Concrete Island

On the afternoon of April 22, 1973, Robert Maitland, a 35-year-old London architect, is driving his Jaguar down the high-speed exit lane of the Westway interchange when a tire blowout sends the car through a temporary barrier and down the grass embankment. The Jaguar comes to rest against an overturned taxi on a small triangular traffic island, roughly 200 yards long, wedged between three converging motorway routes. Maitland survives with a bruised temple and minor cuts, but his car is a total wreck. He has been driving recklessly, tired after a three-day conference and preoccupied by the duplicity of returning to his wife, Catherine, after a week spent with his mistress, Dr. Helen Fairfax. The island is sealed by steep embankments on two sides and a wire-mesh fence beneath an overpass on the third. Confident he can quickly flag down help, Maitland sets off to climb the slope.

The escape proves impossible. The unpacked topsoil crumbles underfoot, and when Maitland reaches the hard shoulder at the road's edge, rush-hour traffic roars past at 60 miles per hour on a fast bend. Drivers cannot safely slow down, and his grimy appearance discourages anyone from stopping. He stands by the roadside for hours, growing delirious from exhaustion and carbon monoxide fumes. When he runs toward the central reservation, a white sports car strikes a wooden trestle, which is hurled against him and flings him back down the embankment.

He regains consciousness around 1:45 a.m. with a massive contusion on his right hip. The joint appears displaced, and he can barely drag his leg. He tries the embankment again but collapses after two feet. He hobbles back to the Jaguar and drinks from a bottle of white Burgundy until the pain recedes. In bitter self-reflection, he acknowledges that his happiest moments have been spent alone and that his failing marriage has paradoxically recreated the isolation of his childhood: an empty suburban garden surrounded by a high fence.

The next morning, Maitland finds water in the car's windshield washer reservoir and fashions a crutch from a rusting exhaust pipe. He explores the island's perimeter, testing every exit: The wire-mesh fence is backed by an impassable heap of refuse, the southern embankment is even steeper, and a drainage culvert is sealed by an iron grille. No one will raise an alarm: His secretary is trained not to question his absences, and Catherine and Helen each assume he is with the other.

A rainstorm allows him to collect water but washes away a rescue message he scrawls on the concrete face of a roadside sign. He builds a ramp of debris but collapses halfway up. Fever sets in. He sets fire to the Jaguar as a signal, but the blaze burns out quickly, resembling a tramp's campfire from above. A passing driver slows, waves, and moves on.

By Saturday, Maitland is weakening rapidly. Fever blurs his mind; he begins to identify the island with his own body, assigning his injuries to different locations on the terrain. Delirious, he stumbles into an old air-raid shelter and finds it furnished as a dwelling, with quilts, blankets, and a faded circus leotard. A broad, thick-chested man attacks him, knocking him to the ground. This is Proctor, roughly 50 years old, who has an intellectual disability resulting from a brain injury and lives on the island. As Maitland loses consciousness, he glimpses a red-haired young woman running toward them.

Maitland wakes in a small windowless basement, the remnant of a ruined cinema. Jane Sheppard, approximately 20 years old with sharp features and red hair, has bathed his wounds and feeds him chocolate. She claims to have arranged help, but Maitland soon realizes he has not been rescued. Jane has taken his car keys and searched his wallet but returns the money when confronted. She explains that Proctor is terrified of police because of past abuse and that he was once a teenage trapeze artist who fell from the high wire, sustaining the brain damage that left him discarded by society. Jane herself is a countercultural dropout who appears to work as a prostitute and is hiding from the police after stealing a large sum of money. She confirms that Proctor straightened the crash-barrier trestles after the accident and wiped Maitland's rescue messages because he hates all writing.

Maitland's offers of money fail to move Jane, who has her own reasons to avoid attention. When he lights a paraffin-soaked blanket as a signal fire, both Jane and Proctor rush to stop him. Maitland divides his captors by revealing to Proctor that Jane took the car keys and offering the tramp a pound note, the first gift Proctor has ever received. The alliance between them fractures. Jane retaliates by feeding Maitland diluted paraffin, but Proctor intervenes, carrying the choking man to safety.

Maitland's dominance solidifies through calculated cruelty. When he finds Jane and Proctor mocking him, Proctor dressed in his evening clothes, Maitland urinates on Proctor's face, echoing the police abuse Jane described. Proctor does not resist. Jane, sobered, gathers the scattered belongings without protest. One day, Maitland glimpses Catherine's orange Toyota on the motorway; she has been searching for him, yet no one has realized he crashed within sight of his own office.

Over the following days, Maitland becomes the island's sovereign. Proctor carries him on his back during daily patrols, managed through gifts and wine rations. Maitland enters into a transactional sexual relationship with Jane, who insists on a payment of five pounds in a charade that frees them both from emotional obligation. His weight drops sharply, but he feels calm. His leg heals better than expected; he can nearly walk without the crutch but conceals his recovery. When Jane offers to call Catherine, Maitland refuses, insisting he does not want anyone to know he is on the island.

He tries further schemes: teaching Proctor to write and tricking him into copying "MAITLAND HELP," but Proctor garbles the letters into indecipherable scrawl. In a morally extreme gambit, Maitland invents a story about a lost wages satchel to lure Proctor onto the motorway, but the tramp retreats, not from fear but because finding the satchel would mean Maitland would leave. Maitland discovers Proctor's crypt, where the tramp has arranged car parts and gifts on a shelf like an altarpiece, trinkets with which he plans to dress Maitland's corpse.

One dawn, a municipal repair vehicle parks on the overpass with a workman's cradle dangling from ropes. Proctor leaps onto the rope and climbs with sudden acrobatic skill, trying to help Maitland escape rather than flee himself. On the cradle, he begins to perform, swinging in wide arcs with a childlike smile. The driver, unaware of Proctor, starts the engine and pulls away. The ropes tighten around Proctor's waist and neck, jerking him from the cradle. His body strikes a concrete pillar and is carried through the air until the ropes snag and snap. Proctor falls to the ground, dead.

Jane announces she is leaving. Maitland gives her his remaining money and asks only that she tell no one he is there. She climbs the embankment using familiar footholds, steps over the crash barrier, and is picked up by a passing car within a minute. Maitland buries Proctor in the crypt, surrounding the grave with metal car parts and gifts.

Despite his emaciation, Maitland feels a gathering strength. His leg can bear weight. He lies bare-chested in the crude shelter Proctor built, a pavilion of salvaged car doors, and watches a police car pass without noticing him. He thinks of Catherine and his son and tells himself he will see them soon. The novel ends with Maitland gazing across the island at dusk, resolved to leave by his own effort and on his own terms, but in no hurry to go.