Go Set a Watchman (15 page)

“—keep them in their places, I hope,” Alexandra said, as she entered the livingroom with Atticus and Henry.

“There’s nothing to fret about,” said Henry. “We’ll come out all right. Seven-thirty tonight, hon?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you might show some enthusiasm about it.”

Atticus chuckled. “She’s already tired of you, Hank.”

“Can I take you to town, Mr. Finch? It’s powerfully early, but I think I’ll run down and tend to some things in the cool of the morning.”

“Thanks, but Scout’ll run me down later.”

His use of her childhood name crashed on her ears. Don’t you ever call me that again. You who called me Scout are dead and in your grave.

Alexandra said, “I’ve got a list of things for you to get at the Jitney Jungle, Jean Louise. Now go change your clothes. You can run to town now—it’s open—and come back for your father.”

Jean Louise went to the bathroom and turned on the hot water tap in the tub. She went to her room, pulled out a cotton dress from the closet, and slung it over her arm. She found some flat-heeled shoes in her suitcase, picked up a pair of panties, and took them all into the bathroom.

She looked at herself in the medicine-cabinet mirror. Who’s Dorian now?

There were blue-brown shadows under her eyes, and the lines from her nostrils to the corners of her mouth were definite. No doubt about them, she thought. She pulled her cheek to one side and peered at the tiny mother line. I couldn’t care less. By the time I’m ready to get married I’ll be ninety and then it’ll be too late. Who’ll bury me? I’m the youngest by far—that’s one reason for having children.

She cut the hot water with cold, and when she could stand it she got into the tub, scrubbed herself soberly, released the water, rubbed herself dry, and dressed quickly. She gave the tub a rinse, dried her hands, spread the towel on the rack, and left the bathroom.

“Put on some lipstick,” said her aunt, meeting her in the hall. Alexandra went to the closet and dragged out the vacuum cleaner.

“I’ll do that when I come back,” said Jean Louise.

“It’ll be done when you get back.”

THE SUN HAD
not yet blistered the sidewalks of Maycomb, but it soon would. She parked the car in front of the grocery store and went in.

Mr. Fred shook hands with her, said he was glad to see her, drew out a wet Coke from the machine, wiped it on his apron, and gave it to her.

This is one good thing about life that never changes, she thought. As long as he lived, as long as she returned, Mr. Fred would be here with his … simple welcome. What was that? Alice? Brer Rabbit? It was Mole. Mole, when he returned from some long journey, desperately tired, had found the familiar waiting for him with its simple welcome.

“I’ll rassle up these groceries for you and you can enjoy your Coke,” said Mr. Fred.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. Jean Louise glanced at the list and her eyes widened. “Aunty’s gettin’ more like Cousin Joshua all the time. What does she want with cocktail napkins?”

Mr. Fred chuckled. “I reckon she means party napkins. I’ve never heard of a cocktail passing her lips.”

“You never will, either.”

Mr. Fred went about his business, and presently he called from the back of the store. “Hear about Mr. Healy?”

“Ah—um,” said Jean Louise. She was a lawyer’s daughter.

“Didn’t know what hit him,” said Mr. Fred. “Didn’t know where he was going to begin with, poor old thing. He drank more jack-leg liquor than any human I ever saw. That was his one accomplishment.”

“Didn’t he used to play the jug?”

“Sure did,” said Mr. Fred. “You remember back when they’d have talent nights at the courthouse? He’d always be there blowin’ that jug. He’d bring it full and drink a bit to get the tone down, then drink some more until it was real low, and then play his solo. It was always
Old Dan Tucker
, and he always scandalized the ladies, but they never could prove anything. You know pure shinny doesn’t smell much.”

“How did he live?”

“Pension, I think. He was in the Spanish—to tell you the truth he was in some war but I can’t remember what it was. Here’s your groceries.”

“Thanks, Mr. Fred,” Jean Louise said. “Good Lord, I’ve forgot my money. Can I leave the slip on Atticus’s desk? He’ll be down before long.”

“Sure, honey. How’s your daddy?”

“He’s grim today, but he’ll be at the office come the Flood.”

“Why don’t you stay home this time?”

She lowered her guard when she saw nothing but incurious good humor in Mr. Fred’s face: “I will, someday.”

“You know, I was in the First War,” said Mr. Fred. “I didn’t go overseas, but I saw a lot of this country. I didn’t have the itch to get back, so after the war I stayed away for ten years, but the longer I stayed away the more I missed Maycomb. I got to the point where I felt like I had to come back or die. You never get it out of your bones.”

“Mr. Fred, Maycomb’s just like any other little town. You take a cross-section—”

“It’s not, Jean Louise. You know that.”

“You’re right,” she nodded.

It was not because this was where your life began. It was because this was where people were born and born and born until finally the result was you, drinking a Coke in the Jitney Jungle.

Now she was aware of a sharp apartness, a separation, not from Atticus and Henry merely. All of Maycomb and Maycomb County were leaving her as the hours passed, and she automatically blamed herself.

She bumped her head getting into the car. I shall never become accustomed to these things. Uncle Jack has a few major points in his philosophy.

ALEXANDRA TOOK THE
groceries from the back seat. Jean Louise leaned over and opened the door for her father; she reached across him and shut it.

“Want the car this morning, Aunty?”

“No, dear. Going somewhere?”

“Yessum. I won’t be gone long.”

She watched the street closely. I can do anything but look at him and listen to him and talk to him.

When she stopped in front of the barbershop she said, “Ask Mr. Fred how much we owe him. I forgot to take the slip out of the sack. Said you’d pay him.”

When she opened the door for him, he stepped into the street.

“Be careful!”

Atticus waved to the driver of the passing car. “It didn’t hit me,” he said.

She drove around the square and out the Meridian highway until she came to a fork in the road. This is where it must have happened, she thought.

There were dark patches in the red gravel where the pavement ended, and she drove the car over Mr. Healy’s blood. When she came to a fork in the dirt road she turned right, and drove down a lane so narrow the big car left no room on either side. She went on until she could go no farther.

The road was blocked by a line of cars standing aslant halfway in the ditch. She parked behind the last one and got out. She walked down the row past a 1939 Ford, a Chevrolet of ambiguous vintage, a Willys, and a robin’s-egg blue hearse with the words
HEAVENLY REST
picked out in a chromium semicircle on its front door. She was startled, and she peered inside: in the back there were rows of chairs screwed to the floor and no place for a recumbent body, quick or dead. This is a taxi, she thought.

She pulled a wire ring off the gatepost and went inside. Calpurnia’s was a swept yard: Jean Louise could tell it had been swept recently, brushbroom scratches were still visible between smooth footprints.

She looked up, and on the porch of Calpurnia’s little house stood Negroes in various states of public attire: a couple of women wore their best, one had on a calico apron, one was dressed in her field clothes. Jean Louise identified one of the men as Professor Chester Sumpter, principal of the Mt. Sinai Trade Institute, Maycomb County’s largest Negro school. Professor Sumpter was clad, as he always was, in black. The other black-suited man was a stranger to her, but Jean Louise knew he was a minister. Zeebo wore his work clothes.

When they saw her, they stood straight and retreated from the edge of the porch, becoming as one. The men removed their hats and caps, the woman wearing the apron folded her hands beneath it.

“Morning, Zeebo,” said Jean Louise.

Zeebo broke the pattern by stepping forward. “Howdy do, Miss Jean Louise. We didn’t know you was home.”

Jean Louise was acutely conscious that the Negroes were watching her. They stood silent, respectful, and were watching her intently. She said, “Is Calpurnia home?”

“Yessum, Miss Jean Louise, Mamma in the house. Want me to fetch her?”

“May I go in, Zeebo?”

“Yessum.”

The black people parted for her to enter the front door. Zeebo, unsure of protocol, opened the door and stood back to let her enter. “Lead the way, Zeebo,” she said.

She followed him into a dark parlor to which clung the musky sweet smell of clean Negro, snuff, and Hearts of Love hairdressing. Several shadowy forms rose when she entered.

“This way, Miss Jean Louise.”

They walked down a tiny hallway, and Zeebo tapped at an unpainted pine door. “Mamma,” he said. “Miss Jean Louise here.”

The door opened softly, and Zeebo’s wife’s head appeared around it. She came out into the hall, which was scarcely large enough to contain the three of them.

“Hello, Helen,” said Jean Louise. “How is Calpurnia?”

“She taking it mighty hard, Miss Jean Louise. Frank, he never had any trouble before….”

So, it was Frank. Of all her multifarious descendants, Calpurnia took most pride in Frank. He was on the waiting list for Tuskegee Institute. He was a born plumber, could fix anything water ran through.

Helen, heavy with a pendulous stomach from having carried so many children, leaned against the wall. She was barefooted.

“Zeebo,” said Jean Louise, “you and Helen living together again?”

“Yessum,” said Helen placidly. “He’s done got old.”

Jean Louise smiled at Zeebo, who looked sheepish. For the life of her, Jean Louise could not disentangle Zeebo’s domestic history. She thought Helen must be Frank’s mother, but she was not sure. She was positive Helen was Zeebo’s first wife, and was equally sure she was his present wife, but how many were there in between?

She remembered Atticus telling of the pair in his office, years ago when they appeared seeking a divorce. Atticus, trying to reconcile them, asked Helen would she take her husband back. “Naw sir, Mr. Finch,” was her slow reply. “Zeebo, he been goin’ around enjoyin’ other women. He don’t enjoy me none, and I don’t want no man who don’t enjoy his wife.”

“Could I see Calpurnia, Helen?”

“Yessum, go right in.”

Calpurnia was sitting in a wooden rocking chair in a corner of the room by the fireplace. The room contained an iron bedstead covered with a faded quilt of a Double Wedding Ring pattern. There were three huge gilt-framed photographs of Negroes and a Coca-Cola calendar on the wall. A rough mantelpiece teemed with small bright objets d’art made of plaster, porcelain, clay, and milk glass. A naked light bulb burned on a cord swinging from the ceiling, casting sharp shadows on the wall behind the mantelpiece, and in the corner where Calpurnia sat.

How small she looks, thought Jean Louise. She used to be so tall.

Calpurnia was old and she was bony. Her sight was failing, and she wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses which stood out in harsh contrast to her warm brown skin. Her big hands were resting in her lap, and she raised them and spread her fingers when Jean Louise entered.

Jean Louise’s throat tightened when she caught sight of Calpurnia’s bony fingers, fingers so gentle when Jean Louise was ill and hard as ebony when she was bad, fingers that had performed long-ago tasks of loving intricacy. Jean Louise held them to her mouth.

“Cal,” she said.

“Sit down, baby,” said Calpurnia. “Is there a chair?”

“Yes, Cal.” Jean Louise drew up a chair and sat in front of her old friend.

“Cal, I came to tell you—I came to tell you that if there’s anything I can do for you, you must let me know.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Calpurnia. “I don’t know of anything.”

“I want to tell you that Mr. Finch got word of it early this morning. Frank had the sheriff call him and Mr. Finch’ll … help him.”

The words died on her lips. Day before yesterday she would have said “Mr. Finch’ll help him” confident that Atticus would turn dark to daylight.

Calpurnia nodded. Her head was up and she looked straight before her. She cannot see me well, thought Jean Louise. I wonder how old she is. I never knew exactly, and I doubt if she ever did.

Jean Louise said, “Don’t worry, Cal. Atticus’ll do his best.”

Calpurnia said, “I know he will, Miss Scout. He always do his best. He always do right.”

Jean Louise stared open-mouthed at the old woman. Calpurnia was sitting in a haughty dignity that appeared on state occasions, and with it appeared erratic grammar. Had the earth stopped turning, had the trees frozen, had the sea given up its dead, Jean Louise would not have noticed.

“Cal
pur
nia!”

She barely heard Calpurnia talking: “Frank, he do wrong … he pay for it … my grandson. I love him … but he go to jail with or without Mr. Finch….”

“Calpurnia, stop it!”

Jean Louise was on her feet. She felt the tears come and she walked blindly to the window.

The old woman had not moved. Jean Louise turned and saw her sitting there, seeming to inhale steadily.

Calpurnia was wearing her company manners.

Jean Louise sat down again in front of her. “Cal,” she cried, “Cal, Cal, Cal, what are you doing to me? What’s the matter? I’m your baby, have you forgotten me? Why are you shutting me out? What are you doing to me?”

Calpurnia lifted her hands and brought them down softly on the arms of the rocker. Her face was a million tiny wrinkles, and her eyes were dim behind thick lenses.

“What are you all doing to us?” she said.

“Us?”

“Yessum. Us.”

Jean Louise said slowly, more to herself than to Calpurnia: “As long as I’ve lived I never remotely dreamed that anything like this could happen. And here it is. I cannot talk to the one human who raised me from the time I was two years old … it is happening as I sit here and I cannot believe it. Talk to me, Cal. For God’s sake talk to me right. Don’t sit there like that!”