of his car, the confused marks of his first struggles to climb the embankment. Maitland felt a brief moment of regret that he was leaving the island. He would have liked to preserve it for ever, so that he could bring Catherine and his friends to see this place of ordeal.

  ‘Jane…’

  The young woman had gone. Twenty yards away, her strong head and shoulders moved above the grass as she strode towards the air raid shelters.

  13 The fire signal

  ‘JANE! Come here … Jane!

  His weak voice, almost a scold, faded into the seething grass. Maitland stood up and swung himself after her, hopping on his left leg. Choking with anger, he leaned against the shuttered pay-box. As he calmed himself he massaged his stomach, feeling the hard edge of his rib cage. At least he had received some food from the girl.

  Fifteen feet from him, on the roof of a ruined outhouse, was a rusty metal pipe, one end bend into a crude handle. The crutch! Maitland hobbled across the stony ground, dragging his injured leg after him. His long arms hauled his body over the broken brickwork of the outhouse. He reached up and seized the exhaust pipe.

  Sitting with it in his hands, he caught his breath. He waved the crutch at the passing cars, glad to feel again the polished plates of rust, familiar hand-holds of survival. This battered piece of tubing was his first tool – and weapon, he reflected, thinking of Proctor. The tramp had not yet put in an appearance, but Maitland scanned the grass and nettle banks, certain that he was lurking somewhere in the undergrowth.

  His confidence returning, Maitland climbed down from the roof of the outhouse. He steadied himself on the crutch, standing upright again. His trousers hung in rags from the waistband, but he felt strong and determined. When he pressed his skull he co
uld feel barbs of pain at the loosened sutures. The concussion and fever had cleared, leaving him with no more than a light continuous headache.

  Maitland looked up at the motorway embankments. He knew that he was probably strong enough to climb the earth slopes, but Proctor would be watching him, waiting for Maitland to make a move. Another physical confrontation with the tramp would set him back several days. Somehow he must get the girl to help him. She alone had any authority over Proctor.

  Maitland swung himself back to the ruined cinema. Pressing through the grass, he reached the stairwell and lowered his injured leg down the steps to the basement room.

  He sat on the bed in the half-light, breaking the rusks in his hands. The child’s food cut his mouth, and he chewed carefully on the sharp spurs of sweet toast. He reached out with the crutch and pulled the girl’s suitcase towards him. He searched through the dresses and underwear, thinking that she might, conceivably, own some small weapon.

  At the bottom of the case, in the debris of make-up tubes, hairpins and used tissues, was a packet of fading snapshots. Curious about her background, Maitland spread the photographs out on the bed. One showed a strong-faced adolescent girl, clearly Jane, standing protectively beside a faded middle-aged woman with glazed eyes on the frayed lawn of a small sanatorium. In another she was visiting a fairground, arm-in-arm with a heavyset man twenty years older than herself. Maitland assumed that the man was her father, but a wedding photograph showed Jane, proudly six months pregnant, standing in a church beside the man, the fey-looking mother hovering in the background like a deranged ghost.

  A second man appeared in the series, a dapper figure of about fifty in an old but well-made suit, posed beside a white Bentley in the drive of a large Victorian house. Her father, Maitland decided, or perhaps another middle-aged lover. What had happened to the child?

  Maitland gathered the photographs together and put them back into the case. From an empty tissue-box he took out a brown paper bag. Inside it were the materials of a pot-smoker’s kit – scraps of burnt silver foil, detached filter stubs, loose tobacco from broken cigarettes, a small block of hashish, cigarette papers and a roller, and a box of matches.

  Replacing the paper bag, Maitland weighed the matchbox in his hand. His eyes moved swiftly around the room. From the packing case he pulled out the paraffin stove. He swirled the contents in the half-light, listening to the soft liquid sound.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Maitland hobbled on the crutch towards the ruined outhouse. The red blanket was draped over one shoulder, and in his free hand he carried the paraffin stove. He pulled himself on to the roof and sat down on the shallow tiled slope, arranging the stove and blanket beside him. After making certain that neither Proctor nor the young woman was approaching, he tied a corner of the blanket to the crutch, and soaked the loose end of the woollen fabric in the paraffin from the stove.

  Along the motorway the flow of Sunday afternoon traffic was intermittent. Maitland watched, matchbox in hand, controlling his eagerness. A line of saloon cars appeared, hemmed in behind an airline coach and a fuel tanker moving abreast through the overpass tunnel.

  Maitland struck two of the matches and lit the blanket. The warm paraffin ignited with a soft purr, the low flames caressing the worn fabric. Black smoke lifted into the air. Maitland stood up, balancing on one leg, and began to semaphore with the burning blanket. He choked on a billow of acrid smoke and sat down, lifted himself up again and waved the blanket to and fro.

  As he expected, Proctor and the young woman soon appeared on the scene. The tramp moved through the grass in a low crouch, like some wary beast, his scarred hands parting the blades. His crafty but stupid eyes were fixed on Maitland as if he were a trapper’s quarry ready to be staked and skinned. By contrast, Jane Sheppard strolled sedately along the uneven ground, as if she had no interest in Maitland’s attempt to escape.

  ‘I thought you two would turn up!’ Maitland shouted. ‘Right, Proctor?’

  He climbed down from the roof of the outhouse and waved the burning blanket in Proctor’s face, making the tramp grunt and curse. Maitland lunged forward at him, choking on the smoke, dropped to one knee and picked up the paraffin stove. As Proctor snatched at the blanket, tearing away a ragged square of burning wool, Maitland dashed the stove on to the ground and swung the blanket through the spilt liquid.

  Moving on all fours, Proctor circled Maitland cautiously. The young woman reached the outhouse, dividing the grass with her small hands. Waving away the smoke in her face, she shouted at Proctor:

  ‘Put it out! Never mind him! They’ll see the smoke!’

  The charred blanket fell from the end of the crutch. Maitland scooped up the bundle of smoking rags, but Proctor lunged forward and snatched the blanket away. He stamped out the flames, kicking the loose soil over the smouldering fibres.

  Maitland leaned weakly on the crutch. He waved at the passing cars, but no one had stopped or even noticed this brief episode. He turned to face Proctor. The tramp picked up a worn half-brick and circled Maitland like a boxer. Maitland darted forward, striking Proctor on the shoulder with the crutch. His rising blood pressure pumped against the loose sutures of his skull, but landing this single blow exhilarated him. His left foot slipped on the broken flagstones around the outhouse. He caught his balance and whirled the crutch through the air.

  Crouching down, shoulders below his hips, Proctor evaded the swinging crutch with a ducking movement of his bull-necked head. His white face, like a dried pumpkin, was without expression as his eyes measured Maitland’s long legs and arms.

  ‘Stop it…!’

  Holding her red hair to the nape of her neck like a bored housewife settling a street fracas, Jane Sheppard stepped up to Maitland. She seized the metal pipe, trying to lower it to the ground. ‘For heaven’s sake…’ She gazed at Maitland with her severe child’s eyes. ‘Aren’t you carrying things a little too far?’

  Maitland glanced at the scanty traffic behind him. Proctor was squatting beside a bank of nettles, the half-brick waiting in his hand. They would not risk killing him here in the open. Three derelicts burning an old blanket would attract no attention, but a brutal fight might arouse the interest of an off-duty policeman.

  ‘Proctor,’ Maitland said, pointing the crutch at Jane. ‘She has the keys, you know. The keys to my car.’

  ‘What?’ The young woman glared at Maitland, genuinely outraged. ‘What keys are you talking about?’

  ‘Proctor…’ The tramp was watching. ‘The keys to the trunk of my car. My wallet was in there.’

  ‘That’s nonsense.’ The young woman turned to leave. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  ‘You couldn’t unlock the trunk, could you, Proctor?’ Maitland hobbled forward, the metal crutch held out like a lance. Proctor’s eyes were moving between the girl and Maitland. ‘There was thirty pounds in my wallet.’

  ‘Proctor, ignore him! He’s insane, he’ll call the police.’ Confused and angry, she picked up a large brick and offered it to Proctor.

  ‘The two of you searched me last night, Proctor,’ Maitland said quietly. He was only six feet away from the tramp, well within range of a bull-like rush. ‘You know damn well I haven’t been back to the car – you keep an eye on me all the time.’

  As Jane waited impatiently for Proctor to strike him, Maitland took the wallet from his pocket. He spread the pound notes in a greasy fan in front of Proctor’s face. ‘Who gave it to me, Proctor? Who took it from the car? Here, take one…’

  The tramp stared mesmerized at the pound notes. He turned to look at Jane, standing with more stones in her hands, her face a mask of confused hostility.

  ‘No one’s ever given you anything before, have they, Proctor?’ Maitland said. ‘Go on, take it.’

  As the tramp’s scarred hand closed shyly over the damp banknote Maitland leaned exhausted against the crutch.

  * * *

  Wary of each other, the three of them made their way back to the cinema.
The young woman took Maitland’s arm and helped him through the grass, muttering angrily to herself. Proctor followed them, carrying the tattered blanket and the paraffin stove. His creased face was without expression. As Maitland climbed down the staircase he saw that Proctor was crouching like a nervous animal, unsure whether to assert his dominion over the island.

  14 A taste of poison

  ‘WHAT the hell were you playing at?’ The young woman steered Maitland on to the bed with a hard hand. Her strong body was livid with temper. ‘You’re supposed to be a sick man! I’m not interested in fighting over a wallet. I’ve a damned good mind to pack up and leave you here before you cause any more trouble.’

  ‘He tried to kill me,’ Maitland said. ‘You were egging him on.’

  ‘I wasn’t. Anyway, Proctor’s half blind. That was our blanket you set fire to.’

  ‘Your blanket. I’m not staying here tonight.’

  ‘Nobody wants you to.’ The girl shook her head with unfeigned indignation. ‘That’s real capitalist gratitude! I saved you from Proctor just now, and you tell him about the wallet. That was pretty smart of you, giving him money. It won’t do you any good – Proctor never leaves this place and as far as I know there’s nowhere here to spend it.’

  Maitland shook his head. ‘It wasn’t smart at all. Poor old man, I don’t think he knew how to take it.’

  ‘The only thing he’s been given is other people’s shit. Don’t get any ideas about him being your friend for life. If I left you alone with him you’d soon miss me.’

  Maitland watched her pacing about restlessly. Her repeated references to leaving the island worried him. He was not yet ready to deal with Proctor on his own.

  ‘Jane – sooner or later, you’ll have to help me. My friends and family, the police, my office, they’re bound to find out what happened here. They must be looking for me now.’

  ‘Your family…’ The girl had taken this isolated phrase from its context, putting a peculiar emphasis on it. ‘What about my family?’ She swung away and snapped, ‘I haven’t taken a penny from you – tell them that!’