Concrete Island

by J. G. Ballard

  Satisfied at last, he tottered away from the wall and sat down beside Maitland, beaming up at his handiwork.

  ‘God Almighty…’ Maitland leaned his head wearily against the crutch. The ruse had failed, partly because he had not taken into account Proctor’s blubbery gratitude.

  ‘Very good, Proctor – I’ll teach you some more words.’ When the tramp finally settled down Maitland leaned forward, whispering with deliberate archness, ‘New words, Proctor – like “fuck” and “shit”. You’d like to be able to write those. Wouldn’t you?’

  As Proctor tittered nervously Maitland wrote carefully:

  HELP CRASH POLICE

  He watched while Proctor reluctantly transcribed the words. He worked with only one hand, using the other to cover the letters he had written, as if frightened that he might be caught. He soon broke off, and rubbed away the message with the back of his hand, spitting on the coloured concrete.

  ‘Proctor!’ Maitland tried to stop him. ‘No one will see you!’

  Proctor threw the crayons on to the ground. He glanced with continuing pride at the straggling fragments of Maitland’s name, and sat down in the grass. Maitland realized that Proctor had been only briefly amused by writing the obscene words on the wall, and was refusing to take part any further in what he considered to be a childish exhibition.

  21 Delirium

  EXHAUSTED now, his will fading, Maitland clung to Proctor’s shoulders as they moved back and forth across the island. Bent beast and pale rider, they wandered through the seething grass. At intervals Maitland recovered and sat up, clutching the metal crutch. Trying to keep himself awake, he berated and beat Proctor at the slightest stumble or hesitation. The tramp laboured on, as if this pointless travel around the island was all that he could think of in his efforts to revive the injured man. At times he deliberately exposed the now inflamed scar on his neck, offering it to Maitland in the hope that abusing it would revive him.

  On their third transit of the island, when they once again had reached the breaker’s yard, Proctor lowered him to the ground. Maitland subsided weakly in the grass. The tramp lifted him in his powerful hands and placed him against the rear fender of the Jaguar. He shook Maitland’s shoulders, trying to find the focus of his concentration.

  Maitland turned his head away from the traffic. Refracted through the afternoon heat, the motorways seemed to veer and loom, reverberating to the noise of the tyres and engines. He watched Proctor wandering around the breaker’s yard, taking the rat-traps from his belt and setting them among the wrecked cars. In the dusty roof of the overturned taxi Proctor traced with his finger the garbled fragments of Maitland’s name.

  When he saw Maitland looking at him he began to practise his gymnastics, hoping that a successful handstand or forward roll would restore Maitland’s alertness. Maitland waited patiently as Proctor stumbled about, nervously wiping his nose each time he picked himself up. The warm air moved across the island, soothing both the grass and his own skin, as if these were elements of the same body. He remembered his attempt to shuck off portions of his own flesh, leaving those wounds at the places where they had been inflicted. His injured thigh and hip, his mouth and right temple, had all now healed, as if this magical therapy had somehow worked and he had successfully left these wounded members at their designated points.

  In the same way, he was at last beginning to shed sections of his mind, shucking off those memories of pain, hunger and humiliation – of the embankment where he had stood screaming like a child for his wife, of the rear seat of the Jaguar, where he had inundated himself with self-pity … All these he would bequeath to the island.

  Reviving at this prospect, he signalled to Proctor that he would mount his back. As they crossed the island, passing the churchyard again, Maitland saw that Proctor had been chalking fragments of his name on the ruined walls and headstones, on the rusting sheets of galvanized iron by the basement print-shop. These cryptic anagrams, Proctor’s serene message to himself, surrounded them everywhere.

  Maitland scanned the perimeter of the island, hoping for any sign of the young woman. Her secret route to and from the island was his principal hope of escape. He waited for her to appear. Hungry, but unable to eat, he sat on the embankment by the wire-mesh fence as Proctor scavenged through the wire, selecting his morsels of ravaged food from the week-old dump. Maitland realized that he had forgotten what day it was – Wednesday, or perhaps Friday.

  Proctor pressed the mess-tin towards him, offering a slice of wet bread covered with pieces of pork gristle. He was plainly worried by Maitland’s barely coherent schemes to escape from the island.

  Maitland thumped the ground with the crutch, waving the food away. From his wallet he removed a pound note and the stub of blue mascara pencil he had taken from Jane Sheppard’s cosmetic table.

  ‘We can buy food, Proctor – then we won’t have to depend on her … For a pound we can –’ He broke off with a thin shout, laughing to himself. ‘God, you prefer these slops!’

  He scribbled a brief rescue message in the margin of the note. He folded it and passed it to Proctor. ‘We can have real food now, Proctor.’

  Proctor took the note and pressed it gently into Maitland’s hand.

  * * *

  Maitland lay back against the embankment, listening to the murmur of the afternoon traffic. Already the sun was beginning to fall in the western sky. The light flashed off the windshields of the first cars leaving the city in the rush-hour.

  A cooler wind moved below the overpass, stirring at the tags of refuse. Maitland opened his wallet and took out the bundle of pound notes. As Proctor stared at the money like a mesmerized animal Maitland placed the thirty banknotes in a series of rows, like a card-sharp laying out his last hand. He weighed each one down with a pebble.

  ‘Wait, Proctor…’ Maitland lifted one of the pebbles at random. The wind caught the note and whisked it away, carrying it across the island. Climbing into the air, the note swirled over the passing traffic, dived down and vanished under the wheels.

  ‘Fly away, Peter…’

  He lifted another pebble.

  ‘Fly away, Paul…’

  Proctor scuttled forward, trying to catch the second note, but it whirled away on the air. He clambered around Maitland like a nervous dog, trying to see what was wrong.

  ‘Mr Maitland … please … no more flying money.’

  ‘Flying money? Yes!’ Maitland pointed to the tunnel of the overpass. ‘There’s more up there, Proctor, much more.’ Aware that Proctor’s attention was fixed on the rows of banknotes fluttering in the afternoon air, Maitland gathered them up. ‘I was delivering a wages satchel. How much do you think was in it? Twenty thousand pounds! It’s somewhere up there, Proctor. Did you see it in the tunnel when you straightened the barricade?’ Maitland paused as the blunted templates of Proctor’s mind locked into place. ‘Listen, Proctor, you can have half. Ten thousand pounds. You’ll be able to buy this island…’

  He sat back, exhausted, as the tramp climbed eagerly to his feet, eyes wild with the promise of undreamt hopes.

  * * *

  As Proctor made his way across to the embankment, Maitland waited impatiently on the roof of the air-raid shelter. Rattling the crutch, he watched the rush-hour traffic emerging from the overpass tunnel. His one remaining hope was that Proctor would enter the tunnel, be knocked down and killed. Only then would the traffic stop.

  Proctor stood in the deep grass at the foot of the embankment. He looked back at Maitland, who waved him on. ‘Go on, Proctor!’ he shouted hoarsely. ‘Buy the island!’ To himself, he prayed aloud, ‘Run him over…’

  Barely able to control himself, he watched Proctor climb the embankment. The traffic was moving swiftly towards the tunnel from the Westway interchange.

  ‘What is it?’ Proctor had stepped on to the hard shoulder and was crouching behind the wooden palisade. He gazed back uncertainly in Maitland’s direction, hands searching the unfamiliar air as the traffic roar
ed past three feet above him.

  With a scream of anger, Maitland clambered to his feet. Waving the crutch in the air over his head, he hobbled across the stony ground towards the embankment.

  But Proctor had turned back. Ducking his head, he slid crab-wise down the earth slope, his scarred hands reaching for the welcoming grass.

  Maitland tottered forward, thrashing at the nettles with the crutch. As he slipped to the ground in frustration, Proctor came across the island to him. His large face appeared through the undergrowth like a worried but amiable beast’s.

  Maitland lay in the grass. He raised the crutch to strike at Proctor’s legs. ‘Go back … get the money!’

  Proctor ignored the raised pipe, and extended his hand with a reassuring smile. Maitland looked up at him, realizing Proctor’s reasons for coming back. In his muddled mind the tramp had assumed that if he found the money Maitland would leave the island, and so he had come back to care for him.

  Gently he lifted Maitland on to his broad back.

  ‘Proctor…’ Maitland lolled unsteadily on his mount. ‘… you’re waiting for me to die.’

  Numbly he clung to the back of the tramp, his legs swaying against the rustling grass. The sweet scent of Proctor’s body rose about him, for some reason identified in his mind with the smell of food. He was aware of Proctor carrying him into the deep underworld of grass and nettle-castles beside the churchyard. When the door of the crypt was unlocked he peered over Proctor’s head into the dim chamber.

  On one of the empty coffin shelves was a collection of metal objects stripped from his car, a wing mirror and manufacturer’s medallion, strips of chromium trim, laid out like an elaborate altarpiece on which would one day repose the bones of a revered saint. Around them were the cuff-links and overshoes that he had given to Proctor, a bottle of after-shave lotion and aerosol of shaving cream, the trinkets with which Proctor would dress his corpse.

  22 The pavilion of doors

  ‘WAKE up! Are you all right?’

  The grass seethed around him, the harsh stems whipping at his face. Maitland lay back in the late afternoon light, his arms outstretched, feeling the sunlight warm the bones of his chest. The yellow light moved across the grass, as if covering the blades with ever thicker layers of lacquer.

  ‘Wake up!’ The young woman’s shrill voice roused him. She knelt in the deep grass and touched his shoulder, her eyes peering down suspiciously.

  ‘Listen, are you feeling okay?’ She looked over her shoulder at Proctor, crouching uneasily by the entrance to the cinema basement. ‘Proctor, what the hell have you been doing to him? I don’t know – maybe we ought to stick him up on the road somewhere and let the police find him.’

  ‘No!’

  Maitland stretched out a claw-like hand. He held Jane’s right arm in a fierce grip. ‘No – I want to stay here. For the time being.’

  ‘All right…’ The girl rubbed a bruised nerve. ‘Stay here. I warn you, though, I might decide to leave. You can have my room.’

  Maitland shook his head, trying to calm the girl. His sleep had refreshed him, and he felt calm and clear-headed again. He remembered the endless journeys on Proctor’s back across the island, and the multiplying fragments of his own name that had seemed to taunt and confuse him. Perhaps the fever had returned without him realizing it, or hunger had made him light-headed enough to try to kill Proctor. As for the young woman, she was spending less and less time on the island – he would have to think up some way of keeping her there.

  ‘Jane, if you go, I’ll die here. Proctor’s already planning to bury me.’

  The young woman’s eyes were like those of a pensive child examining an unfamiliar creature. ‘But your leg looks better to me. You were nearly walking this morning.’ She stood up, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know. All right, I’ll stay. I brought the wine. I’ll give it to Proctor.’

  ‘Not yet.’ Maitland sat up, his mind alert. He pointed a hand at Proctor. ‘I want him to bring his bed.’

  ‘Where to? He’s not going to sleep with us.’

  ‘Here. Ask him to bring it here. And then I want him to build a shelter for me. I’ll tell him how to do it.’

  * * *

  Two hours later, Maitland lay back in the small shack, a pavilion of rust, which Proctor had built around him out of the discarded sections of car bodies. A semi-circle of doors formed the sides, tied together by their window pillars. Above, two hoods completed a primitive roof. Maitland lay comfortably in the open doorway of the pavilion, watching with satisfaction as Proctor completed the last assembly. He had brought not only his bed for Maitland, but two patched quilts. He lifted Maitland on to the bed and arranged the quilts around him. Fragments of the tramp’s finger-writing covered several of the door-panels, but Maitland decided to let these stay.

  ‘He’s done a good job.’ Jane had sauntered around the pavilion as Proctor laboured back and forth. Smoking the cigarette she had rolled, she kept half an eye on the distant traffic. Maitland’s shack was shielded from the motorway by the high grass and ruined outbuildings. ‘At least as good as most of the speculative building that’s going up these days. I can see that you’re a real architect.’

  She leaned against a door, talking to Maitland through a window after winding down the glass. ‘Are you going to spend the night here?’

  ‘No – this is my – summer house.’

  ‘What about his wine? Shall I give it to him?’

  Proctor was squatting patiently nearby, wiping the sweat off his face with an old towel. He held the dinner-jacket in his hands, as if nervous of putting it on in case this aroused Maitland’s irritation. His eyes were fixed on the bottle of wine in Jane’s hands. Maitland pointed to the derelict pay-box.

  ‘Tell him to wait over there. Where I can’t see him.’

  ‘He’s worked hard for you.’

  ‘Jane…’ Wearily, Maitland beckoned her away. His emaciated body was lit by the red light of the setting sun. ‘I’m not concerned with him any more.’

  He took the bottle from her and raised it to his lips. He drank steadily, barely tasting the harsh wine. Like a mendicant desert chief presiding over his barren kingdom, he squatted on the bed in the mouth of the rusty pavilion. He had now gone beyond exhaustion and hunger to a state where the laws of physiology, the body’s economy of needs and responses, had been suspended. He listened to the traffic, his eye on the red disc of the sun sinking behind the apartment blocks. The glass curtain-walling was jewelled by the light. The roar of the traffic seemed to come from the sun.

  Maitland sat forward, handing the wine to Jane Sheppard as he stared hard at the apex of the island. For a brief moment he had seen the familiar white-haired figure of the old man with the light motorcycle, moving along the eastbound carriageway. His white hair had been bathed by the setting sun as he and his machine had appeared in a gap between two streams of traffic. Maitland tried to find him again, but gave up as vehicles clogged all lanes of the motorway. He remembered his previous state of terror on first seeing the old man. This time, by contrast, he felt reassured.

  ‘Proctor’s still waiting for his wine.’

  The young woman stood in front of him, swaying aggressively, one hand holding the bottle by its neck. Most of the wine had gone, and Maitland realized that she had been drinking beside him for at least ten minutes. In her ugly euphoria, his silence only provoked her.

  ‘You’re a shit. Are you dying? Don’t die here.’

  Maitland watched her as she smoked her cigarette. She tossed her hair with a flourish, challenging Maitland’s fascination with the sinking sun.

  ‘You think you’re going to leave here. Let me tell you, you’re not. You imagine you can just lie here, thinking all day. No one gives a damn what you think. You – you’re no one.’

  Maitland drifted away from her, dimly aware of her voice drumming through the darkening air. He was convinced that his body was no longer absorbing anything he ate or drank – the wine formed a cold lake
within his stomach.

  The girl struck his face with her hand, trying to hold his attention.

  ‘Who are you going to hate next?’ she asked aggressively. ‘Aren’t you being a little selective? You humiliate me with this kind of conversation. Take my word, I know more about beds than you do. I think you’re a lousy middle-aged creep and I’m not going to pay your fucking bill. God – lunatic man you are. You’re demented.’

  Maitland turned his head, following her as she stalked up and down outside the pavilion, ranting to herself. She swayed about to some music in her head, and he knew that she was talking to someone else.

  ‘I’m not dancing around this flat, I’m shuffling. It doesn’t matter, it’s so good. Let’s keep our cool and we’ll be separated by tomorrow afternoon. It’s beautiful music, actually. Listen, I don’t need anyone to like me. I’m past it. Don’t be a child. How great that you and I are finished. I never want to see you again. I regard our relationship as ended. Please do not ring me on the telephone. Please do not interfere with my professional relationships. This is a beautiful record. It’s great for sexual intercourse. You ought to try it sometime.’

  In a moment of lucidity she stared down at Maitland through the reddening light, recognizing him before anger clouded her mind again.

  ‘You’ll get yourself run over, baby. Thank God you’ll soon be out of my life. You ought to live in an oriental bazaar. I loved you dearly and you buggered it up. Just twelve hours and you’ll be gone. Who wants relationships? You bore me right now. You never had any love and affection as a child. Don’t commit any acts of violence tonight. There are lots of nice children here. Why are you such a shit? That fucking American girl. She’s a whore. So conceptual. She’s so brilliant. I know…’

  Her voice ended. She fumbled on the ground for the wine bottle she had dropped, picked it up and threw it with a cry at Proctor, who was crouching in the fading light beside the pay-box. The bottle smashed against the wooden shutters. The glass fragments gleamed like crazed eyes.