J. Ballard - Concrete island

Below him, Proctor leaned patiently against a tilting gravestone. One arm was clasped around Maitland's uninjured leg, holding the crippled man on his broad back. His creased face pressed against the worn letters of the nineteenth-century inscription. Maitland noticed him surreptitiously touching the letters with his scarred lips. The odour of Proctor's sweet sweat rose through the still air, like that of a well-groomed domestic animal. With his left hand Maitland held the collar of Proctor's dinner-jacket. In his right he clasped the metal crutch, raising it to point out to himself the various features of the island that took his attention. By tapping Proctor with the straight end he was able to steer him around the island.

After glancing briefly at the afternoon traffic – an intermittent stream of cars, airline coaches and fuel tankers – Maitland turned his gaze westward again. He visited this observation post several times each day. From here he could see if any intruders had arrived on the island. In addition, he had so far failed to identify Jane Sheppard's escape route – somewhere along the embankment of the feeder road was a well-worn pathway.

'All right, Proctor – carry on. Take the short cut back to the Jaguar. For God's sake, don't drop me. I don't want to break the other damned leg.'

Proctor grunted noisily and wound himself up. Steadying Maitland on his back, he searched the deep grass in front of him, finding the worn churchyard steps that led to the former roadway below. As they moved through the grass Proctor steered himself with his scarred hand, his thick sensitive fingers feeling the density, moisture and inclination of the stems, rejecting one and selecting another of the well-used corridors.

'Proctor, I said the short cut.' Maitland tapped the tramp's head with the crutch, indicating a pathway that led over a steep hillock. Proctor ignored the command. This short cut, as he well knew, might expose Maitland too clearly to the passing traffic. Instead, he set off on a longer winding route well-screened by nettle banks and ruined walls.

Maitland submitted to this detour without argument. He had tamed the old tramp, but there was a tacit convention between them that Proctor would never help him to escape. He swayed from side to side on the tramp's back, balancing himself with the crutch like a tightrope walker. His right leg, as useless as the scabbard of a broken lance, trailed behind them.

Wheezing heavily, Proctor laboured towards the breaker's yard. Without this beast of burden Maitland found it difficult to move around the island at all. The grass and nettles, the elders and scruffy undergrowth had risen everywhere in the heavy rain that had drowned out the six days since his confrontation with Proctor. Although his injured thigh had begun to heal, Maitland was now much weaker. The combination of intermittent fever and contaminated food had reduced his weight by more than twenty pounds, and Proctor was able to carry his once large body without difficulty. Maitland could feel the bones of his thighs and pelvis emerging through his musculature – his skeleton come to greet him. Shaving himself in Jane Sheppard's travelling mirror, he would press and knead his cheeks and jaw. The bones were re-assembling themselves into a small, sharp face from which a pair of tired but fierce eyes stared out.

Despite his weakening physique, Maitland felt confident and clear-headed. With the end of the rain he could now get back to the task of planning his escape. He had passed the last two days of cold, torrential downpour sitting by himself over the paraffin stove in the basement room, well aware that he would be unable to climb the slopes of streaming mud.

Maitland looked up at the drying embankment. After two days of isolation, waiting for Jane Sheppard to reappear – she had finally returned that morning – a thin but distinct mental screen divided him from the traffic moving past. With a deliberate effort he thought of his wife, his son and Helen Fairfax, framing their faces in his mind. But they had become more and more remote, receding like the distant clouds over White City.

He clung to Proctor's back as they reached the breaker's yard. Grunting to himself, Proctor picked his way among the tyres lying about in the grass. Maitland realized that his confrontation with Proctor and Jane Sheppard had taken place at the latest possible moment. After a week of illness and semi-starvation he would now be unable to stand up to them.

'Right -put me down here. Careful…!'

Maitland tapped Proctor on the head with the crutch. Small-minded though it seemed, in some way he enjoyed reproving the tramp. He added a second blow, aiming the crutch at the thread of silver scar tissue running down Proctor's neck. He deliberately kept up his anger and testiness, encouraging himself to relish these punishments. Once he relaxed he would be destroyed by Proctor.

Proctor lifted his large, bowed back, easing Maitland on to the ground beside the Jaguar. He watched Maitland deferentially, but his dim tramp's eyes were alert for any false move. Maitland settled the crutch under his right arm. Supporting himself with one hand on Proctor's head, he moved stiffly towards the rear of the crashed car. The Jaguar was now hidden by the grass that had grown around it, covering all traces of the blackened ground.

Maitland avoided Proctor's eyes, composing his face so that it would show no trace of any expression. His one hope was that someone had come to inspect the car, a highway official or maintenance worker who might hand the licence number to an alert policeman.

Maitland peered into the grimy interior of the car, at the burnt-out front seat and instrument panel. No one had disturbed the tags of oily towelling and the empty bottles. Maitland gripped the roof gutter, forcing his palm against the sharp edge in an effort to rally himself.

To his surprise, he found that he was far stronger than he had thought. For several seconds he supported himself upright without the crutch. His right leg, though stiff at the hip joint, carried his weight, and by pivoting on his left leg he could very nearly walk. He decided to disguise the extent of his recovery. It would better serve his purpose if Jane and Proctor believed him to be a cripple.

'All right – let's see what we've got for you.'

Maitland beckoned Proctor out of his way, and opened the trunk. Proctor gazed at him with his crafty, expectant eyes, almost as if he were patiently waiting for Maitland to make a mistake. At times he seemed to invite Maitland to beat him with the crutch, as if well aware of Maitland's calculated pleasure in punishing him, urging him on in the hope that Maitland might develop a genuine taste and so never wish to leave the island.

Only the few gifts purchased by the young woman – a sliced loaf, a can of pressed pork bought at the neighbourhood supermarket – kept Proctor in check. Above all, several bottles of cheap red wine had maintained Maitland's authority. Proctor both feared and demanded this wine – in the evenings, when he had carried Maitland to the young woman's basement room, swept the floor and lit the lamp, he would return wearing his dinner-jacket. Maitland would reward him with a cupful of the heady brew, and hand him the bottle. Proctor then retired to his den, where he would be drunk within minutes. As Maitland lay beside the young woman, smoking a cigarette with her before her regular departure for work in the evening, they would hear Proctor's trumpeting voice carried across the whispering grass, his deep mole-like music answered by the soft plaints of this green harp.

Proctor waited expectantly as Maitland lifted the lid. The trunk had been a cornucopia of extraordinary bounty for Proctor – a pair of heavy rubber overshoes, a set of imitation jade cufflinks Maitland had bought in Paris after mislaying his own, an old copy of _Life__ magazine – each of these Proctor had taken off with him as if carrying away a priceless and mysterious treasure. Watching him, Maitland was convinced that Proctor had never been given anything in his life, and that his power over the tramp depended as much on the act of giving as on the evening bottles of wine. Perhaps one day they would dispense with the present itself and retain the act alone, devise an artificial currency of gesture and attitude.