Stepping Westward

by Malcolm Bradbury

  ‘I’m by the record-player. I can’t work it.’

  ‘Come over here.’

  Walker moved forward and stumbled over some shoes. His hand went into a potted plant and prickles stuck in his palm. He crawled the last bit to the divan. ‘Hi hi,’ said Patrice, ‘give me a kiss.’

  Suddenly there were three faces together, breathing heavily over each other. ‘Hey, easy,’ said Bob, ‘keep it heterosexual.’ Walker found Patrice’s face and kissed it.

  ‘You have parties like this in England?’ asked Bob Naughty.

  ‘I can’t remember any,’ said Walker.

  ‘Whose hand is that?’ said Patrice.

  ‘Why these speculations about identity?’ said Bob Naughty.

  ‘I like to know whose hands are in my dress,’ said Patrice.

  ‘Not mine,’ said Bob.

  ‘Well, it’s not mine,’ said Walker.

  ‘It must be your own,’ said Bob, ‘unless there’s another guy here we haven’t identified yet.’

  ‘It’s you, Bob, cut it out,’ said Patrice. ‘Why don’t you make some drinks?’

  ‘James hasn’t made any drinks yet.’

  ‘Well, I want him here.’

  ‘See,’ said Walker.

  ‘Maybe I should hit him,’ said Bob.

  ‘No, make some more drinks,’ said Patrice.

  ‘I don’t even want a goddam drink.’

  ‘Well, I do and James does,’ said Patrice. ‘A beer and a Scotch. A neat, tidy Scotch.’

  ‘Let the guy on top of the pile do it,’ said Bob. ‘I’m parked where I can’t get out.’

  ‘So we’ll all get up,’ said Patrice.

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ said Bob. He got up and stumbled into the darkness. They heard him open a door and Froelich’s voice said, ‘Bysie, bysie.’

  ‘Hell, wrong door,’ said Bob. Patrice put her head against Walker’s and said, ‘Hi hi.’

  ‘Hi hi,’ said Walker. ‘Patrice, I was wondering . . .’

  ‘What?’ said Patrice.

  ‘Is dandruff infectious?’

  ‘You got dandruff?’

  ‘Yes. And America seems to make it worse.’

  ‘Well, treat it,’ said Patrice. ‘I’ll give you something you put on it in the shower.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘Oh, you got friends here.’

  ‘I see I have,’ said Walker, putting his hand where Bob’s had been. ‘Mine,’ he said. Patrice pressed the hand and said, ‘It doesn’t have a wedding ring.’

  ‘Men don’t wear them in England.’

  ‘Oh no, I know that,’ said Patrice. ‘Is that because they don’t need them, they’re so good, or because they refuse to be tied down?’

  ‘The second.’

  ‘Oh, those poor English women,’ said Patrice. ‘Why don’t they stand up for themselves?’

  ‘Who wants them standing up?’ said Walker.

  ‘I wonder if you’re a very nice man.’

  ‘I wonder myself.’

  ‘Maybe you do have a mind of your own.’

  ‘You have very smooth skin,’ said Walker. ‘Is it brown in there?’

  ‘I’ll show you sometime,’ said Patrice. The carillon on campus rang out two, and Patrice said, ‘Those Bourbons will wonder where you got to.’

  ‘I’d better call them and explain.’

  ‘Great, let’s call them up and say Nerh,’ said Patrice. ‘Nerh, Harris, and another big Nerh for the rest of the family.’

  ‘Oh, don’t get up,’ said Walker.

  ‘Sure, don’t you want to do it?’

  ‘No, not really, on reflection,’ said Walker. ‘I’m staying with them, you know.’

  ‘I know, it’s crazy,’ said Patrice.

  The door of the bedroom opened and Bernard Froelich stumbled out. ‘Hi hi,’ he said. ‘How goes it?’

  ‘Fine, Bernie, fine,’ said Patrice.

  ‘Eudora wants to hear the bongos,’ said Bernard, ‘so I said we’d beat out something. Ever play the bongos, Jamie?’

  ‘No,’ said Walker.

  ‘There seems to be a lot of goddam things that you ain’t never done,’ said Bernard.

  ‘I know, but I’m learning.’

  ‘Here, give him the drums,’ said Froelich. ‘Now beat them out, boy.’

  Walker put the drums on the floor in front of him and hit them. ‘No, not like that, goddam it,’ said Froelich. ‘Put them between your knees. Sit on the floor. That’s it, now, beat ’em.’ Walker began drumming. The noise pleased him and he tried some syncopations. ‘Beat ’em, boy,’ cried Froelich. Walker unfastened his tie and opened up the front of his shirt, and then set to again. ‘Come on, come on,’ cried Eudora. Walker maddened to the rhythm. Sweat poured down his body. ‘Take off his shirt,’ said Eudora.

  ‘It’s like King Lear, over again,’ said Froelich. ‘Oh, boy, now you’re a negro.’ The telephone rang. Froelich answered it and said, ‘It’s the neighbours. They’re going to call the cops.’

  ‘Ring them back and say Nerh,’ said Patrice.

  ‘We’ll have that prowl-car back,’ said Bob Naughty. Walker stopped drumming.

  ‘Oh, that was great,’ said Patrice.

  ‘Why don’t we get out of here?’ said Bob.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Walker, ‘I’d better be getting home.’

  ‘No, come on, let’s get breakfast some place. It’s already dawn.’

  When they got out to the car, the light was coming up. A bird was singing in a tree. The fresh pink light was rising over the shortgrass plain and picking out the undulations over toward the mountain. The peaks showed faintly. Walker got in the back with Patrice and held her hand as they drove through the empty streets of Party. ‘I feel like we were driving west,’ said Bob Naughty. ‘What time do we hit Amarillo, Texas?’ They found a diner on the edge of town and ordered eggs. The bright sunlight slanted in now through the windows, and outside the town’s garbage trucks were meeting together. There was the dust of sleeplessness in Walker’s eyes and he began to nod over his eggs.

  ‘You were really turned on with those drums,’ said Patrice.

  ‘I’m tired now,’ said Walker.

  ‘Okay, come on, I’ll drive you back to this Bourbon place. Where is it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Walker. ‘Out in the country somewhere.’ They drove back through the fresh morning light. The Bourbon house was shuttered and silent. ‘Thanks,’ said Walker, getting out. He walked toward the house.

  ‘We’ll wait until you get inside,’ said Froelich. Walker tried the front door; it was locked. He was about to turn and go back home with Froelich when it opened silently and Dr Bourbon, in his Japanese kimono, stood sadly on the step. ‘I was sittin’ up in a chair waitin’ for you,’ he said. ‘Thought you didn’t have transportation. Was waitin’ for you to call.’

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Walker.

  ‘Then I heard the car. Figgered for a moment it was prowlers. Nearly shot you all up.’

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t.’

  ‘Is that Bernard Froelich out there?’ asked Bourbon. ‘Wanted to ask him ’bout my fender.’ But as he spoke, the car gunned and drove off. Walker, watching it, saw Patrice’s hand waving at him through the rear window. Then they were gone and a solemn Dr Bourbon ushered the guilty Walker indoors.

  6

  ON THE FIRST DAY of the new semester, Walker woke in his bed at the Bourbon house to hear a strange hum and buzz in the air. The bright American day shone in through the thin gauzy drapes, and balmy winds blew in from the direction of Party the sound of yells, and screams, and shouts. Closer at hand, on the gravel outside, someone was walking; the steps ceased and suddenly a clear ‘Goddarn it’ was superimposed on the distant noise. It was Dr Bourbon, taking another look at the place where Froelich, in his wildness, had torn the fender off his car. Walker got out of bed and dressed quickly. When he got into the kitchen Dr Bourbon was already there, slipping his apron from the hook.

>   ‘Hear that? All that noise?’ he said, nodding his head in the direction of town. ‘The kids are all back.’

  ‘Is that what the racket is?’ asked Walker, feeling suddenly like an old resident.

  ‘Yup,’ said Bourbon, tying the apron, ‘they’re all registerin’ for their courses.’

  Walker sat down and Bourbon cracked two eggs into a copper pan. ‘So it’s all starting,’ said Walker. ‘Yup,’ said Bourbon. ‘Oh, take a look in the Bugle. I put it there. Nice little story about you, son.’

  Walker picked up the newspaper, folded to reveal an item headed ‘Angry Young Man Loses Anger in Party.’ It began: ‘Angry young man author James Walker, visiting Party from England to head Benedict Arnold’s creative writing program, announced Wednesday that he had stopped feeling angry since he arrived in town. “In Party there’s nothing to feel angry about,” chunky, tweed-clad Walker told a Bugle reporter . . .’

  Walker put the paper down, positively red with anger. ‘I didn’t say that,’ he said.

  ‘Nice piece,’ said Bourbon.

  ‘I think it’s terrible. I shall have to go down to the newspaper office and ask them to retract it.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Mis’ Walker,’ said Bourbon, surprised. ‘You know how it is, they write these things up a mite.’

  ‘It’s nothing like what I said,’ said Walker.

  ‘Seems close to the gist of it to me,’ said Bourbon. ‘Seems to me you’re just regrettin’ you said it.’

  ‘I didn’t say that, did I?’ asked Walker.

  ‘Well, sumpn like it. Any case, I wouldn’t go down there, don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with the press.’

  ‘I seem to be very good at getting off on the wrong foot,’ said Walker.

  Dr Bourbon, who had been subdued ever since he had sat up all night waiting for Walker to return from his visit to the Froelichs’, didn’t seem disposed to refute this. The Bourbons had been nice to him, the matter had never been mentioned. The day before, Mrs Bourbon had taken him downtown and shown him the stores he might want to know about – the best men’s store; the Doozy Duds, a coin-operated laundry; the Rexall Druggist; and the First National Bank, where an amiable western character in a string tie and stuck-on mutton-chop whiskers had opened his account and given him a chequebook with his name on it, a wallet for his statements, and a piggy-bank inscribed JAMES’S BANK. At the supermarket, for supermarket orientation, she had taken him in through the self-opening doors and he had been introduced to a black-and-white check elephant and been given a free balloon and a genuine china cup and saucer. Even so, Walker felt that the fine glow of relationship was dimming out, that the pleasures of hosting were losing their savour, that the best thing a guest could do was, after all, go. So the previous afternoon he had visited, at the Froelichs’ suggestion, the International House on campus and been shown a room with a small desk with a snaky-coiled lamp, a closet full of wire hangers, and two bunkbeds. ‘By the way,’ he now said to Bourbon, ‘I’ve fixed my living arrangements. I’m moving into a room in International House.’

  ‘Waal, I’m told it’s a mighty comfortable little place. Course they’re mostly foreigners there, but you won’t mind that. Indians and Japs and all. Did you take a look at the room?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a double, but they’re letting me have it as a single. I shall have plenty of space and a place to work, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I guess that’s the best. Waal, it’s been mighty nice havin’ you here, Mis’ Walker. When do you plan to move?’

  ‘Is today all right?’

  ‘Oh, when you like, boy. We ain’t wantin’ to use the guest room for a few more days yet.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said Walker ‘and for all your kindness and hospitality.’

  ‘Fun for us, Mis’ Walker,’ said Bourbon. ‘Sweetie, Mis’ Walker’s leavin’ today, movin’ into International House,’ he shouted through to the conversation pit. Mrs Bourbon came through, her cat on her shoulder.

  ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ she said. ‘They have English tea on Sunday afternoon once a month. I always go. They make it with those, what do you call them? – leaves. Not the bags.’ Walker said his thanks and shook hands. Then he went into his bedroom and packed up the cases; Dr Bourbon was taking him down on his way to the university. The last thing he heard was a shout of ‘Goodbye, turd’ from Alphonse in the pool; the last thing he saw was the hostile face of Crispin, lowering from some bushes close to the drive. And then he left.

  Bourbon dropped him at International House, a big, white-painted house with colonial pillars, on the edge of the campus, where town met gown and hated one another. An Arab student led him up to his room. ‘Remember, please, this is a democratic place,’ he said. Walker unpacked his cases again and put his papers and underwear in the drawers.

  The phone on the wall rang. ‘Su,’ said a high little voice.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Walker.

  ‘This is Mr Su. Welcome to International House. I am head of Foreign Students Committee. Good to know you.’

  ‘And you,’ said Walker.

  ‘Remember, call Su when you’re in trouble here. Any information or aid. I will invite you to all meetings. They are very democratic.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Su,’ said Walker. After he had put down the phone, Walker picked it up again on a whimsy, for it was the first time he had had free access to this means of communication, and called Patrice Froelich in the admissions office.

  ‘Hi hi,’ he said, ‘it’s James Walker.’

  ‘Hi, how are you?’

  ‘Just to tell you I’ve moved into International House.’

  ‘Fine, how is it?’

  ‘Very democratic,’ said Walker.

  ‘Let me write down your number,’ said Patrice.

  Walker gave it and Patrice said, ‘Now you can do what you like.’

  ‘Fine, well, I’ll call you again, then. I like that.’

  ‘Well, do that,’ said Patrice. ‘Good to hear you, James.’

  Walker put down the phone and heard the carillon, nearer now, playing ‘It Ain’t What You Do It’s The Way That You Do It’. It was now his ambition to find his way to the English Department and sit in his office and prepare for his first class, tomorrow. He picked up his map and the pile of papers marked Faculty Orientation and set out. On the way out of the house, he looked in on the bathrooms. There were no doors on the lavatories; a row of olive-skinned Asiatics sat contemplatively, their trousers down, on the pots in each stall. Very democratic, thought Walker.

  Outside, the students had taken over Party. College boys drove by in cars with their feet out of the windows. On the sloping roofs of the student apartments and the sororities, co-eds in simple bikinis sunned their brown skins and threw peanuts at people passing by. It made Walker want to wait there to catch one when she fell off. On campus, the girls walked along the campus paths, their notebooks in their arms, wearing neat Bermuda shorts or tight skirts, with darts under the rump to make their bottoms stick out. Despite his map, it took Walker some time to find the English Department’s wooden hut; at one point he crossed a stream and found himself plodding through bushes, up to his ankles in mud. Finally the hut appeared before him, vibrating with activity. Inside, students in large numbers walked up and down the corridors, making the floors bounce, and worked the Coke machine. In his office his colleagues were already sitting at their desks, giving student conferences; boys and girls sat beside them, spreading their knees, chewing gum, arguing about their destinies. A co-ed, a sorority pin at the tip of her left nipple, was saying to Froelich, over in his corner: ‘Hi there, Mr Froelich. Are you going to want me to think, like my last teacher did?’

  ‘Hi hi, James,’ said Froelich. ‘The peons are here.’

  ‘Good morning,’ said Walker.

  ‘Want to use your desk?’ asked Froelich. ‘I left some teaching notes in the drawers.’ He pulled out the drawers and tipped them upside-down on the desktop; papers, old cigarette packs, b
ooks of matches and a Coca-Cola bottle tumbled about. ‘The guy who had this desk last year drove off the top of a mountain halfway through the second semester,’ said Froelich. ‘You’ve got to be tough to survive.’

  Walker sat down and opened up the instructions for his first class, trying not to think about his predecessor. The instructions said: ‘Meeting One. Introduce yourself and spell your name; also write it on blackboard. Check the names of the students. Make sure no students are in your section who have been assigned to other sections . . .’ It went on, but the print blurred in Walker’s eyes and he found that he was feeling very frightened indeed. Across the room he heard Froelich’s voice rise: ‘Of course what I tell you is right, because if it was wrong I wouldn’t tell you it. Okay, my colleagues might disagree with me, but they’re wrong. Have confidence.’

  But confidence was what Walker had not. America was a society where the words right and wrong were, from his point of view, inapplicable. Anybody could do anything. And amid this chaos stood up a few pedantries of grammar. The truth, tablets of revelation! ‘It should always be made clear who is addressing whom, and on the subject of whom.’ Walker made some notes for the class, despairing, and a moment later Froelich came over and proposed that they go to the faculty lounge for coffee. The lounge was full of teachers, none of them lounging, all of them tense. They were mostly young men who had just come in, pulling Hertz trailers from New York and Wisconsin and Santa Barbara. They had supposed they were individuals, intellectually unique, and now here were hundreds more like themselves. They stood in the lounge and looked at one another in desperate enquiry, seeing their intellects, their critical responsiveness, their high literary awareness, their special quality of mind, multiplied by scores. In the corner of the lounge an old man tended a coffee machine; they paid five cents each and filled their cups. ‘See that man behind the machine?’ said Froelich. ‘He’s an emeritus professor. He watches the coffee and then he goes downtown to get the latest word on the used-car prices. Can’t bear to give the old place up.’ They sat down, and Froelich said, ‘You look unhappy.’

  ‘Well,’ said Walker, ‘I am. Here we are in America. A pluralistic society where nothing is not allowed. Everybody goes his own way. But we have to teach them grammar. What do you say on its behalf? “Grammar is what you feel good after. And our sermon today is on the rewards of the good grammatical life. Live grammatically, and all shall be open to you. Your employer will appreciate the clarity of your memoranda, or other kinds of report required in business.” ’