Mama was silent for a moment. She must have had thoughts along this line even before Mamadee brought it up. Forever after, for Mama, the dreadfulness of the business seemed to condense in that one peculiarity.
Calley, she’d say in that despairing tone that made you want to kill yourself and take a few close friends along with you, you know what the worst thing was? The worst thing was that woman weighed three hundred and ninety-seven pounds.
“You did not let me marry Joseph,” Mama said.
“I did my best to stop you.”
“I clearly remember you saying, ‘Roberta Ann, if you do not hog-tie Joe Cane Dakin, I will.’”
“Roberta Ann! That is a falsehood! I would never be so vulgar!”
“You always thought he was a country fool.”
“I never!”
“You kept right on buying Cadillacs. It was a deliberate insult to my late husband and I! Do you think either one of us mistook it for anything else?”
“You are distraught, Roberta Ann.” Mamadee spoke then in the reasonable tone she always took when she had driven someone to shrieking. “I am gone ignore every silly thing you have said.” Having arrived at a position of virtue, she changed the subject. “You have made plans for the funeral of course?”
“I thought I might be able to get out of these shoes first,” snapped Mama.
“Really, Roberta Ann, how coarse of you. Your son is listening. You ought to have the funeral somewhere near Joe Cane Dakin’s people.”
“Why?” Mama’s tone made it clear that she did not give a candle stub what the answer was.
“Because there won’t be as many people coming to gawk!” cried Mamadee. “Because you know what will happen if you have it here in Montgomery or in Tallassee? You might as well rent a circus tent! And all those Dakins will turn up and remind the whole world how low you married!”
“Mama,” Mama said in a suffering voice, “Joseph’s funeral will be at St. John’s. The governor and his wife and a director of the Ford Motor Company will be in attendance. And so will a whole gaggle of Dakins and the only thing to do is pretend that they are as good as anybody else. Did you ever hear that some mothers actually try to comfort their children in their times of need?”
“I’ve heard some children speak with respect and gratitude to their mother,” Mamadee retorted.
Mama tossed back her veil, opened her pocketbook—the brown Hermès Kelly bag—poked around in it, fished out her cigarettes and lighter and lit up. The smoke exited her tremulous nostrils in a furious stream.
From time to time I glanced across the footlocker at Ford. He stuck his tongue out at me once. Another time he put his hands up to the sides of his head as if they were ears, to flap at me. Then he turned his face to stare blindly out the window. When I saw his reflection in the window, I realized he was looking at himself.
Mamadee ground the Cadillac up the driveway of our home and clashed to a halt in the turnaround. A silence settled on us as we looked at the house. It was a fine Big House, one of the best in Montgomery, Mama always said. I remember enormous trees, tall pillars, deep porches and inside, rooms with high ceilings and sun-struck chandeliers.
A sawhorse stood at the bottom of the front steps, with a sign on it.
The words at the bottom said something about by order of somebody or someone.
An orange garland of tape hung around the pillars and there was another sign on the front door. I could make out the letters of POLICE LINE repeated on the tape, just like decorations I had seen repeating HAPPY BIRTHDAY or MERRY CHRISTMAS.
“Why did you bring me here?” Mama asked in a choked voice. “You should have told me!”
“You think I knew?” Mamadee said. “I would hardly drive out of my way, would I?”
None of us believed her. Nothing was more characteristic of Mamadee than driving out of her way to kick someone near and dear in the gut.
“I caint believe the police have searched my home. Or was it the FBI?”
“Both. You caint stay here.” The note of triumph in Mamadee’s voice was barely repressed. “You will have to come stay with me at Ramparts.”
Mama sank back in the seat and lowered the veil over her face.
“Yes, Mama. Yes, Mama. Yes, Mama. Yes, Mama. Are you satisfied?”
Mamadee turned to her. “Why, Roberta Ann Carroll Dakin, whatever do you mean? How could I possibly derive satisfaction from the plight of my widowed child and her orphaned children?”
Mama made no answer. I could see that she had decided she was not gone talk to Mamadee any more, at least for a while.
“What about Portia and Minnie and Clint?” I asked.
Portia was our cook, Minnie cleaned the house, and Clint did the chores.
“Be quiet, Calley Dakin,” Mamadee snapped. “The help is none of your business. I am certain sure, however, that given the way colored people gossip, they knew before you did that Joe Cane Dakin was dead. I fired the lot of them as soon as I got back from New Orleans!”
Mama’s cigarette smoke spurted even more violently at Mamadee’s high-handedness.
I knew, of course, that the colored servants had nothing more important to do than gossip about their white employers—it was a very popular topic with Mamadee, Mama, and all their female friends. The ladies were all still seething about the bus strike when the colored help all walked to work rather than take the bus on account of Miss Rosa Parks. Miss Parks refused to ride in the back, for which she was arrested and all the colored people threw a hissy fit. Most of the maids and cooks and chauffeurs and yardmen were late to work every day for months and talked back something terrible whenever they were chastised. Now they could all ride in the front of the bus, but everybody was still riled and hardly speaking.
I remembered what Daddy said to Mama’s lamentations when it started: “Well, darling, that egg’s cracked, and the chick’s not gone get back into it.”
I remembered what Daddy said because Mama fired Ida Mae Oakes the very next day.
Twelve
RAMPARTS loomed over the small town of Tallassee from nearly its highest point. The house was surrounded by several acres of big old live oaks festooned with Spanish moss. For all intents and purposes, Ramparts was the Carroll Museum, dedicated to the eternal glorification of the Carrolls. There was hardly a wall without a portrait of some Carroll or other, or Carrolls in multiples: Judges Carroll, State Senators Carroll, State Representatives Carroll, a U.S. Congressman Carroll, a Lieutenant Governor Carroll, a State Attorney General Carroll, a General Carroll and three Captains Carroll.
I expect all those old Carrolls were like other people, each a mix of good and bad, of strength and weakness. For a fact, most of them had owned slaves and all of them had been good segregationists—the sort of moneyed white who secretly supported or ignored the Klan and its terrorism. They were hypocrites, I mean, like most of us.
I never knew my granddaddy, Robert Carroll Senior, because he died before my birth. Captain was his commissioned rank during WWI and Mamadee always referred to him that way, as Captain Carroll. Mama used to say that the town was too small and everybody knew each other too well for Mamadee to call him General Carroll, but that she would have if she could. Robert Carroll Senior had been the sole inheritor of the Carroll Trust Bank and some other Carroll properties—once upon a time, there were plantations and a couple of mills of one kind or another. In fact, there was even a Carrollton in western Alabama, but if there were any Carrolls living in it, Mamadee was not on speaking terms with them.