Meridian and the Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker

Author:Alice Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

3

“YOU CAN GET yourself a wife,” said Shipley confidentially, “and settle down here in the same house. It might need a little fixing up, but I could lend you enough for that, and with a few licks here and there it ought to be good as new.”

Shipley’s hair was still like that of a sleek greasy animal, but now it was dingy white and thin. He looked at Brownfield from under brows that had faded from blond to yellowish-gray. His pale blue eyes struggled to convey kindness and largesse. Brownfield slid down from the truck knowing his face was the mask his father’s had been. Because this frightened him and because he did not know why he should have inherited this fear, he studiedly brushed imaginary dust from the shoulders of a worn black suit Shipley had given him.

He had been shocked to see Shipley at the funeral, but soon guessed he had come hoping to catch Grange. Shipley did not take kindly to people running off owing him money, no matter that they had paid off whatever debts they might have owed many times over. Nobody had whispered a word against him while he stood looking down on the bloatedly sleeping mother and child. To most of the people at the funeral Shipley’s presence was a status symbol and an insult, though they were not used to thinking in those terms and would not have expressed such a mixed feeling. Shipley squeezed out a tear for the benefit of the other mourners, and Brownfield had chuckled bitterly to himself. The tear wasn’t necessary: pity was scarce at his mother’s funeral; most of the people there thought she had got what she deserved. Shipley’s crocodile tear was the only one shed.

Brownfield himself had sat, limp and clammy, wishing he were a million miles away. His mother as she was in the last years got none of his love, none of his sympathy and hardly any of his thoughts. The idea that he might continue to live in her house aroused nothing but revulsion. He knew too that the minute he accepted money from Shipley he was done for. If he borrowed from Shipley, Shipley would make sure he never finished paying it back.

“Don’t know but what we might can build you a new house,” said Shipley, thinking that with Brownfield’s muscles he could do a grown man’s work. Shipley believed with a mixture of awe and contempt that blacks developed earlier than whites, especially in the biceps. He thought too that as long as he had Brownfield there was a chance of getting Grange. Believing that Brownfield was choked up from grief and from his generous offer Shipley continued speaking to him on an encouraging plane.

“After all, if you marry one of these little fillies on my place she’s going to want to smell some new wood. Why, I can’t stop by a house on the place without the womenfolks waylayin’ me; talking about me fixing up the house they already got or wanting me to build ’em a new one.

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