Five Smooth Stones

by Ann Fairbairn

  hope. His office opened off the main hallway just past the reception desk, and often when David came by early in the morning or late in the afternoon to leave or pick up work there would be a quick voice through the intercom on the receptionist's desk: "Is that young Champlin out there?... Ask him to wait if he can.... I'll be free in a minute...."

  The work he was given to type changed also. It was rougher, with fewer corrections, and David was sure he was getting Willis's first notes on a case. Instead of being sequential there would be occasional paragraphs of facts appearing far down in the notes, obviously learned after a first interview with a client. The first time it happened, he said "Damn!" and went back to the beginning, retyping the entire draft, inserting the belated paragraph where it belonged. He was careful to bring it to Willis's attention when he brought the work in. "I thought I'd take a chance, sir, and rearrange it. But I've kept the original typing, in case it was intended—"

  "Fine. You did absolutely right. Thanks."

  There always seemed to be coffee brewing somewhere in the mysterious back regions of the rambling, spread-out suite of rooms, and on late afternoons when Willis was still in the office and had no client with him David would just have time to obey Willis's "Sit down, David. Relax," before the receptionist appeared with coffee. It was only a short time before he was talking to Willis with more ease than he had ever known with any older person since his days with the Prof.

  During one such coffee session Willis clasped his hands behind his neck, tilted his high-backed chair, and stretched long legs along the side of his desk, turning his head so that his eyes were on the darkening sky beyond the window.

  "You were fortunate, David. My God! Have you any idea how fortunate?"

  "Yes, sir. It's not something you forget. It scares me sometimes. Especially when I go home and see—well—"

  "The waste."

  "Yes. I mean—look, Mr. Willis"—he leaned forward, suddenly earnest, and sounding, even to himself, very young— "I'm not all that smart. I've got friends down home, lots of them, just as smart as I am. Some of them, I bet, would be smarter if they had the chance—only, I got the chance and they didn't. And what are they doing?"

  "I don't think I want to know."

  "You do know, Mr. Willis. If they're too proud to lick the whites' boots they're driving trucks—like I do in the summer—or working on the docks or doing day labor or janitoring. And if they like the taste of shoe polish—"

  "You don't have to be delicate with me, David."

  David grinned. "That's my grandfather. He can cuss like a grown-up when he wants to, but he says there's a time and place for it. Anyhow, if these guys like the taste of shoe polish and they can stay adjusted long enough to finish school, maybe they can wangle a fair job. Maybe they can get a civil service job, in the post office, for instance. But not behind a window. No, sir."

  "Is it true, David, that a Negro who is known to be a troublemaker—and I don't mean that in any derogatory sense —let's say a Negro with influence among his own people, someone who is trying to help them actively, is frequently quieted by a good job handed out by the city or parish politicians? A job with enough money and security to make it decidedly unprofitable for him to continue his work for his people?"

  "It's pretty standard procedure."

  "And that, of course, gives the whites a rebuttal argument when Northerners and civil-rights groups accuse them of denying job opportunities to the Negro."

  "Exactly."

  "Nasty."

  "Yes. And it's one of the reasons I think—I'm sure—that help for the Negro in the South is going to have to come from outside sources. I don't mean we haven't got some strong leaders there. We have. But not enough. And the pressures are too close. Isaiah Watkins and the ALEC people— they've got guts. But you know yourself, Mr. Willis, they have to call on headquarters here."

  "David, would you like to lend me a hand in vacation time with some of the ALEC work here? They have a crack legal staff, but they still need help on routine stuff. They don't come any more devious or more brilliant or more dedicated than Klein, and his doctor has ordered him on a six-hour day. He's working fourteen. I try to help out. We could use you."

  "Anything. I'll do anything at all I can." He looked into his coffee cup, stirred it absently. "I don't know," he said slowly. "I don't know whether I'm being noble and dedicated or trying to justify my own damned luck."

  Willis laughed. "Bothers you, doesn't it? What you call your luck."

  "Yes. Maybe it's because my grandfather used to say to me 'Man pays for his luck.' "

  "I hope you'll get your grandfather up here one of these days."

  "I'm planning on it. But he'll only come for a visit. I know that. He won't stay, damn it."

  "Sometimes roots grow stronger in hostile surroundings."

  "His do."

  "But you mustn't let yourself become hipped on this 'luck' thing. You're too intelligent for that. I've never been a religious man. I have no religion. Let's say I'm an agnostic." He smiled. "Although I must admit, with due immodesty, that on a number of occasions I've managed to convince a jury that it was God's personal and heartfelt desire that my client be acquitted. Still, I've been forced to one conclusion: that there is some sort of cockeyed plan working somewhere for some persons. Certain circumstances that seem at the time to be a result of general cosmic chaos turn out, viewed in retrospect, to have been the only set of circumstances, that could bring about—do bring about—great good. Such as your grandfather playing banjo in an obscure New Orleans club the night a Dane named Bjarne Knudsen dropped in. We could pursue it endlessly, back to your grandfather's choice of banjo as an instrument—and beyond. Let's forget this 'luck' business, and figure there's some pattern in what has happened."

  "I'll try," said David. He paused, conscious of Willis's eyes on him. "But—you ever been on the South Side in Chicago, Mr. Willis?"

  Willis sighed. "Yes. God, yes!"

  "That's what I mean. I've never been in Harlem, but I don't see how it can be much worse. And there are places here—it makes a guy feel guilty—"

  "If you let these things do that to you, David, you're emasculating yourself, in a certain sense. You can't change things single-handed, trite as the observation may be. I can't. No one can. But you sure as hell can't help the situation any if you let anything so stupid as a feeling of guilt rule you. Would it do our people any good if you gave up and became one of the hundreds of thousands in our city ghettos—frustrated, trapped? Or one of the millions of our people in the South?"

  "No-o-o. I know you're right, of course. At least, my mind knows it—"

  "That's all that counts at this stage, David. Absolutely all. Your mind—"

  Brad watched David leave the office, a smile softening the tan leanness of his face. His secretary came in, laid papers on his desk. "You ought to go home, Mr. Willis. You're tired."

  He smiled up at her. "Speak for yourself. I didn't know you were still here." He glanced quickly through the papers. "These can wait until morning. Did you see young Champlin?"

  "I make a point of having a word with him when I hear him come in. I like the boy."

  "Yes." His eyes, thoughtful and remote, were on the door through which David had left a few minutes before. "I had hoped—I suppose I still hope—that one of these days he'd be here with us."

  "I'm rooting for it. I've never seen a better candidate. And," she added grimly, "I've seen a muckle of 'em in my time."

  "I don't know, Lucy. I don't know." He drew in his breath sharply, tapped the papers on his desk into order, laid them in the basket marked "Current."

  "I think he's the person I've been seeking—subconsciously—for years. To stand beside me. But there's a chill feeling in my bones that something stronger than the law firm of Abernathy, Willis and Shea is going to take over one of these days."

  "Not something better, Mr. Willis. For a young lawyer this would be the opportunity of—"

  He did not l
et her finish. "Something better? Again—I don't know. But—" There was a long pause. "Probably, Lucy. Probably."

  "I don't believe—"

  "Who said 'go home' first?"

  "What—oh, I did."

  "Then scram. And take some time off in the morning. I won't need you before eleven."

  CHAPTER 42

  Late on a Friday afternoon a few weeks after his move into the new apartment, David braced his back against the cross seat next to the door of a subway train and wondered why Boston people bothered to take their kids to the beach to ride roller coasters when the Boston subway system was so close at hand. He took a copy of Jet from his pocket and flipped casually through its pages. Reading the compact little magazine was one way of keeping up with some of the prominent people of his own race in the country. As the train began to slow for his stop, the word "Boston" in one of the gossip paragraphs caught his eye. "What prominent Boston attorney," the short item read, "is due for gray hairs before his time if his wife doesn't cut down on the sauce? Friends are worrying."

  He ran over in his mind the names of Negro attorneys he knew of or had been introduced to by Willis, then forgot the item as he came out into Boylston Street, the nip of the late fall afternoon making him turn up the collar of his topcoat.

  He was in good time to leave the work he had done for Willis at the office, then subway to his apartment to shower and fix dinner for Sara, Sudsy, and Sudsy's new girl friend, Rhoda Sherman.

  After they had met Rhoda the second time Sara said: "Let's don't be trite and say 'What does he see—' and all that junk. After all, she's nice and I do like her, even if she is—well—"

  "Uninteresting?" supplied David.

  "Well, in a way. And perhaps—"

  "A little slow on the uptake?"

  "All right. Poor dear. She won't have a shred of personality left when we get through with her. You're simply jealous because she's probably going to marry your best friend. All men are."

  "Hey, wait! No one's said anything about their getting married, for gosh sake."

  "Pooh! Want to bet they won't?"

  "Make a bet like that with a woman? No."

  "It's this way, David. Young men just don't spend all that time and attention on the Rhoda type if they aren't serious. And she'll be a super doctor's wife. Uncomplaining, patient, understanding—"

  "The poor devil. No fun. He's too nice a guy for all those intangible virtues. Drive a man crazy after a while."

  "And she's a comfortable person—"

  "Jesus have moicy! I'd rather marry a Teddy bear."

  "Anyhow, I repeat, she's nice and I like her and she does fit in. Sometimes I wish Hunter wouldn't give her such a bad time—"

  "Don't worry. She doesn't even know he's doing it."

  "Kitty—kitty—" said Sara.

  ***

  Dora Moore, the receptionist in the Abernathy, Willis and Shea offices, was not at her desk when David entered. Just beyond Willis's office a door stood open, and from behind it Dora's voice called, "Who is it?"

  "David Champlin."

  She came into the hallway, lipstick in hand, a pertly competent young woman with Irish blue eyes, freckles, and a small, impudent nose. He had already been around the office enough to know that she had all three partners and the juniors nicely wrapped around her finger.

  "Didn't you meet Mr. Willis on your way up? You must have crossed each other in the elevators. He just left and I'm leaving. Everybody's gone—"

  "So soon? No business? Nobody suing anybody or anything?"

  "Just a lucky break, I guess. Can you wait two minutes while I finish my face? I'll be right out—"

  She disappeared into the dressing room, and the telephone in Willis's office began to ring stridently.

  "David! I've put the night lines up. Will you catch it? Tell them he's gone home, and get a message—"

  He lifted the receiver in mid-ring. "Mr. Willis's office."

  There was a pause before a husky voice answered him, one that could be male. "May I talk to Mr. Willis?"

  "He's gone for the day, sir. Will you leave a message?"

  The abrupt laugh was a woman's; the caller obviously was not male. "Oh, dear. And it's not 'sir.' This is Mrs. Willis."

  A lot of people sounded different on the telephone; there

  was no reason to be uneasy at the difference in Mrs. Willis's voice. She continued, "Who is this?"

  "David Champlin, Mrs. Willis."

  "David! How nice to hear you. My husband and I talk about you so much. He's so proud of you, David. You're to come to dinner soon. Let me talk to him for just a minute, David—"

  "He's gone, Mrs. Willis. There's no one here. He should be home soon."

  "David, tell him to stop at Miller's Garage—"

  "I can't, Mrs. Willis. He's left—"

  "My car's there. A stupid" (had she said "shtupid"?) "man shmashed" (there was no doubt about that one) "in a fender. Silly old man, he was. It's so nice to talk to you, David. My husband's so proud of you...." There was no stopping her. In the space of the next two minutes David figured she must have repeated herself at least six times. What prominent Boston attorney is due for gray hairs before his time.... This woman wasn't just a little high; she was close to being boxed out. Way out. And David was sure she hadn't been what Tom Evans use to call "taken suddenly drunk." There was a quality of saturation in her speech: the repetition, the inability to take in—or drunken refusal to accept—the simple statement that her husband had left, the obvious belief that no one could possibly suspect she had been drinking. She was saying again, "Let me talk to him, David. I'd better tell him about the car myself—"

  "He should be home soon—"

  There was a quick step behind him, the low words, "Give me the phone, David—" and Dora's hand took the receiver from his.

  "Mrs. Willis? This is Dora. Your husband has gone home." She spoke slowly, distinctly, as though she were speaking to a foreigner with a limited knowledge of English, in a tone of kindly finality. "... No, Mrs. Willis. He should be there soon.... I have a call on the other line, Mrs. Willis. You just be patient and he'll be there. Goodbye."

  She cradled the receiver quickly, drawing her hand away from it as though it burned her, then looked up at David's troubled face.

  "You didn't know?"

  He shook his head, feeling as though he had witnessed a scene of shame and humiliation he should not have seen, feeling sick at the thought that within a short time Brad Willis would walk into his home to face the woman who had just been on the telephone. "Is it—does it happen often?" he asked.

  Before Dora could answer, the telephone rang again and he instinctively moved toward it. Dora's hand caught his arm. "Let it ring. That will keep up till he gets home." She took a large Manila envelope marked "David Champlin" from the desk and drew him out of the room, closing the door behind them. The unanswered summons of the ringing telephone was a lonely sound, and followed them, stayed with them as they stood at Dora's desk. She added another typescript to the nearly full envelope, then said, "Damnation!" David thought he detected something close to tears in her voice. "It's not fair. It's not fair. And she's so swell. She's such a swell person. When she's—all right."

  "Then this isn't all the time?" He remembered the handsome, warm, friendly woman sitting on the edge of the big divan twisting a bright-hued handkerchief into a shapeless wad, tearing at it, drawing it back and forth through long, restless fingers, then getting up a dozen or more times during the evening on trivial errands, remembered his own puzzlement at her tense nervousness.

  "Not all the time. Sometimes she's all right, and then Mr. Willis is like a different person. You can tell the minute he comes in. He's so wonderful to her, David, and so patient. It just isn't fair." She slammed the center drawer of her desk shut with a bang. The ringing of the telephone had stopped a moment before; now it started again. "Let it alone," she said. "You'd have found out about it anyhow, David, after you'd been around a while. But it's
sort of a jolt, getting it that way —one of those phone calls. She calls everywhere—even courthouses and clients' offices sometimes. Everyone knows about it and everyone's so fond of them both. Only, no one will talk about it. I guess I'm just letting off steam." She handed him the envelope. "Walk me to the subway?"

  "Of course."

  After they left the elevator and could not be overheard she said, almost fiercely, "Peg Willis is one of the grandest people I know. Do you know what she did after my mother got a fractured pelvis in a fall? After Mom got out of the hospital Mrs. Willis sent a practical nurse—wouldn't let me say a word—to take care of Mom while I was working. For a whole month. Mom's the one who had to insist she didn't need one anymore because she was better off taking care of

  herself. Mom and I have prayed to just about every saint we know about, and I've made Novenas. Perhaps they'll work in time. Perhaps it has to be this way for a while—"

  They reached the subway entrance, and as they went down the stairs Dora said, "I've talked your arm off."

  "It's been good for you."

  "Anyhow, now you'll understand. Once in a while Mr. Willis is nervous and fractious—"

  "My God, who wouldn't be!"

  "It's easier for him if people understand. You'll say a prayer for him? And her?"

  "Sure will. You can count on it, Dora."

  She smiled up at him. "Funny, isn't it, how we know the people we can say things like that to and not be laughed at? See you next week—"

  ***

  The following Sunday Hunter Travis arrived at David's apartment just after Sara, in paint-smeared smock, had appeared for breakfast. He had just arrived at the airport an hour or so earlier, he said, checked in at a hotel and come directly up there.