Concrete island

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 die 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 roared 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.