J. Ballard - Concrete island

His fever had subsided. Maitland picked up the plastic cup on the packing-case, lifted himself on to one elbow and drank the tepid water. He pulled back the blankets and examined his leg. Some wayward healing process had locked the hip joint into its socket, but the swelling and pain had eased. For the first time he was able to touch the bruised flesh.

Maitland sat quietly on the edge of the bed, staring at the Astaire and Rogers poster. He tried to remember if he had ever seen the film, casting his mind back to his adolescence. For several successive years he had devoured almost the whole of Hollywood 's output, sitting alone in the empty circles of huge suburban Odeons. He massaged his bruised chest, realizing that his body was more and more beginning to resemble that of his younger self – the combination of hunger and fever had made him lose at least ten pounds in weight. His broad chest and heavy legs had shed half their muscle.

Maitland slid the injured leg on to the floor and listened to the traffic sounds from the motorway. The certainty that he would soon be leaving the island revived him. He had now been marooned on this triangle of waste ground for almost four days. He knew that he had begun to forget his wife and son, Helen Fairfax and his partners – together they had moved back into the dimmer light at the rear of his mind, their places taken by the urgencies of food, shelter, his injured leg and, above all, the need to dominate the patch of ground immediately around him. His effective horizon had shrunk to little more than ten feet away. Even though he would escape in under an hour – however reluctantly, the young woman and Proctor would help him up the embankment -the prospect obsessed him like some decade-long quest.

'Damned leg… '

Inside the packing-case were a primus stove and an unwashed saucepan. Maitland scraped the brown crust of dry rice from the pan, hungrily forcing the hard grains into his bruised mouth. A thick beard covered his face -he looked down at the grimy dress-shirt, the blackened trousers slit from the right knee to the waistband. Yet this collection of tatters less and less resembled an eccentric costume.

Leaning against the wall, Maitland swung himself around the room. The Guevara poster tore in his hands and hung swaying from a corner pin. He reached the doorway, turned himself on his good leg and sat on the lid of a fifty-gallon drum that served as a water butt.

A dozen steps led up to the bright sunlight. From the steep angle of the sun Maitland guessed that it was about eleven thirty. The quiet Sunday-morning traffic moved along the motorway – within half an hour or so some good-humoured family out for a day's drive would be startled by a haggard man in ragged evening dress staggering across the road in front of them. The longest hangover in the world.

Maitland moved up the steps towards the sunlight. When he reached the top he lifted his head cautiously, peering through the grass and nettles that surrounded the stairwell.

He was about to step on to the island when he heard a familiar phlegmy breathing. Maitland crouched down, and eased himself across the ground to the derelict pay-box. Lying on his side, he reached out and parted a bank of nettles with his arms.

Twenty feet away, in a small hollow surrounded by the nettles and high grass, Proctor was performing a set of gymnastic exercises. Blowing hard through his mouth, he stood with his bare feet together, strong shoulders braced as he raised his arms in front of himself. A skipping rope and the steel-capped boots were parked on the well-worn ground of this private recreation yard. He was dressed in the ragged remains of the circus leotard which Maitland had seen hanging from a chair in the air-raid shelter. The silver strips showed off his powerful shoulders, and revealed the livid scar that ran like a lightning bolt from the back of his right ear down his neck to his shoulder, the residue of some appalling act of violence.

After preparing himself, an elaborate ritual of puffing and panting like the start-up of an old gas engine, Proctor took a short step forward and leapt into a somersault.

His powerful body whirled in the air. He struck the ground heavily, barely holding his balance, legs bent and arms wavering at his sides. Delighted by this triumph, he stamped happily in his bare feet.

Maitland waited as Proctor prepared for his next feat. From the careful build-up, the repeated pacing about and measuring of himself against the air, it was clear that this next acrobatic turn represented his real test. Proctor concentrated all his energies. He marked out the ground, kicking away the loose stones like a large animal searching for the kindest terrain. When he finally leaped again into the air, attempting a backward somersault, Maitland already knew that he would fail. He lowered his head as the tramp sprawled across the ground, scattering his boots.

Stunned, Proctor lay on his back. He picked himself up, looking dejectedly at his clumsy body. He made a half-hearted attempt to prepare himself for a second attempt, but gave up and brushed the dust from his grazed arms. He had cut his right wrist. He sucked at the wound, and tried a hand-stand, following it with a crude knee fall. His co-ordination was clearly at fault, and the forward somersault had come off by chance alone. Even skipping was too much for him. Within seconds the rope was tangled around his neck.

Nevertheless, as Maitland realized, the tramp was not dismayed. He licked the cut on his wrist and panted happily to himself, more than satisfied with his progress. Embarrassed by the display, Maitland edged away.

Hearing Maitland move behind the pay-box, Proctor turned suspiciously. Before Maitland could reach the staircase he had disappeared from sight, vanishing like a startled animal into the deep grass.

There was a faint movement in the nettle bank behind Maitland. He waited, certain that Proctor was watching him and that if he stepped out the tramp would seize him and hurl him back down the steps. Maitland listened to the traffic, thinking of the tramp's unconcealed strain of violence, a long-borne hostility to the intelligent world on which he would happily revenge himself.

Maitland eased himself down the steps. From the bottom of the stairwell he looked up at the sky and the waving grass. He stepped back into the room and swung himself around the walls. As his eyes cleared in the dim light he gazed round at the underground posters, the dingy bed and leather suitcase filled with cheap clothes. Who were these two tenants of the island? What uneasy alliance existed between the old circus hand and this sharp-witted young woman? She appeared to be a classic drop-out, exiting from a well-to-do family with her head full of half-baked ideals, on the run from the police for a drug or probation offence.

Maitland heard her voice call out across the deep grass. Proctor answered in his gruff simpleton's tones. Maitland moved back to the bed and lay down, covering himself with the blanket as Jane came down the steps into the room.

In one hand was a supermarket bag filled with groceries. She was wearing her jeans and combat jacket. For once, Maitland reflected as he noticed the mud on her shoes, the camouflage was not merely a youthful fad. Presumably she knew some private route up the embankment and across the feeder road.

She peered at Maitland, her sharp eyes taking in everything in a one-second glance. Her red hair was brushed back tightly against her head like a hard-working mill-girl's, exposing her high, bony forehead.

'How are you? Not too strong, I imagine. Anyway, you slept well.'

Maitland gestured weakly with one hand. Something warned him to disguise his recovery. 'I feel a little better.'

'I see you've been wandering around in here,' she remarked without any criticism. She straightened the Guevara poster, re-pinning the torn corner. 'You can't be too bad. There's nothing to find here, by the way.'