Stepping Westward

by Malcolm Bradbury

  Dr Bourbon, his six foot six inches leaned against the wooden wall of the English Building, was worried. He thought back to the Visiting Writer he had most detested – a poet from the east coast who always wore sneakers and shirts open to the waist, who managed to get through 400 reams of departmental quarto paper, an all-time record of consumption, and who had since been picked up by the California State police for broadcasting obscene messages on short wave to patrol cars. He had an uneasy feeling that the experience was to be repeated. There was a time when he would have supposed that Englishness was a guarantee of security, but the long delay, and the fact that all the current English novelists were reputed to be factory workers who devoted their art to baiting the middle class, had made him inwardly dark and depressed. He also did not know what he would do with the man if and when he arrived. Some of the younger staff members, the group Dr Bourbon thought of as the Partisan Review clique, bright young fellows who believed in at the most one God and had petitions to sign whenever you went to see them, had argued at a departmental meeting that the resident writer should not be asked to do anything at all; he should not mean but be. Dr Bourbon had been compelled to protest; he could think of only one word for the suggestion, and he said it. ‘Socialism,’ he cried.

  But what was happening? The wooden floor outside resounded with footfalls, and the door swung open. Bourbon craned over the mob; at the same time a voice cried, ‘Froelich’s found him!’; and the throng galvanized into action, pressing forward, snickering, pinching one another. Before them stood a muddled, tired, dispirited figure. They noted the corpulent shape, the young but worn demeanour, the Harris tweed suit, so signally inappropriate as to be a considered eccentricity. Walker, who in his slim social past had got by on an argument about abortion, a habit of reading while talking and a few desultory spurts of lechery, tried to take command of resources he had not got. He stood silent. It was, as it happened, enough. ‘Pip pip, old top, what ho!’ cried jovially a large man at the front of the assembly, a Phi Beta Kappa key dangling ostentatiously at his side. ‘I’m afraid we didn’t wait tea.’

  ‘Take no notice of Hamish,’ said a large woman, coming and gripping his elbow, ‘I’m Evadne Heilman. I’m a Chaucer man.’ She seized one of her bosoms in an intimate gesture, which Walker only understood a moment later; for, suddenly, she reached forward, grabbed him by the lapel, dragging him sideways and downwards.

  ‘Awk!’ cried Walker.

  ‘Just a little ceremonial,’ said Miss Heilman through clenched teeth. ‘Now you’re ready to face them.’

  She let him go and he discovered on his lapel a little cellophane-covered ticket that said, like a gravestone, JAMES WALKER, A.B. (NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND), GUEST OF HONOR. He saw that all the company wore the same. A tall and lanky man in blazer and a loose sports shirt, pipe clenched between his teeth, showing whiteness of dentistry against the hard brown tan of his skin, broke through the crowd. ‘Howdy there, son,’ he said. ‘Mighty honoured to have you with us. Have a pleasant journey to find us?’

  ‘Terrible,’ said Walker, feelingly, ‘I thought I was lost in the middle of the desert.’

  ‘Waal, we lost five faculty members jus’ last year in accidents while travellin’. You do well to be scared. I’m Bourbon, chief of this little outfit. I have apologies for you from President Coolidge. He was due at the state penitentiary at six. But you’ll meet him again.’

  ‘Oh, I see, splendid. On parole, no doubt,’ said Walker.

  Bourbon chuckled, and then said confidentially, ‘There’s something I ought to tell you right now. And that is I hadn’t gotten round to readin’ yore fine books. I usually stick around in Elizabethan territory, that’s a big range to ride, so I leave most of them moderns to . . . well, you met Dr Froelich. Ride much, Mr Walker?’

  ‘A bicycle.’

  ‘Never on a horse?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even a high one?’ said Bourbon with an amiable chuckle. ‘Forgive me. You ought to try it some time. We’re an athletic set of hands round here.’ He tapped his pipe on the heel of his hand and stuck it in his top pocket, drawing himself up to release another half foot or so of physique, and said, ‘Let’s mosey over to the other side the room and meet Mrs Bourbon; she really wants to meet you.’

  ‘Tip-top trip, eh?’ asked the large man with the Phi Beta Kappa key as they passed him, ‘and how’s the Queen? Well, I trust.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Walker.

  ‘This is Dr Wagner, Dr Walker. Dr Wagner is medieval.’

  ‘How do you do?’ said Walker.

  ‘Nicely, thank you,’ said Wagner. ‘See you around, pip pip.’

  ‘A droll, Dr Wagner,’ said Bourbon, dragging him onward.

  ‘I was wondering,’ said Walker, ‘whether there was anything to drink?’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re right out of luck, Dr Walker; we’re dry here. This is a state-assisted institution and it’s illegal to have liquor on campus. Tell you what, though, we’re drinking Cokes. Miss Handlin.’ He called over a younger girl, around twenty, who looked Walker over with bright eyes. ‘Miss Handlin, this here is Dr Walker, the English novelist and our guest of honour, and I was wonderin’ if you’d do us the privilege of takin’ this dime and walking down the hall to the Coke machine and bringin’ one back for Dr Walker, seeing as how he’s come all the way from England to be with us today.’

  ‘I surely will,’ said Miss Handlin, smiling richly at Walker.

  ‘I didn’t know you could run a university without sherry,’ said Walker, trying a bit of patter.

  ‘We git along, we git along,’ said Bourbon slowly. ‘I was a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford myself, but there’s some things the same and there’s some things different, and that’s one of the things that’s different and I guess that’s the way life is. This here is Mrs Bourbon. She’s an English lady.’

  So this was the mother of the twins, previously without intercourse for twelve years, thin and sharp-nosed; she said, ‘Yeah, we met up in Oxford all those years ago. I still remember and love that city. Know it at all?’ Her accent was hybrid, so was she. ‘Amazing how quickly one forgets, though. Stay here in the States and I give you two years. For two years you can stay an Englishman and do all those quaint things that Englishmen do and everyone thinks it’s fine and dandy. Then . . . you become an American, or you go home. Either way the privileges are withdrawn. So you must enjoy them now, Mr Walker, while you can. You’re in a favoured position.’

  Walker looked in her sharp eyes and knew she was saying something interesting. He said, ‘That can be tiring too.’

  ‘And false,’ said Mrs Bourbon, ‘I know that. Still it’s a nice lie while it lasts. So long as it doesn’t become everything you have.’

  ‘Well,’ said Walker lightly, ‘perhaps I’ll try and enjoy it, then. It’ll be the first time.’

  ‘Oh, come now, you’re a famous man . . .’

  Walker was spared answering this; ‘Coke?’ said Miss Handlin. ‘Dr Walker, I just want to tell you that I’m going to be in your creative writing class next year and I’m looking forward to it very much. I just finished reading your last novel. It’s a fine noble book.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Walker.

  ‘A fascinating book.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Walker.

  ‘Dr Walker, I just wanted to ask you one question if Mrs Bourbon doesn’t mind, do you, Mrs Bourbon?’

  ‘No, go ahead, take him. I was just telling him to enjoy life while he can.’

  ‘Well, yes, surely I think everybody ought to enjoy life as much as it’s humanly possible because that’s why we exist. I believe.’

  Walker let Miss Handlin lead him away. ‘Oh, that Mrs Bourbon, she’s a lovely person.’ she said. ‘Now, what I wanted to ask was, you know, how do you write? I mean, you know, do you write straight on to a typewriter or in longhand first or how, how do you write?’

  Miss Handlin had a bosom which rose and fell rapidly as she spoke, quite the best th
ing it could do. She wore a shirt with buttons down the front and a slim skirt; she had seamless stockings and white shoes; it was smart, but wanting the style of the Hillesley girls. Walker said, ‘I thought she was a bit of a tough nut.’

  ‘Mrs Bourbon? The girls simply love her. I’m sure she’s delighted to have an Englishman here.’

  ‘Does it matter how I write?’

  ‘Oh, sure it matters, because you have to find the way that’s right for you, you have to have everything exactly right. I mean, I write a little, you know, and I’ve tried all kinds of ways of writing, you know, like sitting in chairs and lying down and in the bath and all, and I find sometimes I’m fluent and sometimes I just block. Do you block at all?’

  ‘Not often. Well, I write in longhand and copy on to a typewriter.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The guy who was here last year could only write when he could smell horses nearby.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Walker, ‘I wish I could say that I wrote suspended on pulleys from the ceiling, but it’s just not true.’

  ‘Well, that’s a pity, because I think if you can find a new position it makes it more interesting.’

  ‘You still mean writing?’ asked Walker, surprised.

  ‘Well . . . oh, you mean sex.’

  Walker found Miss Handlin’s bright young eyes fixed on him inquisitively. ‘I’m glad you said that. That means you’ve found the analogy, too. It is like sex. Did Freud say that somewhere? He should have.’

  ‘I don’t know. I can see we’re going to have a great class,’ said Miss Handlin.

  ‘I hope so.’

  Suddenly Walker found that Miss Evadne Heilman, whose sturdy shoulder had for some time been rubbing familiarly against his own, whose buttock met his, as they stood back to back in the press, had been gyrated round to face him. ‘Can I wrest you for a moment?’ she said. ‘Let’s sit on the floor and talk. Can I have a sip of your Coke?’

  ‘With pleasure,’ said Walker, when they had found a space on the wall.

  ‘Like it here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Miss your afternoon tea?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What made you choose Benedict Arnold?’

  ‘They chose me.’

  ‘And why did you pick us, why the west?’

  ‘Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.’

  ‘Like Dr Johnson. The Dr Johnson, that is; I say that because Benedict Arnold has its Dr Johnson too; he’s done some fascinating things in yeast research.’ She handed back the Coke bottle.

  ‘No, do finish it,’ said Walker.

  ‘You know, you’re so polite? Well, it turns out you’re a very splendid writer. I’ve just been reading an article about your books, and if you’re doing all that, then, brother, I congratulate you.’

  ‘Oh, what am I doing?’

  ‘Disentangling the fibres of existence was one thing I particularly remember. Placing in an immediate and urgent social context the sempereternal problems of man; presenting and yet challenging the anarchy of modern life and morals; evolving a metaphysic out of your uncertainty and your despair. And more,’ said Miss Heilman.

  ‘Who wrote this article?’

  ‘Why, our own Dr Froelich.’

  ‘Froelich?’

  ‘Yes, the man who met you at the station. It was in Studies in Modern Fiction, I’ll let you have my offprint. You could have it tattooed behind your ear.’

  ‘I didn’t know Dr Froelich had written about me.’

  ‘Yes, that’s why you’re here, he’s an expert on you. Knows about your bowel movements at the age of three. You didn’t know?’

  ‘I didn’t know anyone was an expert on me,’ said Walker, ‘even me.’

  The large man with the Phi Beta Kappa key, Dr Hamish Wagner, came and leaned on the wall on Walker’s other side. ‘How’s the cricket, old top?’ he said.

  ‘England were all out for 165 in the last test, according to the New York papers,’ said Walker.

  ‘165 wickets, eh?’

  ‘No, that means we scored 165 runs.’

  ‘Not much runs, huh?’

  ‘No,’ said Walker, ‘not much runs at all.’

  ‘Ah well,’ said Wagner, ‘sticky wicket.’

  Now Dr Bourbon came loping toward them, scattering the crowds as he came. ‘Ho there, boy,’ he said, ‘well, it’s gettin’ toward sundown. What say we mosey up to the ranch house and cook ourselves a hunk of thick steak?’

  ‘That sounds very nice.’

  Dr Bourbon raised his hand high, so that it touched the ceiling, and said in a deep booming voice, ‘Well, folks, we’re hittin’ the trail; good evenin’ to you all.’ The group fell silent and as Dr Bourbon nodded to him Walker realized that he, too, was expeceed to say a word. ‘Goodnight,’ he said, ‘and thank you very much.’ Then, realizing that this sounded a little pallid, he added what he believed to be a standard American rubric. ‘Take it easy now,’ he said. Looking round the assembled faces he saw Bernard Froelich hooting with laughter. Then Dr Bourbon took him by one arm, Mrs Bourbon by the other, and they trooped through the wooden hall and out into the balmy air. Though the sun was going down the evening remained hot and sticky. They led him to a car, that looked oddly like the car Froelich had met him in. Bourbon, with cowboy gallantry, held open the front passenger door for its two riders. As Walker made a motion toward getting in the rear, Mrs Bourbon pulled his arm. ‘We can all get in front,’ she said. Then Dr Bourbon went behind the car to get into the driver’s seat, and they heard, from inside, a cry go up from him. ‘Goddern it!’ he yelped, and his face appeared in the window. ‘Pardon my French, folks, but some skunk ripped off my rear fender. We’ll have to figger that one out in the morning.’ He got in and started the engine.

  ‘Isn’t this Dr Froelich’s car?’ asked Walker in his innocence.

  ‘Dr Froelich’s car is a ’37 Chevvy he ain’t managed to git started for a few weeks now. Did he tell you this was his car?’

  ‘I must have misunderstood,’ said Walker.

  ‘Did he do that damage?’

  ‘We had an accident at the station.’

  ‘Really now,’ said Dr Bourbon. ‘You hit a lot of traffic out there?’

  ‘No, there was no one around.’

  ‘I think we’d better talk this out with Dr Froelich,’ said Mrs Bourbon grimly, and they set off through the campus paths.

  ‘He didn’t say nothin’ to me,’ said Bourbon reflectively. ‘There’s a mighty strange fella, Dr Froelich. A clever enough man, but with no ethical basis.’

  ‘He’s an out and out liar,’ said Mrs Bourbon.

  ‘But a mighty clever fella.’ There was something staid and comforting about the Bourbon family, and Walker sat back to enjoy his ride while he was still in their good books.

  ‘I feel sorry for his wife,’ said Mrs Bourbon. ‘She’s a very nice girl. You’ll meet her.’

  ‘I already have,’ said Walker, ‘she is very nice.’

  ‘Can’t figger out whether she’s carryin’ or not,’ said Dr Bourbon.

  ‘She could do more with that house,’ said Mrs Bourbon.

  ‘I rather liked it,’ said Walker.

  ‘I thought,’ said Mrs Bourbon, ‘you told him to bring Mr Walker straight to the reception?’

  Dr Bourbon looked wearily at his wife. ‘I did,’ he said.

  They were moving out of the campus. ‘Isn’t it big!’ said Walker.

  ‘It’ll be bigger,’ said Dr Bourbon. ‘I suppose really I ought just to say a word of warning. I say this to all my new men. A lot of folks come out from the east expecting to find a progressive atmosphere here. In some ways there is. The west is really moving. This is new country, we are working out our own life here. But you won’t find here the fancy-dan educational experiment you find in City College, Hunter, Bennington, them places. Our biggest benefactor, he’s a Texas oil-man, only the other day gave a speech where he said the mistake A
merica made was not to desegregate slavery and open it up to whites as well. Now I call that backward-looking thinking. But you have to take account of that kind of thing out here.’

  ‘I see,’ said Walker, crouched between the two Bourbons, and feeling the winey air driving him toward sleep.

  ‘We live out of town a ways,’ said Dr Bourbon. ‘These are the town limits. See the package store? You can buy liquor out here.’

  ‘Can we stop?’ said Walker.

  Bourbon looked surprised, but said, ‘Well, sure,’ and pulled into the parking lot.

  ‘I shan’t be a minute,’ said Walker.

  Inside the store a wealth of bottles, many of them kinds he had never seen before, dazzled him with dreams of alcoholic promiscuity. The owner, wearing a Stetson and smoking a panatella, appeared from the back and said, ‘Howdy there!’

  ‘Hello,’ said Walker. It seemed to be the wrong remark.

  The man said, ‘You over twenty-one?’

  ‘I’m over thirty,’ said Walker. ‘I’ve got a child of seven!’

  ‘Got an ID card?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  The man grew more suspicious. ‘Identification. A driver’s licence.’

  ‘I don’t drive,’ said Walker.

  ‘Then how the hell you get here?’

  ‘I was brought.’

  ‘Well,’ said the man, ‘I can’t serve you unless you swear an oath.’

  Walker, who was about to, looked at the little pad the man pushed forward. In giving the oath, it said, both you and the purchaser should raise your right hand. You should ask: ‘Do you swear you are 21 years of age or older?’ Purchaser should reply ‘yes’ or be refused the purchase.

  ‘You unnerstand the penalties for perjury?’ said the man. ‘Okay, raise your right hand. Do you swear all that bullshit there?’

  ‘I do,’ said Walker.

  ‘Sign the form. Now, what can I do for you?’

  ‘A box of matches’ was what Walker wanted to answer, but the owner seemed too menacing, and he asked for the bottle of Scotch he had come for. When he got outside he presented it to his hosts. ‘Waal, that’s mighty kind of you,’ said Dr Bourbon, letting out the clutch. ‘Mrs Bourbon and me almost never touch the stuff, but when we have guests around . . . mighty kind.’