As Far as You Can Go

by Julian Mitchell

  “You must be paid for it,” said Harold.

  “I don’t want your money,” said Henry in the same tired voice. “Mother left everything to me.”

  “What about Diane?”

  “Under the circumstances, I don’t think it would be too good an idea to give Diane the money from the picture,” said Washburn. He could have said it maliciously, but he didn’t.

  “All right,” said Harold. “I understand.”

  “Thank you,” said Henry Washburn. “Let’s go and have a drink, another drink. I’m all shook up today.”

  They sat in silence on the porch, then Harold rose and said, “I know what you must be feeling and thinking, Henry. And believe me, if I’d known this damned miniature was going to cause so much trouble, I’d never have come here in the first place.”

  “There’s no need to feel that.”

  “Are you going to bring Diane here tomorrow morning?”

  “I’m going to collect her at ten o’clock, if she’s well enough.”

  “May I come and see her about twelve?”

  Washburn nodded. “You must do whatever you like,” he said. Then he said, “I feel all shook up.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Harold. “Good-bye.”

  “If I’d only been home last night,” said Henry.

  “Where were you?’’

  “Need you ask?” His face seemed to crack with self-contempt. Then he turned his back to Harold and said “Good-bye” in a sad muffled voice.

  Harold walked quietly to his car.

  Nine

  “DIANE, DO STOP IT,” said Harold.

  “You killed her,” she said.

  She had been saying it for five minutes, repeating it in a monotonous voice.

  “Darling, you know I didn’t kill her, don’t be silly.”

  “You killed her. You killed Grandma.”

  “You’re crazy. You ought to see a psychiatrist.”

  “I don’t need a witch-doctor,” she said, with a sudden flare of contempt. “I know what happened. I saw it. She asked for what was hers, and you wouldn’t give it. You killed her.”

  “I shall go,” said Harold. He got up. He felt very relieved. He didn’t love her. He was sorry for her, but you couldn’t love a mad woman. And perhaps he hadn’t really loved her at all. It had been easy enough to think he was in love, when everything was simple, at the beginning. But at the slightest sign of strain, she had weakened, and her weakness had made him doubt his own feelings, and now he was clear. He did not love her. He would leave tomorrow.

  “Good-bye, Diane.”

  She turned her face away.

  “I’m going back to England. I shan’t ever see you again. I’m sorry things ended like this.”

  “You killed her,” said Diane.

  “Good-bye.”

  He left the room. Washburn was waiting outside.

  “I’m going,” said Harold. “Good-bye.”

  “We’re an odd family,” said Washburn. “You must try and forgive us.”

  “I think I’m the one that has to be forgiven, if anyone. But I think we should try not to feel guilty about anything. I don’t think feeling guilty helps.”

  “It doesn’t help,” said Washburn, distantly. “But then it’s not supposed to.” He stood looking at his feet for a while, then he said, “I’m sorry we couldn’t have met under less strained circumstances, Harold. But that’s how it was.”

  “Good-bye,” said Harold.

  “Good-bye.”

  There was less haze from the fire today. The wind had died during the night, and the fire was now under control. Two houses besides the Washburns’ had been destroyed. Mrs Washburn’s was the only death attributed to it.

  Harold drove through Westwood and up past the campus of U.C.L.A. to Sunset. The brightly dressed undergraduates were standing in large groups, talking and laughing, lounging easily, gracefully, selfconsciously, sexy.

  I’m not old yet, thought Harold fiercely, I’m damned if I’m not still young.

  At the hotel he packed and paid his bill, had lunch and swam once more in the swimming-pool. The water was almost too warm. It was like all Californian things, just a little bit too good for European taste.

  He met Chuck at two o’clock in the lobby, and they went out together under the frown of the desk clerk.

  “How was it yesterday?” said Harold.

  “It was all right,” said Chuck. “They didn’t ask any embarrassing questions.”

  “Do you have a lot of friends in L.A.?” said Harold.

  “I’ve lived here all my life. I have friends. It’s a great city, so long as you don’t get nervous. You have to sit back and relax, is all.”

  “Eddie never relaxed,” said Harold.

  “I guess not,” said Chuck. “Are you leaving today?”

  “Yes,” said Harold.

  “It’s real good of you to take me out there,” said Chuck. “I have a car. I could go by myself.”

  “I want to come with you,” said Harold.

  “I’m glad,” said Chuck. “It would be awful if I was the only person who cared about Eddie now he’s dead.”

  “I expect there are a lot of people who care, people all over the world.”

  “Yeah. But they forget. You don’t remember dead people when there’s lots of living ones around.”

  “There are some,” said Harold, “that you only wish you could forget.” He told Chuck about the Washburns.

  “Christ,” said Chuck, when Harold had finished. “You’ve sure been living a full life in California, Harold.”

  “Well, it’s pretty empty again now.”

  “That’s the way it goes.”

  “That’s the way it goes,” Harold agreed.

  When they reached the Watts Towers, Chuck got out and said, “Wow, this is kind of crazy, right?”

  “Right,” said Harold. He left Chuck to look around the Towers by himself, and went to stare over a gate at the railway line. He could see enough of the Towers from there by turning his head, the high fretted cones, with the sky shining through their lattice-work, the masterpiece of a man who didn’t know he was a genius. But he didn’t turn his head very much. It was full of thoughts about death, and he wanted to try and expunge them. The miniature was in a small box in his pocket.

  There was long coarse grass beside the tracks, and a warehouse, and some backyards across the way, and telephone-poles and electric cables. A slow freight train went by, each wagon groaning to a different note.

  Chuck came and joined him and said, “Shall we go?”

  “O.K.,” said Harold.

  They got into the car and began to drive back to Beverly Hills.

  “I think Eddie would have been glad you’d gone to see the Towers,” said Harold.

  “You think so?” said Chuck. He stared out of the window. “I don’t think he’d’ve cared one way or the other.”

  “It doesn’t really matter,” said Harold. “Acts like this—going to see a place because someone you loved happened to love it—aren’t for the dead, they’re for the living.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Chuck. “But they make you think about the dead, I guess.” He slouched against his door.

  Harold said, “The Towers are worth seeing for themselves, anyway. Don’t you think?”

  “I was about to say that,” said Chuck. “I’d hate to go see some place just for sentimental reasons. I’m not old yet.”

  “Nor am I,” said Harold, but when Chuck looked ques tioningly at him he said, “Just something I was thinking about this morning.”

  “You know the nicest thing Eddie ever said to me?” said Chuck suddenly. “He said,’ I wish you’d come off this manli ness kick, Chuck’—I’d been telling him I didn’t like some of his friends. You know—the hand-flapping kind. And he made me kind of angry, so I said, ‘I am a man, goddam it.’ And then he said, ‘I know that, Chuck. That’s why I like you.’ I thought of that just now, looking at those Towers. It just came to
me. I’d forgotten.”

  “People talk a lot of crap about manliness,” said Harold. He felt he knew all about it.

  “Would you mind,” said Chuck after a silence, “taking me back to my place, not to the hotel? I’m off in the afternoons.”

  “Of course. Where do you live? I didn’t want to go back there myself. I’m all set to head east again.”

  “East, huh? I kind of like it here.”

  “Well,” said Harold. He didn’t go on. “Where do you live?”

  “I’ll show you. It’s a sort of unnamed area, off Pico.”

  They took La Cienega Boulevard out of Inglewood, and eventually Chuck said, “Turn right here.”

  They went along a street of dilapidated frame houses till Chuck said to stop. The house was painted white, with a green door. The paint was fresher than anywhere else on the street.

  “Like to come in a moment?” said Chuck.

  “I ought to get going,” said Harold. “I want to get clear of L.A. before the rush starts.”

  “Just one drink,” said Chuck. “You’ve been—well, you know, it was good to have you around. You’re not like the rest of Eddie’s friends.”

  “I dare say I’m not,” said Harold.

  They went into the house. It was very neatly kept, and there was a large bookcase in the living-room.

  “Eddie’s books,” said Chuck. “I used to buy them for him. I never got to college myself. But Eddie liked to read.”

  They had a drink, then Harold said, “So long, Chuck. I hope things get better for you.”

  “They won’t,” said Chuck. “I’ve had the glamour in my life. But don’t worry about me. I can get along.”

  Harold got into the car.

  “It meant a lot having you around,” said Chuck, leaning through the window. “I had to talk to someone. I hope you didn’t mind.”

  “It was a privilege,” said Harold. “Good-bye, Chuck.”

  “Good-bye. Drive carefully, now.”

  Chuck stood and waved till Harold was out of sight.

  He took Pico to the downtown area, then the San Bernadino Freeway. He had missed the worst of the home-going traffic. Getting at last out of the city, he settled into the driving-seat, accustoming himself again to the slow rhythm of a long drive. The miniature was in his pocket, and he felt it whenever he reached for a cigarette. Dangerfield would be pleased, anyway. And in his breast pocket was Eddie’s poem. The old world and the new. He smiled to himself.

  As he neared the desert the growing dryness and heat excited him. His elbow on the window tested the rushing air like a bather’s toe. He thought of the last time he had been in the desert, of his exhilaration, the mixture of apprehension and joy beginning to stir again. He thought of the dirt roads over bronze mountains to dead towns, of the cloud of dust always behind him, of the harshness of the land, its impenetrable aloofness. It was something against which a man could measure himself in all humility, knowing it was greater than he and indifferent to his concerns. Ignoring him, it let him find out his strengths and weaknesses for himself. It did not judge. Judgment it left to those who took the risk, with whatever pride, humility or fear, of wishing to be measured against it.

  Soon he had left behind the last traces of habitation and was speeding across the Mojave towards the mountains of the great divide. He drove faster, beginning to feel driven again, thinking of the faint tracks that vanished towards vast dry valleys, remembering them dying out on the shoulders of barren hills, longing to be on them again, alone with them.

  At dusk he reached Barstow, but he pressed on. The radio station he was listening to went off the sir, signing off with “America, America”. America, America, he thought to himself, repeating the words over and over again.

  He stopped at a small town called Beacon Station, booked himself into a motel and had dinner.

  He was in the desert and it was good. Tomorrow he would turn left at Baker and go up to Death Valley as he had always meant to do. There hadn’t been time, things had happened so quickly. He breathed deeply of the dry night air, then went to bed. He slept well, without dreams.

  Copyright

  This ebook edition first published in 2013

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  All rights reserved

  © Julian Mitchell, 1963

  New preface © Julian Mitchell, 2013

  The right of Julian Mitchell to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–30415–8