Concrete Island. J. G. Ballard

his eyes from the sunlight, Maitland saw that he had crashed into a small traffic island, some two hundred yards long and triangular in shape, that lay in the waste ground between three converging motorway routes. The apex of the island pointed towards the west and the declining sun, whose warm light lay over the distant television studios at White City. The base was formed by the southbound overpass that swept past seventy feet above the ground. Supported on massive concrete pillars, its six lanes of traffic were sealed from view by the corrugated metal splash-guards installed to protect the vehicles below.

      Behind Maitland was the northern wall of the island, the thirty-feet-high embankment of the westbound motorway from which he had crashed. Facing him, and forming the southern boundary, was the steep embankment of the three-lane feeder road which looped in a north-westerly circuit below the overpass and joined the motorway at the apex of the island. Although no more than a hundred yards away, this freshly grassed slope seemed hidden behind the over-heated light of the island, by the wild grass, abandoned cars and builder's equipment. Traffic moved along the westbound lanes of the feeder road, but the metal crash barriers screened the island from the drivers. The high masts of three route indicators rose from concrete caissons built into the shoulder of the road.

      Maitland turned as an airline coach passed along the motorway. The passengers on the upper deck, bound for Zurich, Stuttgart and Stockholm, sat stiffly in their seats like a party of mannequins. Two of them, a middle-aged man in a white raincoat and a young Sikh wearing a turban on his small head, looked down at Maitland, catching his eyes for a few seconds. Maitland returned their gaze, deciding not to wave at them. What did they think he was doing there? From the upper deck of the bus his Jaguar might well appear to be undamaged, and they would assume that he was a highway official or traffic engineer.

      Below the overpass, at the eastern end of the island, a wire-mesh fence sealed off the triangle of waste ground from the area beyond, which had become an unofficial municipal dump. In the shadows below the concrete span were several derelict furniture vans, a stack of stripped-down billboards, mounds of tyres and untreated metal refuse. A quarter of a mile to the east of the overpass, visible through the fence, was a neighbourhood shopping centre. A red double-decker bus circled a small square, passing the striped awnings of multiple stores.

      Clearly there was no exit from the island other than the embankments. Maitland removed the ignition keys from the instrument panel and unlocked the Jaguar's trunk. The chances of a wandering tramp or tinker finding the car were slight – the island was sealed off from the world around it by the high embankments on two sides and the wire-mesh fence on its third. The compulsory landscaping had yet to be carried out by the contractors, and the original contents of this shabby tract, its rusting cars and coarse grass, were still untouched.

      Holding the handle of his leather overnight case, Maitland tried to lift it from the trunk. He found himself fainting from the exertion. The blood had drained instantly from his head, as if the minimum circulation was being maintained. He put down the case and leaned weakly against the open lid of the trunk.

      In the polished panels of the rear wheel-housing Maitland stared at the distorted reflection of himself. His tall figure was warped like a grotesque scarecrow, and his white-skinned face bled away in the curving contours of the bodywork. A madman's grimace, one ear on a pedicle six inches from his head.

      The crash had shaken him more than he realized. Maitland glanced down at the contents of the trunk – the tool-kit, a clutter of architectural journals, and a cardboard crate holding half a dozen bottles of white Burgundy which he was taking home for his wife Catherine. After the death of his grandfather the previous year Maitland's mother had been giving him some of the old man's wines.

      ‘Maitland, you could use a drink now …’ he told himself aloud. He locked the trunk, reached into the back of the car and picked up his raincoat, hat and briefcase. The crash had jerked loose a clutter of forgotten items from beneath the seats – a half-empty tube of sun lotion, memento of a holiday he had taken at La Grande Motte with Dr Helen Fairfax, the preprint of a paper she had given at a paediatric seminar, a packet of Catherine's miniature cigars he had hidden when trying to make her give up smoking.

      Holding his briefcase in his left hand, hat on his head, raincoat over his right shoulder, Maitland set off towards the embankment. It was three thirty-one, still less than half an hour since the accident.

      He looked back for the last time at the island. Already the waist-high grass, marked by the winding corridors that recorded his uncertain movements around the car, was settling itself again, almost hiding the silver Jaguar. A thin yellow light lay across the island, an unpleasant haze that seemed to rise from the grass, festering over the ground as if over a wound that had never healed.

      A truck's diesel engine thundered below the overpass. Turning his back on the island, Maitland stepped on to the foot of the embankment and clambered up the soft slope. He would climb the embankment, wave down a passing car and be on his way.

       2 The embankment

      THE earth flowed around him like a warm, alluvial river. Halfway up the embankment Maitland found himself sinking to his knees in the sliding slope. An unpacked topsoil intended only to carry the grass cover, the earth had not yet been consolidated by the seedlings sprouting through its open surface. Maitland laboured away, searching for a firm foothold and using the briefcase as a paddle. The effort of climbing the embankment had almost exhausted him, but he forced himself on.

      Tasting blood in his mouth, he stopped and sat down. Squatting on the powdery slope, he took the handkerchief from his pocket and touched his tongue and lips. The red stain formed the imprint of his shaky mouth, like an illicit kiss. Maitland felt the tender skin of his right temple and cheekbone. The bruise ran from the ear as far as his right nostril. Pressing a finger into the nasal cleft, he could feel the injured sinus and gums, a loosened eye-tooth.

      Waiting for his breath to return, Maitland listened to the traffic moving above his head. The sound of engines drummed ceaselessly through the tunnel of the overpass. On the far side of the island the feeder road was busy now, and Maitland waved his raincoat at the passing cars. However, the drivers were concentrating on the overhead route indicators and the major junction with the motorway.

      The towers of the distant office-blocks rose into the afternoon air. Searching the warm haze over Marylebone, Maitland could almost identify his own building. Somewhere behind the glass curtain-walling on the seventeenth floor his secretary was typing the agenda for the following week's finance committee meeting, never thinking for a moment that her boss was squatting on this motorway embankment with a bloody mouth.

      His shoulders began to shake, a rapid tremor that set off his diaphragm. With an effort Maitland mastered the spasm. He swallowed back the phlegm that choked his throat and stared down at the Jaguar, thinking again about the crash. It had been stupid of him to ignore the speed limit. Eager to see Catherine again, he was looking forward to relaxing in their cool, formal house with its large white rooms. After three days with Helen Fairfax, in this sensible woman doctor's warm and comfortable apartment, he had felt almost suffocated.

      Standing up, Maitland edged sideways across the slope. Ten feet above him was the hard shoulder of the motorway, and the palisade of wooden trestles. Maitland tossed his briefcase up the slope. Moving like a crab on his feet and forearms, he climbed the more shallow soil, reached both hands on to the concrete shoulder and pulled himself on to the road.

      Exhausted by the climb, Maitland sat down unsteadily on a wooden trestle. He brushed the dirt on his hands against his trousers. The briefcase and raincoat lay at his feet in a grimy bundle like the luggage of a tramp. Sweat bathed his shirt inside the jacket, soaking through the fabric. The blood was thick in his mouth, but he sucked it back without a pause.

      He stood up and turned to face the oncoming traffic. Three lines of vehicles sped towards him. They emerged from the tunnel below the overpass and accelerated along the fast bend. The rush-hour had begun. Magnified by the roof and walls of the overpass, the noise reverberated off the concrete roadway around Maitland, drowning his first shouts. Now and then