Free Concrete Island by J. G. Ballard Page A

Rogers and Fred Astaire musical. On either side were several more up-to-date prints taken from underground magazines – a psychedelic poster in the Beardsley manner, a grainy close-up of the dead Che Guevara, a Black Power manifesto, and Charles Manson at his trial, psychotic eyes staring out beneath a bald skull. Apart from the packing case beside the bed the only piece of furniture in the room was a card-table stacked with cosmetic jars and scent bottles, mascara sticks and scruffed-up tissues. An expensive leather suitcase was propped against the wall. A skirt and sweater, and various pieces of underwear, were strung on hangers from the lid.
    Maitland gathered himself together. The fever had begun to subside. He remembered the violent attack in the air-raid shelter, and being dragged into the open evening air, but the pain of these blows had been dissolved by the young woman’s first words. In the context of his ordeal on the island even this shabby room – in a decaying neighbourhood somewhere near the motorway, he assumed – took on all the style and comfort of a riverside suite at the Savoy. As the young woman sat down on the bed he took her hand, trying to express his gratitude to her.
    â€˜Are we…’ he began through his bruised mouth. ‘Are we near the island?’ He added, realizing that she might not be aware of this, ‘I crashed my car … Jaguar … I went off the motorway.’
    The young woman chewed pensively on a stick of gum, watching Maitland with her sharp eyes.
    â€˜Yes, we know. You’re lucky that you’re still alive.’ She placed her strong hand on his forehead, feeling his temperature. ‘Were you ill before the crash? You’ve got quite a fever, you know.’
    Maitland shook his head, glad to feel the pressure of her cool palm. ‘No – it started later. Yesterday, I think. My leg … it’s broken.’
    â€˜Good. I thought so. Poor man, I’ll give you something to eat.’
    As Maitland waited, she reached into her handbag and took out a bar of milk chocolate. She peeled back the silver foil, broke off several of the squares and placed the first one between Maitland’s lips.
    While the warm chocolate dissolved in his mouth, Maitland was able to see the young woman’s face for the first time. She stood up and peered at herself in the travelling mirror hanging from the wall. Bar of chocolate in one hand, she paced up and down the narrow floor. Lit by the paraffin lamp behind her, her red hair glowed like a wild sun in the shabby room, shafts of light cutting through the home-set waves that rose above her high forehead. She was about twenty, with an angular, sharp-witted face and strong jaw. She was good-looking in an almost wilfully tatty way. Her manner towards Maitland, as she fed the soft chocolate to him, each square fingerprinted by her thumb, was brusque and deferential at the same time. Possibly she resented having to look after this well-to-do man who had been brought to her meagre room, realizing that he would soon leave for surroundings that were very much more comfortable. Yet something about her tone, the confident intonations of her voice, suggested to Maitland that she had come from a rather different background. With her faded jeans and combat jacket, surrounded by the Manson and Black Power posters, she looked like the prototypal drop-out, but this impression in turn was belied by the mass of cheap cosmetics, the tarty hair-do and garish clothes hanging from the suitcase lid, the make-believe equipment of a street walker.
    Revived by the water and chocolate, Maitland massaged his mouth with one hand. At any moment the ambulance attendants would arrive, he would be carried away to a hospital bed in Hammersmith.
    â€˜You called the ambulance? They’ll be coming soon. I’d like to thank you…?’
    â€˜Jane – Jane Sheppard. I haven’t done very