Concrete Island (14 page)

Jane paused, her hands motionless in the water.

‘Clever,' she commented quietly. ‘You must do very well in your business, Mr Maitland – but not so well in your private life, I'd guess.' She added, in a limp voice, ‘I borrowed some money. From a friend of my husband. Rather a lot of money, in fact. Lousy bastard.'

She began to wash Maitland, her hands soaping his bruised skin. When she had finished she found a cosmetic razor and shaved his beard. Maitland sat on the edge of the bed, enjoying the gentle pressure of her small hands moving across his skin like submissive birds. He was surprised that it had pleased him, even slightly, to humiliate the young woman, playing on her muddled feelings of guilt and deriding her in a way that he had never thought himself capable of doing. By contrast, his humiliation of Proctor had been entirely calculated; he had degraded the old tramp in the crudest way he could. But even this brutal act had given him a certain pleasure. He had relished the violent confrontation, knowing that he would make both of them submit to him. In part, he was taking his revenge on Proctor and the young woman, although he was well aware that both of them, by some paradoxical logic, were satisfied by being abused. Maitland's aggressiveness fulfilled their expectations, their half-conscious estimates of themselves. Much as he distrusted himself for enjoying these small cruelties, Maitland had deliberately egged himself on. Determined to survive above all else, he would exploit this strain of cruelty in himself in the same way that he had earlier exploited his self-pity and contempt. All that mattered was that he dominate the senile tramp and this wayward young woman.

He let the girl towel him down. Her hands, steering between the bruises, calmed and soothed him.

‘What about your father?' he asked her. ‘Could he help you?'

‘He's not my father any more. I don't think about him.' She gazed at the sunlight coming down the stair well, clasping her hands in what seemed to be a Masonic grip. ‘Suicide is … a suggestive act, it runs in families, you know. When someone in your family reaches the point where they cannot just kill themselves, but take a couple of years over it – really take their time, as if it was the most important thing they'd ever done – then it's difficult to stop seeing your own life through their eyes. Sometimes I'm nervous of my mind.'

She stood up with a brave flourish. ‘Come on, strip off and let's get you washed. Then we'll have some food and I'll fuck you.'

*   *   *

Later, after Maitland had been washed by the girl, he lay on the bed in her towelling dressing-gown. He felt fresh and revived. He had stood naked in the stair well as Jane worked away at his legs and abdomen with her strong hands, rubbing at the bruises and oil-stains. As she prepared a small meal he watched her moving around the room, happy in this domestic retreat. She took out her smoker's kit and rolled a cigarette for herself.

‘Jane, you smoke too much pot.'

‘It's good for sex…'

She began to inhale the smoke. By the time they had finished their meal the room was filled with the fumes, and Maitland felt himself relax for the first time since his arrival on the island. She took off her skirt and lay on the bed beside him, propping her head next to his on the pillow. She offered him the loosely wrapped cigarette, but Maitland was already pleasantly high.

‘That's nice…' She inhaled deeply on the smoke, and held his hand. ‘How do you feel?'

‘A lot better. It may sound strange, but for once I'm not all that keen to get away from here … Jane, where do you go to at night?'

‘I work in a club – a kind of club, let's say. Now and then I pick someone up on the motorway. So what? Sordid, isn't it?'

‘A little. Why don't you straighten your life out and make a start with someone?'

‘Oh, come on … why don't you straighten your life out? You've got a hundred times more hang-ups. Your wife, this woman doctor – you were on an island long before you crashed here.'

She turned to face him. ‘Well, Mr Maitland, I suppose I'd better undress – I don't think you could manage that job.'

Maitland lay passively with his hand on her hip. As she undressed, her mood underwent a curious change. Her jaunty smile faded. The awareness of her naked body seemed to distance her from Maitland, as if some defensive reflex was coming into play. She knelt across him, her sharp knees pressing into his chest wall. Maitland reached up to reassure her, but she pulled away, snapping in a hard voice.

‘Not like this. First, I want some money. Come on, money for sex.'

‘Jane … for God's sake.'

‘Never mind God – I'm not fucking you for his sake or anyone else's.' She handed him his wallet. ‘Five pounds – I want five pounds.'

‘Jane, take it all. You can have it all.'

‘Five!'
She gripped his shoulders in her hands, nails tearing at his bruised skin. ‘Come on – I can get ten on the motorway any night of the week!'

‘Jane, your face – it's…'

‘Never mind my face!'

Confused by this outburst, Maitland fumbled with the wallet. As he counted out the pound notes she tore them from his hand and stuffed them under the pillow.

Maitland held her breasts as she settled herself astride him. He tried to remember every pressure and movement of this sexual act, the orgasm that bolted through every over-stressed nerve in his body. He accepted the rules of the young woman's charade, glad of the freedom it implied, a recognition of their need to avoid any hint of commitment to each other. His relationships with Catherine and his mother, even with Helen Fairfax, all the thousand and one emotionally loaded transactions of his childhood, would have been tolerable if he had been able to pay for them in some neutral currency, hard cash across the high-priced counters of these relationships. Far from wanting this girl to help him escape from the island, he was using her for motives he had never before accepted, his need to be freed from his past, from his childhood, his wife and friends, with all their affections and demands, and to rove for ever within the empty city of his own mind.

Yet, at the end of their brief sexual act, Jane Sheppard reached under the pillow and drew out the five pound notes. She settled her hair, wincing at the cramp in her thighs. When Maitland hesitated, she took the notes from his hand and packed them back into his wallet.

19 Beast and rider

‘W
AIT
, Proctor! Stop here!'

From his vantage point on Proctor's back, Maitland gazed across the central valley of the island. In the course of their afternoon patrol they had reached the abandoned churchyard to the south of the breaker's yard. Maitland could see along the entire length of the island, from the wire-mesh fence below the overpass to the western apex. The concrete junction of the two motorway routes shone in the sunlight like an elegant sculpture, and Maitland often visualized using its high deck as a pleasant roof garden.

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.