Stepping Westward

by Malcolm Bradbury

  ‘Put your suitcases on the back seat,’ said Julie. ‘I’ve used all the luggage space for my stuff.’ Walker put in the two cases and the typewriter and climbed in front. ‘We’re off,’ said Julie, ‘Westward ho. Pike’s Peak or bust.’ Walker watched as the car began to move and then, exhausted, he immediately fell asleep.

  8

  WHEN WALKER awoke, the sun was up, slanting in through the car’s rear window, and they were high in the foothills. The big peaks, which from the plain around Party had looked so close, retreated before them, spreading out their white caps in all directions. There was a fresh snowfall here too, on the road and among the rocks and pines. ‘Hi,’ said Julie, holding tightly on to the driving wheel as the car slid about the road in old ruts. ‘You’re awake. It’s a beautiful day.’

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Walker.

  ‘Oh, around eight. We have to stop and get some breakfast soon. And we need some groceries, because I’ve got a pump-up camping stove back there and we can make our own meals. You a good cook, Mr Walker?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It’s real cold out there,’ said Julie, ‘I wouldn’t like to be a brass monkey.’

  ‘There seems to be a lot of snow around.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t think of that. With this new snowfall the plough won’t have got to it yet and we could be blocked in. That happens in the mountains. Like the Donner party. I guess that was west of here, in the Sierras, but they got overtaken by winter and they had to eat one another to survive, or for some of them to survive. The question is, if we get snowbound, who eats who?’

  ‘You eat me,’ said Walker.

  ‘Now you’re just being polite and English again; why? Let’s be rational. Who’s the most useful of us?’

  ‘You’re younger than me; and you’re beautiful.’

  ‘Well, you’ve published more and you’ll publish more yet if you survive. No, you eat me.’

  ‘You eat me.’

  ‘Look, I’d better try the radio and see what the weather report is for this region, don’t you think?’

  ‘I should,’ said Walker. Julie switched on and a disc jockey on a local station came through announcing early carols for people who would be killed on the roads before Christmas.

  ‘Oh lord,’ said Julie, pressing the button again, and getting country and western music, where lethargic cowpokes sing about their dogies. On a third station was a commercial for horsefeed. ‘Horsefeed to you,’ said Julie, switching off. ‘You eat me, don’t forget. You snored in your sleep.’

  ‘I must have been tired,’ said Walker.

  ‘You nearly drowned, remember? I sang you lullabies when you were sleeping.’

  ‘Let’s hear one now when I’m awake,’ said Walker.

  ‘Okay,’ said Julie, and sang:

  Hush, little baby, don’t you cry

  ’Cause you know your mammy was born to die

  All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

  ‘You know that one?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ said Walker, and sang:

  If livin’ were a thing that money could buy

  The rich would live and the poor would die

  All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

  ‘Okay, all together now,’ said Julie, ‘and let’s have it loud and clear’:

  I’ve got a little book with pages three

  And every page spells liberty

  All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

  ‘Good,’ said Julie. ‘What do you do in cars in England? Apart from laying one another? We have this whole car culture here.’

  ‘We sit and look out of the window.’

  ‘Sitters by the wall,’ said Julie. ‘We always sing. Know any English songs? Isn’t that where our folk-songs came from originally?’

  ‘Do you know “Ilkley Moor Baht ’At”?’

  ‘No,’ said Julie, giggling.

  ‘All right, I’ll give you that.’ He gave that, and then sang ‘Oh, Sir Jasper’ and ‘Three Old Ladies Locked in a Lavatory’. He felt absolutely fine.

  At a roadside diner they stopped for breakfast. The man sweeping the entrance wore a Stetson and said, ‘Howdy strangers, welcome,’ looking at them suspiciously.

  ‘Hi,’ said Julie. ‘You have to say “hi”,’ she said, ‘this is the west, man.’ They sat down at the counter and looked across at display cards of No-Doze and nail-clippers. Julie picked up the menu and said: ‘You going to have the breakfast special? How’d you like your eggs fried?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Oh, you have to be smart with these short-order cooks. They’re real tough. Ask for two fried looking at you.’

  ‘Two fried looking at you,’ said Walker.

  ‘This the breakfast special? You don’t want the short stack?’ asked the waitress.

  ‘Two fried looking at you,’ said Walker.

  ‘There, you sounded tough, now she respects you,’ said Julie, putting on her sunglasses. ‘I can’t bear to look at naked fried eggs.’

  ‘I really know I’m abroad in these places,’ said Walker.

  ‘Cream with?’ asked the waitress.

  ‘Sure, set it down,’ said Walker.

  ‘Oh boy, oh boy,’ said Julie, ‘you’ll be running for President next.’ When they went back to the car, ‘Oh, that cold’s good,’ said Julie, huddling her arms across her breasts, ‘we’re coming up to the high peaks now. We’ll soon be hitting the Continental Divide. Once you’re over that you’re really in the west.’

  They saw the Continental Divide signs about an hour later; Julie stopped the car and Walker got out and urinated on the ridge, hoping to fill Atlantic and Pacific at the same time. They drove on, into the plateau, then to the second range of peaks. On one sharp bend the car slewed across the road and angled round again just short of the edge of a deep ravine. ‘Whoops!’ said Julie. ‘I hope that didn’t frighten you.’

  ‘No,’ said Walker.

  ‘Good,’ said Julie, ‘because it did me.’

  The summits all around them perpetually reorganized themselves as they went on. They went through miners’ towns, with abandoned workings by the roadside, and high cattle country. Always there were the mountains around. ‘We’ll stop in the next good place and I’ll fix us some food,’ said Julie about noon, when the sun was filling the canyons. They found a picnic area, deep in snow; Walker cleared off one of the picnic tables and got the camping stove from the front luggage compartment of the Volkswagen. In her cashmere coat and straw hat, Julie opened cans and unwrapped packages. ‘I’m going to fix soup and frankfurters and beans, is that all right?’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Walker. They sat on the running-board of the car to eat these things, watching the new snow drop from the pines.

  ‘See any bears around?’ asked Julie.

  ‘Are there bears here?’ said Walker.

  ‘Of course,’ said Julie, ‘they come out of the National Parks and live wild for a spell.’

  ‘We seem to be living very dangerously,’ said Walker.

  ‘Yes,’ said Julie, ‘especially with my cooking. There’s just some Hostess cupcakes now. I’ll fix some coffee. It’ll have to be in the same saucepan as the beans.’

  ‘Good,’ said Walker.

  ‘How was it?’ asked Julie afterwards. ‘Am I a good cook?’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Walker.

  ‘I like cooking for you,’ said Julie.

  ‘The coffee tasted of beans, though,’ said Walker.

  ‘It’s called boffee,’ said Julie, ‘it’s a specialty of the house. Okay, let’s get packed and we’ll start again. I want to hit Salt Lake City tomorrow some time.’

  The Rockies were still with them as they drove on into the afternoon. The sun began to slant down again, coming full into the front of the car. Then, in front of them, there was suddenly the plain again. ‘This was the pioneer’s dream,’ said Julie. ‘Think of those Mormons coming out from the passes and finding this. You know what they said? “This must be the
place.” It was the Happy Valley, the land God had saved for them. Actually it just looks like anywhere, but it’s those mountains that make it, I think.’

  ‘The trouble’s before,’ said Walker. ‘It is beautiful, though. But what impresses me about America is the way everyone saw it as a God-designed landscape. Every journey was a myth.’

  ‘I think we still have something of that feeling,’ said Julie. ‘That’s one reason why it’s so big to come to Yerp. Keep your eyes skinned for some roadside cabins, Mr Walker, cheap ones. I think this is about my capacity for driving in one day. We have to decide. Are we going to share a cabin?’

  Walker said, ‘I would like us to.’

  ‘Well, then, we have to register as a married couple. Do you know about the Mann Act? It’s a federal offence to transport a girl across a state line for immoral purposes. That’s why lots of guys do it just for extra kicks.’

  After a while, they found some weather-beaten, white-painted wooden cabins at the roadside, in the pines. There were only two cars there already, and a sign hopefully said, Vacancy. ‘I’ll turn in here,’ said Julie, skidding the car up the snowy slope. ‘Look, you don’t happen to carry around a wedding ring with you, do you, Mr Walker?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Never thought you’d get lucky, huh?’ said Julie. ‘How come you don’t wear one?’

  ‘We don’t use them in England.’

  ‘Not even women?’

  ‘Oh yes, women do.’

  ‘You have one law for women and another for men. Okay, well, I’ll just have to put my gloves on. Maybe I should tie a bit of cord around my finger to make a hump. At least we have luggage.’

  ‘What about the labels?’ said Walker, as they stopped outside the first cabin, which said Office.

  ‘We’ll have to unload when he’s not looking. Now, you go in there and find out the rate. Then come and tell me what it is.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you?’ asked Walker. ‘You know what’s what.’

  ‘Goddam it, no,’ said Julie. ‘I drive, I cook, you ask the rates, Mr Walker.’

  Walker went into the office and rang a bell on the counter. A small old man in grey denims came out from a back room and said, ‘Howdy, stranger.’

  ‘Howdy,’ said Walker, and asked if they had a double room for one night. ‘Reckon we do,’ said the man. ‘Number six.’

  ‘How much is it?’

  ‘Four bucks the pair,’ said the man.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Walker. He went outside to Julie and told her.

  ‘Okay, now ask to look at it,’ said Julie. Walker went inside again and asked to be shown the cabin. The man took down a key and led him through the snow. ‘Ain’t no dinin’ room here but we got cookers in the cabins. There’s a store ’bout a mile down the highway. Coke machine back there in th’office. Guests out by ten in the mornin’ for cleanin’.’ The man unlocked the cabin door; it had a double bed with a maple headboard and footboard, an old cooker in the corner, and a small bathroom and toilet in the back.

  ‘Yes, that’s fine,’ said Walker, and he went back to the office and signed the register, writing ‘Mr and Mrs Caliban, Tempest, NY’ in the book.

  ‘’Kay, Mr Caliban,’ said the man, ‘you can drive right up there.’ Walker got back in the car. ‘Sleep good, Mrs Caliban,’ said the old man, on the step. Julie backed the car and drove up to the cabin.

  ‘What’s this Caliban bit?’ asked Julie.

  ‘That’s our name,’ said Walker. They unlocked the luggage and took it inside.

  ‘Is there a shower?’ asked Julie.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Walker.

  ‘Didn’t you look? Always look if there’s a shower. Yeah, there is. It’s crummy and it’s broken down, but I’d use the word shower if I was generalizing.’

  Walker went over to Julie, lifted her face, and kissed her. ‘Hi,’ said Julie.

  ‘Hi,’ said Walker.

  ‘Well, it’s not the honeymoon suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, but at least the bed bounces,’ said Julie. ‘I don’t think it will do discredit to the occasion.’

  ‘Good,’ said Walker, kissing her again.

  ‘It’s kind of cold, though,’ said Julie.

  ‘We’ll warm each other,’ said Walker.

  ‘I know we will, duckie,’ said Julie.

  Walker sat on the bed and said, ‘Come and sit down.’

  ‘Not so fast, Superman, I’m going to cook us a meal first. Then I’ll test the bounce.’ She got out some cans and opened them. ‘Oh, and there’s a little question I have to put to you,’ she said. ‘This little question of your marital status. I guess you wondered why I put you down that last evening on the ship. Well, your friend Millingham told me you were a married man. Now, what about it? Let’s have the whole story, Mr Walker, duckie.’

  ‘Well, it’s true, of course.’

  ‘Yes, I got that. So, what do you have to offer me?’

  ‘I’m trying to divorce her.’

  ‘What does the word “trying” mean here?’

  ‘She doesn’t want me to.’

  ‘Why not? You’re so attractive, I should have thought any girl would want to divorce you.’

  ‘I suppose she likes me, and thinks I’m being foolish. And she’s a traditional sort of English girl. She thinks marriage is for ever.’

  ‘It’s beans again,’ said Julie. ‘Oh, and you don’t?’

  ‘Well, I don’t honestly know. On the whole the English have always believed in making the best of a bad job. The English have always really clung to their marriages, because they don’t see them as places and the achievement of happiness. If it doesn’t provide positive pleasure at least it offers safety and security.’

  ‘You mean that English wives are no good in bed?’

  ‘I’d say they don’t put so much effort into that area of life. Americans live so much more through the sexual relationship, they demand more of it.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  ‘Ah, me,’ said Walker. ‘Well, that’s a different matter. Come here and I’ll show you.’

  ‘Eat your beans,’ said Julie.

  When they had eaten, Julie went into the bathroom and took a shower. Walker, listening to the water cascading, lay on the bed. The sleep he had missed the night before fought with his excitement about Julie. You mustn’t sleep, he said, you mustn’t sleep; this is the best thing that has ever happened to you. And the more he thought of it, the more it seemed it was. His affection and fondness for her ran deeper than any he could recall. Her coolness and style and her physical neatness, the very composition of her body and her heart, pleased him more than any woman he had known. Even in the shower he missed her. He went and knocked on the plywood door and said: ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Okay, duckie,’ said Julie. He looked at all the neatness of her naked body under the flow of water, every aspect of it neat, rightly shaped, proudly there, and his heart beat wildly. Julie turned the shower head and soaked him with water.

  ‘Oh, God!’ said Walker, gasping.

  ‘You’ll have to undress now, won’t you, duckie,’ said Julie. Walker dropped his wet clothes on the floor and stood there naked, unsure, uncomfortable. ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ said Julie, ‘that was unfair. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well?’ said Julie Snowflake, a little later.

  ‘Well,’ said Walker.

  ‘And how was it?’ asked Julie.

  ‘I admire your energy,’ said Walker, ‘but I didn’t know that bathroom floors were so uncomfortable after a while.’

  ‘Yes they are; let’s go through in there. I have a pack of cigarettes around somewhere.’ Julie found the cigarettes, put two in her mouth and lit them both, handing one to Walker. Then she said: ‘You mind if I make some criticism in the field of Poise and Co-ordination?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Walker. ‘But I’m pretty sensitive.’

  ‘It’s just that you’re still not a totally relaxed person, and I feel responsible, you know?’


  ‘Can’t sag.’

  ‘No, right.’

  ‘You think I could do better?’

  ‘I think better could be done.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Walker.

  ‘I’m not complaining. Hell, we’re both really bushed. But what does your wife think?’

  ‘She’s never expressed dissatisfaction.’

  ‘Well, as you know, I’m a great believer in criticism. And standards. Like those ties you wear. People don’t wear such wide ties any more. Why don’t you buy some American ties?’

  ‘I thought they were all right.’

  ‘You could look so much neater, you have this messy look. I guess it’s the English style, is it?’

  ‘I like to think I add a certain characteristic messiness of my own,’ said Walker.

  ‘When we get to San Francisco I’m going to take you to a men’s store and buy you some good clothes, okay?’

  ‘Yes, fine,’ said Walker.

  A little later still, when they were lying in bed, looking through the muslin drapes at the moon, high over the peaks, Walker said: ‘You remember Dr Jochum, from the ship?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Do you see much of him? I was going to call him on the telephone if I’d stayed any longer in Party.’

  ‘He’s leaving, he’s resigning from his job.’

  ‘Why? I thought he liked it here.’

  ‘Because of me.’

  ‘You?’ cried Julie.

  ‘You told me he was at Hillesley. Why did he leave there?’

  ‘I think it was because they couldn’t give him the courses he wanted to teach. And then there was some trouble when some Soviet academician came to be awarded an honorary degree. There was this Russian expatriate group that made some kind of objection. But really I don’t think that had much to do with his quitting. I think it was the courses mainly. And of course they didn’t give him tenure. It was sort of like Pnin, did you ever read that novel? It’s marvellous.’