Stepping Westward

by Malcolm Bradbury

  ‘Where’s that?’ asked Walker.

  ‘Oh, you can call them from my place.’

  ‘We’re going to your place?’ asked Walker.

  ‘I guess you want to wash up.’

  ‘Wash up?’

  ‘You know, clean yourself up a bit.’

  ‘I see,’ said Walker, relieved. ‘Well, if it won’t inconvenience the university . . .’ And indeed he did want to go to the lavatory; he had not liked to go on the train, because he was afraid of missing his destination, and that little walk up the line into the desert, which had perplexed Froelich so, was no more than a search for a public convenience. Now to be clean and new was Walker’s first ambition. He looked out at the town. A prairie schooner stood out on Main Street, and a number of the inhabitants, walking through the stretch of active life that extended from Penneys, where farm overalls hung in the windows, to the First National Bank, which was giving away free balloons, wore prospector’s beards and spring ties. Two rodeo riders horsed showily down the street, blocking traffic and delighting the tourists heading west, canvas sacks of water hanging off their fenders. The motif of ancient and modern was repeated right through the town centre: here was a store in glass and aluminium, where ski-clothes and western boots shrivelled in the sun-glare, and there was a Victorian structure in gargoyle style, called the Van Der Pelt Sunshine Hotel (‘Party’s Coolest Finest Driest Martini’). Of the university there was no sign, no hint, almost no possibility.

  ‘Where’s the college?’ asked Walker.

  ‘Doesn’t look like the place where you could have one, huh?’ said Froelich. ‘Well, that’s about right. Still, Party does have its provincial virtues. Actually you have to drive eighty miles to the state capital – Dimity – to find out the right time, but time is, after all, a relative concept. No, the university’s just out on the edge of town.’

  ‘How do you mean? Why don’t you know the time?’

  ‘All the townships round here can vote their own time. There’s sometimes a two-hour difference between two settlements five miles apart. That’s what we call out here real democracy.’

  ‘It sounds like anarchy, to me,’ said Walker.

  ‘Well, that’s right, that’s another word that fits the case. That’s what people forget about the States. They think it’s a land of conservatism and conformity. Okay, there is that, there’s plenty of it out here, and you’ll meet it. But the important thing is that at bottom America is free-floating and anarchic. You’ll find it in the students. They all have their little conservatisms. With one it’s virginity, with another it’s segregation, with another it’s straight know-nothing agrarianism. But these are just momentary stays against confusion. The real America is anarchy, right? The real Americans are the free-floating, do-anything students who don’t believe in a goddam thing except life. Riding on the back of history, flux and flow.’

  ‘Well, I have some sympathy with that,’ said Walker, ‘but I think I take a stand on time.’

  ‘Yeah, that figures. The English think of time as being made in England . . . all that Greenwich Mean Time bit. Greenwich Mean . . . that’s real time, the fundamental absolute time, and you can live by it because no one’s challenged it yet. They may do, but they haven’t yet. But in the States we have five time-zones, and variations locally. So we know time is relative . . . you can manipulate it, cheat it.’ Froelich took the car around three Bermuda-shorted girls who were crossing the street, and said, ‘Hi, luscious,’ through the window at the one nearest to him. ‘Hello, fella,’ said the girl.

  ‘Those are co-eds, college kids,’ he said. ‘No, the American attitude toward time is the same as the American attitude to the law. That means we can take it and we can leave it alone. We used to make our own law around here; we still do, to a point. And we still brew our own time. I sometimes figure that this is why American novels are more experimental than English ones. In your novels the narrative line runs chronologically, and why? Greenwich Mean Time. In American novels, time and law are jumbled; point of view goes all over; that’s because our visions and our experience are more fragmentary and separate. We each live in our own time and value zone.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ said Walker.

  ‘Am I the man I was ten years ago?’ asked Froelich. ‘I believe, as an American, no. I’m not the man I was last week. Now you . . . you know what you are. You stay the same, through every situation. You put out the flags, old school tie, Englishman’s suit, all the fitments that keep you right there in line. But what’s the line? Who made the line? Our clothes change with our personalities. We change our whole psychological and physiological systems when we go from one room to another. Call me Proteus.’

  ‘Everyone sees foreigners as more static than they are,’ said Walker. ‘That’s because the first thing you identify us by is by our nationality. I don’t lead the moral life of my father . . .’

  ‘Sure,’ said Froelich. ‘That’s right. But we don’t even remember our fathers.’

  Now they had reached the residential part of town. Great boat-like American cars oozed past on the streets, and slid silently up driveways sprigged with exotic greenery. The houses behind were white and shiny in the sun. Housewives sipped cool drinks on patios; sprinklers revolved on green lawns; there was an aroma of peace, and no one seemed put out about time at all. Walker looked at the life and liked it. ‘This is where the fathers live,’ said Froelich. ‘Republicans and proto-fascists. You can bet there’s a bomb shelter under every patio. Rigged out with machine-guns to keep the hicks from downtown getting in. We live up here one block.’

  Presently Froelich turned the car off the street and parked in the driveway of a small, noticeably unpainted property with a long decaying porch. ‘Well, this is it,’ he said, opening up the car door. ‘It takes a heap o’ heapin’ to make a heap a heap, as the Hoosier poet once said.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Walker, getting out too.

  ‘It does. Sometimes I have the urge to set fire to the goddam thing and collect on the insurance. But it’s all right. Anti-conspicuous consumption. It has real style.’

  They walked up the path. Suddenly some trigger mechanism in the lawn sprinkler turned it through ninety degrees and it sprayed fine water brightly over Walker’s tweeds. Froelich had stepped up on to the porch and opened the screen door.

  ‘Hi! hi!’ he shouted.

  ‘Hi!’ said a female voice.

  ‘Come on in,’ said Froelich.

  Walker stepped into the entrance, which gave directly on to a living room furnished in modern, or primitive, style, the general aim of which seemed to be to suggest that one wasn’t buying real furniture since one might be moving to a better place soon. There was an old divan, and four butterfly chairs, made of tangerine canvas stretched over a metal frame, and shaped for people with two heads. The bookcases along the walls were of unvarnished planks and unpainted bricks. Over them hung a medley of decorational devices: Aztec masks, bongo drums, spears, and a Speed map of Leicestershire. Hi-fi wires trailed around the walls and there were unpainted speakers in at least two corners; the record player itself stood on a shelf, all its technology exposed. An opening gave directly into a bedroom, where an unmade bed was evident, on it a nightdress, a girdle, and two empty Coke bottles.

  ‘Hi!’ said Patrice Froelich, coming out of the kitchen. She was wearing a shift dress which made her look as if she might be pregnant; she had dark hair and a delicate thin face. ‘This is Mr Walker,’ said Froelich.

  ‘Hello,’ said Patrice, holding out her hand, ‘you’re all wet.’

  ‘He took a shower without stripping off.’

  ‘Well, we’re really pleased to see you here, you know,’ said Patrice. ‘Everyone’s crazy to meet you. I guess everyone in town has borrowed your books.’

  ‘How nice,’ said Walker.

  ‘I’m sorry the place is so mussed up. Actually I thought Bernie was supposed to take you straight to the reception in the faculty lounge.’

  ‘That
’s right,’ said Froelich, sitting down. ‘But I thought he might like to freshen up first. Also I wanted him to meet you. He’s going to meet some terrible people and I wanted him to see something good first. She is good, isn’t she?’

  ‘Oh, very,’ said Walker.

  ‘Well, don’t be so goddam polite,’ said Froelich. ‘Say what you mean around here.’

  ‘I did mean it. Your wife’s a very attractive woman.’

  ‘Damn right she is,’ said Froelich.

  ‘Would you care to use the bathroom?’ asked Patrice.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Walker, relieved. ‘I’ve been wanting to go to the lavatory for ages.’

  ‘Show him the john, Bernie.’

  ‘Right here,’ said Froelich. He led Walker to the bathroom, on the door of which hung a little card which Froelich turned to reveal a message saying Seat occupied. United Airlines.

  Walker sat in the toilet and heard the Froeliches laughing outside. It made him uncomfortable. Once he heard Bernard Froelich say: ‘What a character.’ At one point something seemed to be being shouted at him. A moment later the door was pushed open. Walker, sitting there contemplatively, crossed his hands in front of his face and said, ‘Go away.’

  ‘I just wanted to know, martini or Manhattan?’ said Froelich, adding, ‘What have you got to hide?’

  ‘Martini,’ said Walker. When he came out, Froelich stood outside the door, stirring martinis with a glass stick. ‘Pardon me,’ he said, ‘you know how it is. This is the free-and-easy west.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Walker.

  ‘Don’t mind Bernie,’ said Patrice. ‘He’s a psycho case from way back. Well, you’re here. That’s good. I hope you like Party.’

  ‘Let’s go outside on to the porch,’ said Froelich, ‘and really get to know one another.’

  ‘Well, take it easy,’ said Patrice. ‘I expect Mr Walker’s had a really tiring journey. How was it?’

  ‘Yes, tiring,’ said Walker.

  ‘He’d be disappointed if we didn’t keep up that fast pace of living they talk about all the time in England,’ said Froelich. ‘Okay, now let’s ask him some really searching questions. Look, sit over there out of the sun. Where we can’t see you.’

  ‘I love that suit,’ said Patrice, ‘is that Harris?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Walker, ‘it’s all wet.’

  ‘You want to change into something of Bernie’s?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Froelich. ‘What are you trying to do, destroy his character? That suit is his nature. Don’t worry, the sun’s hot, it’ll dry right away.’

  ‘Speaking of Harris,’ said Patrice. ‘Is that right you’re staying with the Bourbons?’

  ‘Harris is Bourbon’s first name,’ said Froelich.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Walker. ‘He invited me to stay there until I found somewhere suitable to live.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Patrice, ‘though we could have taken you in here. You’d have liked that better.’

  ‘Yes, why not?’ asked Froelich. ‘We intended to ask you, but Harris got in first.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t do that,’ said Walker.

  ‘Well, okay, if you can’t, you can’t.’

  ‘No, he’s right, Bernie, he already made an arrangement.’

  ‘I guess not, it’s just that Bourbon has these crazy kids. They’ll give you a terrible time.’

  ‘Yeah, we should have warned him ahead of time. Then he could have come here.’

  ‘What’s the matter with these kids?’ asked Walker suspiciously.

  ‘Well,’ said Patrice, ‘the oldest boy, that’s Crispin, is a j.d., a juvenile delinquent. He graduates from high school next year.’

  ‘Then he’ll be an adult delinquent,’ said Froelich. ‘That’s progress; if you’re going to be a delinquent, why be juvenile about it?’

  ‘What does he actually do?’ asked Walker.

  ‘Oh, he runs around with a funny crowd, steals cars and drives them off cliffs for kicks, takes drugs, that kind of thing. I’d guess you’d say he was a normal child of intellectual parents. If intellectual is the word for Harris Bourbon.’

  ‘He’s shook up,’ said Patrice. ‘They all are, but he’s extrovert and has become a delinquent, whereas all the best kids round here are introvert and become psychotics. I much prefer that kind.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Froelich. ‘What we need in this country is a government that will come out on the desirability of suicide over murder.’

  ‘Then there’s the twins. The Bourbons abstained for about twelve years after they had Crispin, cut out intercourse entirely. I guess they felt it had failed, once they saw Crispin. It worries me sometimes. But then they went to it again and came up with these twins.’

  ‘I guess, if there are any real measurements on these things, they’re worse.’

  ‘How?’ asked Walker.

  ‘Well, they figured they were too permissive with Crispin, so they tried to repress the twins, made them hate their father and venerate him and all. Dr Bourbon worked on his super-ego and developed a bunch of authoritarian traits. My guess is they’ll ask you to try some of that English discipline on them. Dr Bourbon had a cane shipped over from England. Brandy, that’s the girl twin, hit him across the face with it. He was two days in the hospital.’

  ‘I told Bourbon he should have stayed continent or tried adultery, but this monstrous sexuality bowed him down.’

  ‘What’s he like?’ asked Walker.

  ‘Harris? Oh, well, what is he like, Patty? I find it so goddam hard to remember him once he’s out of the room.’

  ‘Well, he’s a sort of cross between Dr Johnson and a Texas cowpoke. He’s sort of impressively unimpressive.’

  ‘No, he’s not. I’d say he’s even unimpressively unimpressive. When I went out there this morning to borrow his ca . . . his electric mixer, he was out shooting bottles in his yard in a Brooks Brothers suit. That seems to me a kind of basic image of him. And he said to me, “Ho, there, boy, you know, son, this her-ed-it-ary business gits mo’ and mo’ mysterious to me ivery day. Alphonse, that’s one of mah little fellers, he come into the bunkhouse this mo’nin’ at sunup and his maw said sumpn or other to hum and, you know, he started to laugh. Ah bin scratchin’ mah brains all day but it still don’t figger. Cause his maw and me – we don’t niver laugh.” ’

  ‘Oh come on, Bernie, you’re giving Mr Walker the wrong impression.’

  ‘I don’t believe so.’

  ‘Why does he have a revolver?’ asked Walker.

  ‘Well, this is the west, you know, Jamie,’ said Froelich. ‘It’s really tough country. Out here, well, a fella gotta be able to defend himself. Keep your mouth buttoned and shoot from the hip.’

  ‘Don’t believe him,’ said Patrice.

  ‘You shoot a-tall, Mis’ Walker?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, walk in the middle of the street and keep looking around.’

  ‘It’s not that way any more,’ said Patrice. ‘Dr Bourbon happens to be a morsel of the old west, to a point.’

  ‘Yes, you can say that again, to a point.’

  ‘But there’s a lot of the west alive here still.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ said Froelich, gulping his drink, ‘time we was hittin’ the trail, stranger. Whole bunch of fellas lookin’ out for you ahead a-ways.’

  ‘Are people waiting?’ asked Walker. ‘I was wondering about that.’

  ‘Yes, they’ve been waiting a while,’ said Froelich. ‘Better not tell them we stopped in here.’

  ‘Well, I really enjoyed meeting you, James,’ said Patrice. ‘Do come round and have dinner with us soon. And if you have any problems or difficulties, you know, just call us. We’ve all been waiting for you here. You’re just what this town wants.’

  Outside the house, the sprinkler, awaiting his reappearance, turned again through its angle and once more filled Walker’s trouser cuffs with water. He got into the car and they drove toward the campus, past the fraternity houses
and by the lake, Bernard Froelich and the man who was just what the town wanted, the stranger from the east. ‘How’d you like Patrice?’ asked Froelich. For once the old question could be given a positive answer. ‘Very much,’ said Walker.

  Meanwhile on campus, in the faculty lounge of the English Department, the assembled guests were waiting. They had convened some two and a half hours earlier, in the heat of the afternoon, when they had had to drink iced water and blow on one another to keep cool. Five times their emissaries had returned with tales of barren buses and Walker-less trains; five times they had poised themselves for a welcome. Now President Coolidge had gone to keep another appointment and Dr Bourbon had, in a wild issue of departmental funds, bought Cokes all round, which had revived some and finished others. Old ladies in flappy dresses who taught children’s literature sat on the floor with their shoes off, penned in by forests of legs, thinking vaguely of little Hans in the forest and the gingerbread house. Young instructors in Ivy League suits, bright Jewish fellows who had been Ph.D’ed at Columbia at the age of eighteen, argued fiercely about the incest theme in the Ancrene Riwle. The faculty’s one beatnik, who taught a course in The Novel and Fascism, leaned against the wall and said dreamily, ‘Man, listen to that silence.’ A blonde and willowy graduate student named Cindy Handlin was describing to Ewart Hummingbee, that apathetic phoneticist, her custom of writing a poem a day in her notebook before going to bed; she had now been doing this for four years and had ambitions of publishing a stout volume, the stoutest volume of poetry that had been seen around for some time. Hamish Wagner laughed loudly as he told a story about a graduate student who went to interview a famous American author and had been chased off the property and partly eaten by the novelist’s dogs. ‘Did that affect his critical estimate?’ asked his interlocutor, Dr Evadne Heilman, a large lady with a booming voice. ‘No,’ said Wagner, ‘I think it was the great event of his life.’ The pretzels had run out, the peanuts had gone, and there were some who had forgotten what the occasion was convened for. Nonetheless all obscurely recognized their duty to stand firm until something happened – until someone had a coronary or Dr Bourbon left. Wallowing in corporate unhappiness, they handed glasses about over their heads and swallowed in cigarette smoke, secretly swearing that they never wanted to see their fellows again until this time next year.