Concrete Island (10 page)

She lit the primus and set three eggs boiling in the pan. ‘You must be hungry – I bought some things for you at the supermarket.'

Maitland sat up. ‘What day is it?'

‘Sunday – the Indian places around here are open every day. They exploit themselves and their staffs more than the white owners do. But that's something you know all about.'

‘What's that?'

‘Exploitation. You're a rich businessman, aren't you? That's what you claimed to be last night.'

‘Jane, you've being naive – I'm not rich and I'm not a businessman. I'm an architect.' Maitland paused, well aware of the way in which she was reducing their relationship to the level of this aimless domestic banter. Yet there was something not entirely calculated about this.

‘Did you call for help?' he asked firmly.

Jane ignored the question, setting out the modest meal. The brightly coloured paper cups and plates, and the paper table cloth she spread carefully across the packing case, made it resemble a miniature children's tea party.

‘I … didn't have time. I thought you needed some food first.'

‘As a matter of fact, I'm starving.' Maitland unwrapped the packet of rusks she handed to him. ‘But I've got to get to a hospital. My leg needs looking at. There's the office, and my wife – they must wonder where I am.'

‘But they think you're away on a business trip,' Jane retorted quickly. ‘They probably aren't missing you at all.'

Maitland let this pass. ‘You told me you'd called the police last night.'

Jane laughed at Maitland as he hunched in his ragged clothes on the edge of the bed, his blackened hands tearing apart the packet of rusks. ‘Not the police – we're not very fond of them here. Proctor isn't, anyway – he has rather unhappy memories of the police. They've always kicked him around. Do you know that a sergeant from Notting Hill Station urinated on him? You don't forget that kind of thing.'

She waited for a reply. The sulphurous smell of the cracked eggs intoxicated Maitland. She steered a steaming egg on to his paper plate, leaning across him long enough for him to register the weight and body of her left breast. ‘Look, you weren't well last night. You couldn't have been moved. That terrible leg, the fever, you were completely exhausted, raving away about your wife. Can you imagine us stumbling about in the dark, trying to carry you up that slope? I just wanted to keep you alive.'

Maitland broke the boiled egg. The hot shell stung the oil-filled cuts in his fingers. The young woman squatted on the floor at his feet, shaking out her red hair. The contrived way in which she used her body confused him.

‘You'll help me afterwards to get away from here,' he told her. ‘I understand your not wanting the police involved. If Proctor –'

‘Exactly. He's terrified of the police, he'll do anything to avoid bringing them here. It's not that he's ever done anything, but this place is all he's got. When they built the motorway they sealed him in – he never leaves here, you know. It's pretty remarkable how he's survived.'

Maitland crammed the dripping fragments of the egg into his mouth. ‘He nearly killed me,' he commented, licking his fingers.

‘He thought you were trying to take over his den. It was lucky I came along. He's very strong. When he was sixteen or seventeen he used to be a trapeze artist with some fly-by-night circus. That was before they had any safety legislation. He fell off the high wire and damaged his brain. They just threw him out. Mental defectives and subnormals are treated appallingly – unless they're prepared to go into institutions they have absolutely no protection.'

Maitland nodded, concentrating on the food. ‘How long have you been in this old cinema?'

‘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

‘J
ANE
! 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 could 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.