Concrete island

15 The bribe

The morning traffic, opening the new week, moved along the eastbound lanes of the motorway. Robert Maitland sat against the curved roof of the air-raid shelter in which Proctor had made his home, watching the sharp sunlight cut across the polished cellulose of the vehicles driving into central London. It was shortly after eight o'clock, and the cool air refreshed him after the night of fever. His injured leg lay in front of him. The hip joint was still stiff, needing some kind of surgical intervention, but the deep abrasions on the thigh had begun to heal.

In spite of his inability to walk, Maitland felt calm and determined. The last traces of his fever had receded. His stomach was filled with the crude meal Proctor had prepared for him – sweet tea and a surprisingly appetising gruel of cold fried potatoes, pieces of fatty meat and coleslaw which Maitland had devoured. The taste of paraffin still filled his mouth and lungs, but he inhaled the fresh scents of the grass forest that grew around his legs.

He watched Proctor cleaning out the shelter. This deep burrow, where Maitland had spent the night, was little more than a large kennel, its walls lined with patched quilts. After being carried there on the tramp's powerful back, Maitland had lain half-conscious on a mattress by the doorway, while Proctor moved about his den like a hard-working and insecure animal.

Everything in the shelter was locked away in a series of wooden boxes below the quilts and mattresses. During the night, whenever Maitland began to retch emptily, trying to vomit away the paraffin that filled his lungs, Proctor agitated himself in a nervous hunt. He lifted up corners of the quilts and replaced them as he searched for a forgotten cubbyhole. Eventually he produced a shallow pail and a roll of cotton waste. For an hour he sat beside Maitland, wiping his eyes and mouth. In the light reflected from the evening motorway his broad face with its universe of creases hovered above Maitland like an anxious beast's. All night he moved restlessly around his burrow, keeping up a continuous pointless activity. The quilted floor merged into the walls, as if the lair had been designed to blunt and muffle all evidence of the world outside.

Maitland watched the traffic move past along the motorway. The embankments seemed further away than he remembered them, slowly receding from him on all sides. By contrast the island appeared far larger, covered by a dense and luxuriant growth. Maitland shivered in the cool morning air. Through the doorway of the shelter he could see his dinner-jacket hanging beside the threadbare leotard.

Proctor's head emerged from the den. He scrutinized Maitland for several seconds before the rest of his body came into view.

Maitland clasped his shoulders. 'Proctor – I'm cold. Have you got a coat? I won't ask you for my dinner-jacket.'

'Aah… no coat,' Proctor said regretfully. He began to rub Maitland's arms in his strong hands. Patiently, Maitland pushed him away.

'Look – I need something to wear. You don't want me to catch fever again-?'

'No more fever… ' Proctor glanced at Maitland's watch on his wrist as if its luminous dial might solve this problem. He pulled out the winder and rotated the hands at random. Satisfied, he showed the watch to Maitland. The new time-setting seemed to make him more comfortable. 'No more fever for Mr Maitland,' he announced, but a moment later he bounded down into the shelter and rooted under his quilts. He returned with an old woollen shawl.

Maitland draped the yellowing garment around his heavy shoulders, ignoring the sweet, musty smell. Proctor hovered from one foot to the next, almost as if he were awaiting instructions. Despite his sudden moods of violence, the tramp was a placid and warm-hearted man, with the natural dignity of a large, simple animal.

Proctor kicked away the loose stones lying in the grass outside the shelter and began to practise his gymnastics, clearly with the intention of impressing Maitland. After a clumsy forward somersault he attempted a crude cartwheel, and landed on his head in a heap. Sitting there, he examined his hands and feet, as if mystified why they should fail him.

'Proctor-1 Maitland chose his words carefully. 'I'm going to leave here today. I must go home – do you understand? You've got your home here, and I've got mine. I have a wife and a son – they need me. Now, I'm grateful to you for looking after me…'

He stopped, realizing that the last sentence was the only one which had registered on the tramp's mind.

'Listen to me, Proctor – I want you to help me climb the embankment. Now!'

He held out his arm to Proctor, but the tramp glanced uneasily towards the mined cinema. 'Help Mr Maitland… how? Maitland's sick.'

Doggedly, Maitland controlled his anger. 'Proctor, you're strong enough to carry me. Help me and I won't tell the police you're here. If you keep me here any longer they'll take you away – put you into an institution. You don't want to spend the rest of your life in prison?'

'No!' Proctor shouted the word vehemently. He looked around carefully, as if nervous that a passing driver might have heard him. 'No prison for Proctor.'

'No,' Maitland agreed. Even this brief conversation was exhausting him. 'I don't want to send you to prison. After all, you've helped me, Proctor.'

'Yes… ' Proctor nodded vigorously. 'Proctor _helped__ Mr Maitland.'

'Right, then.' Maitland hoisted himself on to the crutch and swayed unsteadily as the blood left his head. He tried to hold Proctor's shoulder, but the tramp stepped back. Maitland pointed himself in the direction of the motorway embankment. The westbound lane was almost deserted, but on the far side of the central reservation the three lanes of traffic pressed towards central London.

'Proctor! Over here – give me a hand!'

The tramp stood his ground, slowly shaking his huge creased head. 'No…' he said finally, staring at Maitland's gaunt and ragged figure as if no longer recognizing it. 'Miss Jane.,,'

Before Maitland could protest he had turned and scuttled into the long grass, head bent below the waving blades.

Reviving himself on the cold air, Maitland wrapped the shawl tightly around his chest and set off alone towards the embankment. Proctor's refusal to help him, and the tramp's evident fear of the young woman, did not surprise him. They were part of that conspiracy of the grotesque which had kept him marooned on the island, for what was now his fifth day. He thrashed at the grass in front of him, identifying its luxuriant growth with all the pain he had felt.

Even this short journey across the island exhausted him. After the meagre breakfast of scraps he was already ravenous again. Each day that passed had fractionally cut away his strength. The deep grass jostled around him on all sides like a hostile crowd. Swaying unsteadily, Maitland pressed on across the central valley. By the time he reached the breaker's yard with its semi-circle of rusty vehicles he was almost too tired to identify the crashed Jaguar.

The sky had clouded over, and a cold drizzle fell through the retreating sunlight. Maitland climbed into the rear seat of the car, his home for his first days on the island. As he tried to massage a little warmth into his stick-like arms he thought hard about Proctor and Jane Sheppard. Somehow he must devise a means of dominating them. At any moment they might simply lose interest in him altogether, leaving him to perish inside the hull of this burnt-out car. Maitland looked up at the embankment – not only had the slope become steeper than he remembered it, but the hard shoulder and balustrade seemed twenty feet higher.

First, he needed a bribe. Climbing from the car, he took out his keys. He opened the trunk. Inside the carton were the last three bottles of white Burgundy. He secured one of the bottles inside the shawl, locked the trunk and set off for Proctor's den.

The doorway to the shelter was padlocked. Catching his breath after the effect of re-crossing the island, Maitland leaned on the crutch in the thin rain. The tramp was squatting by the gutter of the feeder road embankment, patiently filling a tin bucket with water dripping from the face of the route indicator seventy feet above him.

He returned to the shelter when he saw Maitland, moving like a large mole through the grass. Two mess-tins rattled from his waist-belt. In his right hand he held a clutch of some half-dozen spring traps. A pair of small rats hung from the trap-jaws, their long tails swinging together. Looking at him, Maitland remembered the injured rat who had climbed across his leg. Presumably Proctor supplemented his meagre diet with these field rodents. Yet somewhere he had access to other food-sources. Once he could discover these, Maitland's tenancy of the island would be more secure.

'Proctor – I need food. I'll pass out soon if I don't get something to eat.'

The tramp stared at him warily. He raised the rat-traps, but Maitland shook his head.

'No food,' Proctor said flatly.

'That's rubbish – we had breakfast. Meat, potatoes, salad – where did you get it?'

Proctor's eyes were drifting away, as if he were about to lose interest in the discussion. Maitland pulled the bottle of wine from his shawl. 'Wine, Proctor -wine for food. Let's exchange.'

He held out the bottle to the tramp, who raised the cork to his nose, sniffing at the metal foil.

'All right – Proctor take you to the food place.'