An hour later Cathy showed up with a couple of friends. She found Billing rather silent.
She was slowly introducing him to a new way of life. She was a course-addict, she admitted, sometimes taking as many as five different courses in a week, dropping some and picking up others as casually as if Scuba, Origami and Algebra were playing cards. Billing contrasted this confusion favourably with his own apathetic state of mind in which nothing was done. Cathy had no firm beliefs, except the belief that she could better herself against the day she became a Hollywood star, although the betterment never became apparent, even to her.
At this time, all California was into space research, in an effort to better itself. Inspired, Billing decided he too would better himself. He ran his own course. It paid better.
The course – in Remedial Domesticated Space – was his own invention and the phrase had irresistible rhythm. He taught the hitherto undiscovered relationships between human beings, the synthetic environments they created and occupied and mental health. He supported his talks with multi-media presentations which grew ever more ambitious as the size of his audience increased. The word ‘Remedial’ was one no true Californian could resist.
‘RDS is the new pace-setter for a revolutionary perception of our fair city,’ announced the host of the first TV chat show on which Billing appeared, dressing in something described as a shortie caftan. ‘And it has taken an Englishman to figure out the secret anatomy of our complex Californian life-style.’
Billing had a success on his hands, his first real success since ‘Side Show’. He found himself working hard, engaged, making sense of the absurd proposition he had launched. He lectured at Berkeley. He became a celebrity. He wore designer track suits. He totalled his Cadillac on Interstate 5. He opened a new marina. There was excited talk of his designing a ‘Star Trek’ movie. Big money once more moved his way.
But Cathy held his wandering attention still, Cathy and the strange tribal drop-out society in which she lived. She remained a waif, a squatter in corners. She dreamed of grey beaches, with seals. She did not realise she had Billing. She kept hold of nothing, not even her five-year-old daughter, Pash, to whom she had inadvertently given birth. One day, Cathy lost Pash in a shopping mall; it was two days before she realised the child was missing. She would not phone the police in case her father, executive of a video company specialising in splatter movies, caught up with her. One day, on the way to a baseball game, she let go of Billing’s hand in the crowd. He never saw her again.
She never even showed at the apartment they rented. Eventually her exotic fish died. Billing switched out the light over the tank, collected his things and left.
The ‘Star Trek’ deal fell through. A producer phoned him and wept while breaking the news. His tears sounded like they were real.
‘Worse things happen,’ Billing said. He meant it. He hung up. It was 1978.
He handed over the Remedial Domesticated Space course to an electronics engineer named Teddy Sly who was working with him. Sly insisted on paying him five thousand dollars for the goodwill. He also bought Billing a sumptuous volume of the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe as a farewell gift.
Billing woke one morning in a strange bed, decided he did not care for the expression on the face of the woman sleeping beside him and once more walked out into the harsh sunlight. The road smelt of pistachio. He was disoriented. He felt sick. Hostile suburbs sprawled all about. The space ratios were distorted, expressing a general defeat which the denizens of the area did not yet realise they had suffered. Lateral expanse without elevation, Billing told himself.
He found a Mexican restaurant. It was called ‘The Happy Taco’. The sign formed a dismally solitary landmark. A truck with New York licence plates stood in the parking lot. While Billing stood staring at it, the truck driver came out of the diner, smoking a cigar and scowling. Under one arm he carried a plastic two-gallon box of brandy.
‘You waiting for something, Charlie?’
‘Where are you heading?’
‘East. What of it?’
‘Mind giving me a ride?’
‘Climb in. Just don’t talk, is all.’
The cab of the truck was crammed with publicity photos of other trucks and of space rockets. Billing surveyed them while the man stowed his brandy away in a locker. The photos were stuck everywhere, including the roof over the driver’s head, turning the confined space into a travelling scrapbook.
The driver wore a work-cap with goggles lodged on its peak, a brown leather jacket to which a sheriff’s star was pinned, jeans and a pair of calf-length leather boots. He drove for many miles in silence before bursting into speech.
‘Where you from, cowboy?’
‘LA.’ Seeing the ugly look the man shot him, Billing added, ‘England originally.’
‘England, huh? I heard of England right enough. The Domesday Book. I guess you think America’s great, right?’
‘I do, as a matter of fact.’
‘“As a matter of fact”. What’s that mean? Let me tell you that this is the lousiest god-damned country ever lived. Full of stupid people got thrown out of other countries. Don’t know nothing. I don’t know nothing either: I ain’t just shooting my mouth. You know how many Americans are illiterate? Take a guess, percentage-wise … Almost a third. Almost a third of the citizens of this great country are illiterate. Hispanics, even worse. Over fifty per cent.’
He rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand before gesturing at the suburbs around them.
‘And they all like to huddle in cities. Illiterates together.
What are they afraid of?’
He fell silent.
‘Are you a Marxist?’
‘Hell, me? No,’ said the driver. ‘I believe in making money, not sharing it. It’s these hippies I can’t take. They don’t work, they huddle in cities, screwing. Me, I go for the open air life.’
Memories of his Remedial Domesticated Space course returned to Billing. ‘Then this cab is too confining for you. It conflicts with your posited character. All these pictures you have round you merely hem you in. These lorries – sorry, trucks – they put you right in the middle of a mental traffic jam.’ They were leaving the suburbs now.
The driver shot Billing an innocent look. ‘Is England full of cookies like you?’
Gazing out at the bleached landscape, Billing suddenly recalled the Cotswolds, orderly fields, sheep, church spires, comfortable homesteads and a steady rainfall. He longed for a taste of scones and jam, the sight of a winding road, old ladies with library books to be changed.
When they came to Waterloo, Iowa, Billing stopped off. He saw that the garden centre run by the two Jajack mothers had given place to a shopping complex. The American appetite for shopping never ceased to impress him. The complex was bigger than a cathedral. He arrived at Ludmilla and Josef’s house just in time for Josef’s funeral.
‘He never made it to Brno. We never rode in the High Tatras,’ Ludmilla said, gazing calmly at Billing from under a cute little black hat. Waterloo, Iowa, was a long way from LA and people still made concessions to mourning.
While comforting the widow, Billing was overwhelmed by a tide of love. It burst over him unexpectedly, like a spring thaw in the Arctic. It was pure, as sparkling as a stream, as fresh as happiness, as toothpaste. Never had he wanted to console anyone so much. Most of the girls he loved needed consoling.