Stepping Westward

by Malcolm Bradbury

  Piety filled Walker, a sense of hearth and home, and he went down the swaying corridor to the cubicle at the end of his coach. Here, dutifully, he stripped off the old socks and flushed them down the toilet. He imagined them blowing away, scaring rabbits, confusing chaffinches. Then he put on the new pair and, rising, caught sight of his face in the mirror. ‘Who is this handsome, well-dressed stranger?’ he said, looking uneasily at the ghostly lugubrious face that stared back at him, that domed head, that exportable commodity, that kernel of wisdom he was ferrying across the seas. It looked conspicuously unconfident. The upper part of his features were bony, intelligent-seeming, with bright round eyes and receding hair. Lower down, though, things went rather to pieces; here were jowly northern cheeks, like a spaniel’s, which made him appear to be eating all the time and contributed to an expression both perplexed and sad. ‘You’re off,’ he said, ‘going to the States.’ The face refused to be pleased; it simply looked darkly forward into a future of lost luggage, missed trains, incorrect papers, unbooked hotel rooms, and perpetual loneliness. Walker, shaken, turned away and walked back along the corridor to his compartment, eyeing the girls in the other compartments as he passed. Domesticity, clearly, had softened him, weakened him, left him ill-equipped for this kind of pilgrimage.

  An undergraduate with a beard, amassing a vacation fortune, came along the coach with a tea-trolley and sold him a cup of warm mud. He drank it and lapsed into a stupor, so that London’s suburbs were upon him before he realized it. The train was flashing through commuter stations whose walls bore advertisements recommending those three great urban luxuries, theatre visits, evening newspapers, and corsets. Red London omnibuses filled the roads. Then the train slowed and they were into St Pancras, a great Gothic cathedral of a station, testament to the conjunction of travel and moral seriousness. He got out of the train and went along the platform to the taxi rank, where he found a cab to take him across the river to Waterloo. Here the atmosphere was lighter, more disturbing. The style of the station, vain and cosmopolitan, spoke of another and more whimsical kind of travelling. The loudspeakers were playing music; the roof-pillars were slender and gracious; the whole place smelled of cigars and chorus girls and afternoon adulteries. The boat-train wasn’t in yet, so he went into the snack bar and had sausage-rolls and tea. Sophisticated voyagers dawdled in the concourse. Porters pushed leather suitcases around on barrows. London girls with low necklines went on to the platforms. He went out of the refreshment room and found that the boat-train, a line of brown and cream cars, stood in its bay. Exotic crowds had gathered on the platform. Walker gave up his ticket and went down the platform beside the Pullman coaches, conscious of his own inadequate elegance. A stout predatory station pigeon came waddling up to him, getting under his feet; then it dissolved into a flutter of wings and took clumsily into the air; the heavy creature, rather like Walker in appearance, became light, enjoyed itself in the air for a moment, and came to ground further along in front of a group of young expensive-looking American girls, who reached into their purses and began to scatter bread for it. Foreign aid, thought Walker, and wondered how he would fare. He looked curiously at the girls, neat, fresh, delectable, chattering and shining against the Pullman. They were avaricious internationalists, evidently, their legs turned nutmeg by a sun that had come to find them daily in different places; their airlite luggage, which the conductors were carrying aboard the train, was garish with the labels of hotels in Vienna and Rome, Brussels and Paris, places he scarcely knew at all. Their polaroid anti-glare sunglasses had consumed all their European sights. I dreamt I did Europe in ten days in my Maidenform bra, thought Walker, finding the very sight of these international creatures tantalizing and enlarging. They made him feel that he was, after all, in motion, going somewhere, that he was of their band and their temper.

  He found the coach that corresponded to his seat reservation and handed over his ticket. The conductor picked up his suitcases and typewriter and led him aboard. Inside, the white tablecloths shone, the pink-shaded lamps on the separate tables cast a saucy boudoir light. The other passengers, of all nationalities, sat in their places, leaning on their elbows, smoking urbane cigarettes, watching him join them on their journey. They all seemed entirely and perfectly at home; they evidently sensed and understood the ship, drifting on her ropes at the Ocean Terminal away in Southampton, knew by experience the six days of travel, the clicking open of suitcases at the customs, the sending of telegrams; they even understood America, big and awful and inviting to the west. Because he didn’t know these things, because he couldn’t predict his future, because he was an innocent at voyaging, Walker grew even more nervous and concerned. He followed the steward down the car, his feet sinking into the thick carpet between the tables. The train, indulging all his English nostalgia for the plushy and the genteel, seemed to him a deceit. It spoke of a time when you could travel over Europe, every signal off, and find the whole world not, as you might terrifyingly suppose, all different, but all the same – all service and respect and three-star comfort. Since the world wasn’t safe and secure, and since Walker knew he was a voyager into insecurity, he felt troubled. It only postponed the moment when the difficulties would begin, when he would start to suffer and be hurt. Walker pitched his mind to meet that moment. ‘Here we are, sir,’ said the white-coated steward, pulling back a deep chair at one of the tables so that he could get in. In the facing seat, at the table for two, sat a German newspaper with large heavy type, held by two hairy hands on which gold rings gleamed. Walker tried to sit down and kicked a foot. The paper collapsed, to reveal one of those wise, heavy, experienced faces that Europe has always been so good at producing; sad faces that make all Englishmen look untutored. Two serious eyes regarded Walker curiously. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Walker. ‘Oh, please, it is nothing,’ said the face, and Walker said ‘sorry’ again and thrust his buttocks into the plush.

  In front of him the place had already been laid for tea. A pair of tiny pots of jam, like detached glass eyes, looked at him accusingly. Traitor, they said. Gadabout. Walker avoided them and looked out of the window at the other transatlantic voyagers coming aboard, neat young men in crew-cuts, young women in hats. Many of them looked like students, and he recalled that a year in an American university was quite as much in demand academically as it was for a writer like himself. Most of the travellers seemed to be much younger or much older than he was, and this made him feel the more out of place. Was it only he for whom this was something more than routine, was a terrifying adventure?

  The man with the German newspaper suddenly folded it decisively. ‘Vell, here we all are, the Fulbright generation,’ he said. ‘So when does the seminar start?’

  ‘Pardon?’ asked Walker.

  ‘Oh, these summer liners, they are always full of scholars. I suppose you are one?’

  ‘In a sort of a way,’ said Walker.

  ‘I too,’ said the man. ‘It is always the same: Americans studying in Europe, Europeans studying in America. Why we do this I do not know. After all, all the world is the same now. What we have at home is what we vill get everywhere. All societies are the same; all libraries are the same; what do we think we get out of it?’

  This was a depressing thought to Walker, and he said, ‘Oh, we get a lot.’

  ‘Vell,’ said the man, ‘six years ago, maybe seven, I visited your city here. Then it was called London. Now I have visited again and it is called Nowhere. They have pulled half of it down, and what they have not pulled down they have dwarfed to make it count less. The people, vell, they have lost their style, they don’t know how to be English, and even the food is hamburgers.’

  ‘Progress,’ said Walker.

  ‘Progress,’ said the man, ‘that is the optimist’s word for change. However, it is always pleasant to meet an idealist.’

  ‘Well,’ said Walker, ‘things have got better in England in lots of ways. People have more money and expect more of life.’

  ‘So it is all for the
best?’ asked the man.

  ‘Some of it,’ said Walker.

  ‘Vell, I am an old man, so I will give you some advice for living in this world. I will tell you the best profession for a man to enter today. I will tell you how to answer when they come to you and say, you have been a most splendid fellow, so here is a prize, your life over again, what will you do with it? My friend, pick the demolition business. Those men up there on those cranes, hitting down those buildings, they are heroes, kings, gods.’

  The train jerked and began to move gently along the platform. There was an explosion of light; they were out from under the protective dome of Waterloo. Great towers of apartment blocks, with knickers flapping on high balconies, stood out against the sky. Green caterpillar-like electric trains flipped by; steam engines with military names stood in sidings. Through a gap in the towers of flats Walker could see the Houses of Parliament, where they governed him from. But whatever they had for him today they could, he thought, keep, for he had done it now, cut the umbilical cord, moved into a new regimen. A tug lowered its funnel to pass under Westminster Bridge. The back streets came into view, with small dirty children playing on pavements, electric milk-carts navigating brick-strewn roads, babies in prams crying outside shops. On a bombed site a group of youths in deviant clothes and hostile shoes stood smoking; Walker felt for them that slight flicker of respect his time had taught him to feel at the sight of the disorderly. The sadder parts of London unfolded further. Someone had painted on a railway wall Ban the bum. The heat shimmered on roofs, and in grassless gardens. Clapham, Wimbledon, Raynes Park went by; both train and Walker were taking on speed, and all the things he knew well, and all the things he had noted and written about, were cut off from him now by this mobile pane of glass. Walker turned his attention within the coach, where the waiters were moving along the tables disseminating afternoon tea. ‘Of course we must celebrate this English rite,’ said the foreigner, straightening his tie, which had a streak of lightning down it. ‘That is the England we come here for.’ Across the aisle an austere, dowagerly looking lady, with a lot of gauzy veils wrapped about a swan’s neck, an apotheosis woman, an English type, rang the bell marked Attendant imperiously. There was a lot of grandeur about, and Walker took his pleasure in it – in the walnut and the brocade, the pink lamps and the brass fittings, the foreign newspaper opposite, the party of American girls chattering somewhere back down the car. It gave him a sense of his own importance, made him feel his situation was enviable. It seemed to him right that travel should not be ordinary, that it should be attended by this kind of special richness.

  Two of the American girls came down the car, talking together. He watched them with curiosity. One of them was big and blonde, with a finely cantilevered bosom, and the other was dark and rather morose. The blonde one said: ‘I guess the fountain’s up this way some place.’ A real fountain, tridents, dolphins, high spouts of water, and the conceit, on this train, seemed almost probable. But it was just drinking water they wanted; the man opposite, who had been equally attentive to the pair, rose dramatically to his feet, dropping his newspaper on his shoes, and said, ‘Attention please; I recommend not to drink the water.’

  The two girls paused and looked down at the foreigner and Walker. ‘They told us we could drink the water in Britain,’ said the blonde girl. ‘They gave us this orientation course and they said Britain was one of the countries it was okay to drink the water in.’

  ‘Oh, in hotels, but the train is a different matter. But let us consult a citizen. Our friend here will tell us.’

  Walker became embarrassed and looked at the tablecloth. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t really know. I never tried drinking water on trains, but I imagine it’s all right. I never heard of anyone catching anything. I suppose the safest thing would be to stick to the tea, though.’

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ said the dark girl, ‘not more tea. I just don’t know how you people can go on drinking the stuff the way you do. I’d like to see inside your stomachs.’

  ‘Oh yes, you must take tea,’ said the foreigner, ‘it is a custom, something to tell them in Oshkosh.’ He clicked his fingers and waved to the attendant. ‘Please, these girls would like some of that splendid English tea you are serving there.’

  The attendant looked at him and said, ‘All right, all right, we’ll get to everyone in due course, sir.’

  Walker looked up and smiled a little at the girl with the cantilevered bosom. ‘I guess if you’re brought up on it you get inured to the stuff,’ she said to Walker.

  ‘I suppose we do,’ said Walker.

  ‘You sell a lot of these fine teas?’ the foreigner was asking the attendant in great amiability.

  ‘Quite a number, sir,’ said the man.

  ‘Such cakes, such sandwiches, it will put pounds on the bottoms of these girls,’ said the foreigner.

  ‘They look as though they can stand it,’ said the attendant.

  ‘They are Americans, you understand, these things are an experience for them.’

  ‘Quite,’ said the attendant.

  ‘Well, thanks a lot,’ said the girl with the bosom, and the two of them went back down the car to their seats. ‘If we die we’ll hold you responsible.’

  Walker turned in his chair to watch them go. Their buttocks curved the fabric of their tight twill skirts. It was all very splendid, and brought back into Walker’s heart an old instinct which eight years of marriage had kept dormant. Walker rationalized it; it was a necessary curiosity about the world. There was nothing like sexuality to keep a man interested in other people; and since in the modern world there was little other approved relationship available he felt he was growing back into life.

  ‘Nice girls,’ said the foreigner, sitting down again. The encounter seemed to have excited him rather, and the little performance he had put on had clearly given him a great deal of pleasure.

  ‘They are,’ said Walker.

  ‘I have pursued a lot of interest in my time,’ said the man, ‘but there is no doubt of one thing: vomen are the most interesting interest of all. And most of all American vomen. You know, those girls are not just girls. They are central figures in the American mythology. They are charismatic leaders in their society.’

  ‘I see,’ said Walker.

  The man leaned forward, bending his neck over his firm, formal collar. He smelled of aftershave lotion. ‘You see, every country cares for something. In Germany, it is veal and gemütlich. In England it is, vell, dogs and diplomats. In America, it is girls. Young girls, of course. That is why those there are so vell endowed, why they have money to travel and dress so vell. All the energy of their fatherland goes into producing them. That is why you must take care.’

  ‘I will,’ said Walker.

  ‘And it is not that they are just girls. Of course that is important. But sociology tells us, vell, it tells us everything, but one of its discoveries is that in America the woman is powerful. So, sex is all different. It is necessary to know this before you appear in bed with one of these ladies. Which is vot all Europeans wish to do.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Walker, ‘if they all look like that.’

  ‘Ah, but beware!’ said the man, shaking his finger like a rather dangerous father, like a Marx or a Freud. ‘This America is a matriarchal society. That means it is better to be a voman than a man. Anxious fathers in the maternity hospitals always are praying, “Let the child please be a girl.” ’

  ‘Women to be frightened of,’ said Walker.

  ‘Yes, they will eat you up for their dinner,’ said the foreigner. ‘In America Little Red Riding Hood is a man.’

  ‘But they’re sexually very lively, I’m told,’ said Walker.

  ‘Vell,’ said the man, ‘in this modern world we are short of good reasons for relationships. Friendship is now abolished. No groups are secure. Sex is a good basis for human contact; in America it is the only one.’

  ‘Well, it has its limitations, but it’s nice,’ said Walker.

 
; ‘Nice?’ said the man. ‘Oh, there is much more to say about it than that. It is carrying now all the burden that religions and gods carried before. In the bedroom man is worshipping himself. That is why in America it is not only necessary to be a girl but a young girl. In England a voman looks best and dresses best when she is over forty. That is because the English respect experience and thought. In America boties are respected . . .’

  ‘Boties . . .?’ asked Walker.

  ‘Yes, the human boty. All the best clothes go to the young. In the street where I live there is an old American lady who always dresses in Bermuda shorts. In Vienna or Paris she would look a noble-woman, or like so.’ The man gestured at the dowagerly lady across the aisle. ‘In America she looks perfectly gross. But the young girls, there is another kettle of fish.’