Go Set a Watchman (To Kill a Mockingbird #2)(71)

She walked down the sidewalk, unaware that Maycomb was looking at her, that Henry was walking beside her pitifully, comically.

“Jean Louise, will you please listen to me?”

“God damn you, what?”

“I just want to ask you one thing, one thing—what the hell do you expect me to do? Tell me, what the hell do you expect me to do?”

“Do? I expect you to keep your gold-plated ass out of citizens’ councils! I don’t give a damn if Atticus is sitting across from you, if the King of England’s on your right and the Lord Jehovah’s on your left—I expect you to be a man, that’s all!”

She drew in her breath sharply. “I—you go through a goddamned war, that’s one kind of being scared, but you get through it, you get through it. Then you come home to be scared the rest of your life—scared of Maycomb! Maycomb, Alabama—oh brother!”

They had come to the door of the office.

Henry grabbed her shoulders. “Jean Louise, will you stop one second? Please? Listen to me. I know I’m not much, but think one minute. Please think. This is my life, this town, don’t you understand that? God damn it, I’m part of Maycomb County’s trash, but I’m part of Maycomb County. I’m a coward, I’m a little man, I’m not worth killing, but this is my home. What do you want me to do, go shout from the housetops that I am Henry Clinton and I’m here to tell you you’re all wet? I’ve got to live here, Jean Louise. Don’t you understand that?”

“I understand that you’re a goddamned hypocrite.”

“I am trying to make you see, my darling, that you are permitted a sweet luxury I’m not. You can shout to high heaven, I cannot. How can I be of any use to a town if it’s against me? If I went out and—look, you will admit that I have a certain amount of education and a certain usefulness in Maycomb—you admit that? A millhand can’t do my job. Now, shall I throw all that down the drain, go back down the county to the store and sell people flour when I could be helping them with what legal talent I have? Which is worth more?”

“Henry, how can you live with yourself?”

“It’s comparatively easy. Sometimes I just don’t vote my convictions, that’s all.”

“Hank, we are poles apart. I don’t know much but I know one thing. I know I can’t live with you. I cannot live with a hypocrite.”

A dry, pleasant voice behind her said, “I don’t know why you can’t. Hypocrites have just as much right to live in this world as anybody.”

She turned around and stared at her father. His hat was pushed back on his head; his eyebrows were raised; he was smiling at her.





17


“HANK,” SAID ATTICUS, “why don’t you go have a long look at the roses on the square? Estelle might give you one if you ask her right. Looks like I’m the only one who’s asked her right today.”

Atticus put his hand to his lapel, where was tucked a fresh scarlet bud. Jean Louise glanced toward the square and saw Estelle, black against the afternoon sun, steadily hoeing under the bushes.

Henry held out his hand to Jean Louise, dropped it to his side, and left without a word. She watched him walk across the street.

“You’ve known all that about him?”

“Certainly.”

Atticus had treated him like his own son, had given him the love that would have been Jem’s—she was suddenly aware that they were standing on the spot where Jem died. Atticus saw her shudder.

“It’s still with you, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it about time you got over that? Bury your dead, Jean Louise.”

“I don’t want to discuss it. I want to move somewhere else.”

“Let’s go in the office, then.”

Her father’s office had always been a source of refuge for her. It was friendly. It was a place where, if troubles did not vanish, they were made bearable. She wondered if those were the same abstracts, files, and professional impedimenta on his desk that were there when she would run in, out of breath, desperate for an ice cream cone, and request a nickel. She could see him swing around in his swivel chair and stretch his legs. He would reach down deep into his pocket, pull out a handful of change, and from it select a very special nickel for her. His door was never closed to his children.

He sat slowly and swung around toward her. She saw a flash of pain cross his face and leave it.