The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan

by Callaghan, Morley; Atwood, Margaret;

  The story begins with a trial, and ends with one. The description of the physical ambiance — the smell of wet wool, the annoying whoosh of galoshes, every little thing — is spot-on, as is usual in Callaghan. Harry Lane, the hero, starts out as a sort of Timon of Athens before his reversal of fortune, or a Hamlet before the black-suit phase: he’s the observed of all observers. He’s a celebrated war hero, handsome, well-off, easy-going, generous, careless in a lily-of-the-field way, admired by all, and with a top-of-the-line girlfriend. The initial event in the plot is driven, like the acts of Cassius in Julius Caesar, by envy: a bank manager named Scotty uses Harry as the cat’s paw in a fraudulent transaction, hoping to profit by it himself. But he gets caught, and is put on trial, and then kills himself, and Harry — undeservedly — has the moral guilt pinned on him. People look down on him. They expect him to feel small. They no longer respect him. For a Callaghan protagonist, this is awful.

  Struggling to regain the esteem of his society, Harry passes the parcel of scorn to Scotty’s friend, a tailor and expugilist named Mike Kon. The vehicle is a coat with a faulty lining, made by Kon, interpreted by Harry as a gesture of disrespect towards himself. By spreading its story and wearing it everywhere, Harry makes Kon appear dishonest and a fool. (Kon passes on the scorn in his turn, and so does Molly, the upper-class girl with the cold heart who has thrown Harry over due to his disgrace.) But neither Harry nor Kon can resolve the conflict between them, because both suffer from the sin of pride. Both demand “justice.”

  The plot develops in rounds, like the boxing match that signals the climax of the action. In the course of vindicating themselves, defending their self-respect, and standing up for their honour, the characters wallop one another both verbally and physically, and are walloped in turn. There are three arbiters, or umpires, who stand outside the ring. One is the owner of the prestigious bar where all gather, or want to. He’s the social arbiter: he decides, literally, who’s in and who’s out. The second is Mike Kon’s father, an old man who’s suffered a stroke. He’s the spiritual arbiter. He can’t talk, but he can write, and he delivers himself of a shakily-printed oracle that probably says Judge not. (The rest of the phrase, not supplied by the old man, is, . . . lest ye be judged. And so it is: all who judge are indeed judged in their turn.)

  The third arbiter is Annie Laurie, a woman of large heart and easy morals, who unfortunately — like mermaids — has a jinx on her. The Annie Laurie in the song of that name gives promises true, and Callaghan’s Annie also tells the truth, because — having no respectability — she has nothing to lose. She’s got those coveted Callaghan qualities, honesty and the ability to show the object as it really is, and the reader trusts her. But the Annie Laurie in the song is a creature for whom men would lie down and die, and Callaghan’s Annie Laurie also has this effect on men who stay too long with her: they end up prone and breathless.

  Are we intended to see her as a sort of femme fatale? I think not: she’s connected with truth, not with poisonous wiles. Possibly one way of understanding her place in this story is to refer back to Everyman, that other simply written and episodic Christian tale of a man’s progress towards the grave. Most of Everyman’s companions — Kin, Good Fellowship, and the like — desert him when times get tough, as Harry’s pals do. The one left at the end is female, and her name is Knowledge. It could be that Annie Laurie is no fatal woman, but instead a kindly psychopomp, a tender conductress of the soul, a helpful companion on Harry’s fated journey. She does try to warn him away from the paths of pride: she’s got the kind of knowledge he needs. But he won’t listen.

  It is Annie who is present when Harry is killed, and Annie who testifies at the trial. Like many a prophetess, she isn’t much believed; in her case, because of her dubious sexual reputation. It’s Mike Kon, Harry’s erstwhile enemy and slayer, who — exonerated by the same legal system that earlier caused Harry so much grief — ends up as the shield-bearer, the Horatio figure, the teller of dead Harry’s story. He has learned what it is to judge and to be judged, and has opted for the hidden alternative to justice, which is mercy. It’s a conclusion both deeply ironic and oddly compassionate.

  Which, underneath everything else, would seem to be the appleness of apples at the very bottom of the Callaghan barrel. Irony and compassion. The Callaghanness of Callaghan. Yet just Callaghan. The object as it really is.

  [1]That Summer in Paris, as reprinted in Canadian Novelists and the Novel, ed. Douglas Dayman and Leslie Monkman, Borealis Press, Ottawa, 1981. pp. 143-146.

  [2]That Summer in Paris, as reprinted in Canadian Novelists and the Novel, ed. Douglas Dayman and Leslie Monkman, Borealis Press, Ottawa, 1981. pp. 143-146.

  [3]That Summer in Paris, as reprinted in Canadian Novelists and the Novel, ed. Douglas Dayman and Leslie Monkman, Borealis Press, Ottawa, 1981. pp. 143-146.

  [4]Edmund Wilson, O Canada: An American’s Notes on Canadian Culture. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 1964. Some essays 1960. page 21.

  [5]Northrop Frye on Canada. Ed. by Jean O’Grady and David Staines. University of Toronto Press, 2003. page 549.

  [6]From “The Plight of Canadian Fiction,” (1938), reprinted in Dayman and Monkman, page 150.

  [7]Dayman and Monkman, page 146.

  [8]Right after this, Callaghan makes a dismissive remark about St. Paul. Christians often see themselves as having to choose between the road of St. Paul, which leads to Rome, and that of Christ, which leads to Cavalry. Not much doubt about which Callaghan preferred.

  THE RED HAT

  It was the kind of hat Frances had wanted for months, plain and little and red with the narrow brim tacked back, which would look so smart and simple and expensive. There was really very little to it, it was so plain, but it was the kind of felt hat that would have made her feel confident of a sleek appearance. She stood on the pavement, her face pressed up close against the shop window, a slender, tall, and good-looking girl wearing a reddish woolen dress clinging tightly to her body. On the way home from work, the last three evenings, she had stopped to look at the hat. And when she had got home she had told Mrs. Foley, who lived in the next apartment, how much the little hat appealed to her. In the window were many smart hats, all very expensive. There was only one red felt hat, on a mannequin head with a silver face and very red lips.

  Though Frances stood by the window a long time she had no intention of buying the hat, because her husband was out of work and they couldn’t afford it; she was waiting for him to get a decent job so that she could buy clothes for herself. Not that she looked shabby, but the fall weather was a little cold, a sharp wind sometimes blowing gustily up the avenue, and in the twilight, on the way home from work with the wind blowing, she knew she ought to be wearing a light coat. In the early afternoon when the sun was shining brightly she looked neat and warm in her woolen dress.

  Though she ought to have been on her way home Frances couldn’t help standing there, thinking she might look beautiful in this hat if she went out with Eric for the evening. Since he had been so moody and discontented recently she now thought of pleasing him by wearing something that would give her a new kind of elegance, of making him feel cheerful and proud of her and glad, after all, that they were married.

  But the hat cost fifteen dollars. She had eighteen dollars in her purse, all that was left of her salary after shopping for groceries for the week. It was ridiculous for her to be there looking at the hat, which was obviously too expensive for her, so she smiled and walked away, putting both hands in the small pockets of her dress. She walked slowly, glancing at two women who were standing at the other end of the big window. The younger one, wearing a velvet coat trimmed with squirrel, said to the other: “Let’s go in and try some of them on.”

  Hesitating and half turning, Frances thought it would be quite harmless and amusing if she went into the shop and tried on the red hat, just to see if it looked as good on her as it did on the mannequin head. It never occurred to her to buy the hat.

  In
the shop, she walked on soft, thick, gray carpet to the chair by the window, where she sat alone for a few minutes, waiting for one of the saleswomen to come to her. At one of the mirrors an elderly lady with bleached hair was fussing with many hats and talking to a deferential and patient saleswoman. Frances, looking at the big dominant woman with the bleached hair and the expensive clothes, felt embarrassed, because she thought it ought to be apparent to everyone in the shop, by the expression on her face, that she had no intention of taking a hat.

  A deep-bosomed saleswoman, wearing black silk, smiled at Frances, appraising her carefully. Frances was the kind of customer who might look good in any one of the hats. At the same time, while looking at her, the saleswoman wondered why she wasn’t wearing a coat, or at least carrying one, for the evenings were often chilly.

  “I wanted to try on the little hat, the red one in the window,” Frances said.

  The saleswoman had decided by this time that Frances intended only to amuse herself by trying on hats, so when she took the hat from the window and handed it to Frances she smiled politely and watched her adjusting it on her head. Frances tried the hat and patted a strand of fair hair till it curled by the side of the brim. And then, because she was delighted to see that it was as attractive on her as it had been on the mannequin head with the silver face, she smiled happily, noticing in the mirror that her face was the shape of the mannequin face, a little long and narrow, the nose fine and firm, and she took out her lipstick and marked her lips. Looking in the mirror again she felt elated and seemed to enjoy a kind of freedom. She felt elegant and a little haughty. Then she saw the image of the deep-bosomed and polite saleslady.

  “It is nice, isn’t it?” Frances said, wishing suddenly that she hadn’t come into the store.

  “It is wonderfully becoming to you, especially to you.”

  And Frances said suddenly: “I suppose I could change it, if my husband didn’t like it.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I’ll take it.”

  Even while paying for the hat and assuring herself that it would be amusing to take it home for the evening, she had a feeling that she ought to have known when she first came into the store that she intended to take the hat home. The saleswoman was smiling. Frances, no longer embarrassed, thought with pleasure of going out with Eric and wearing the hat, tucking the price tag up into her hair. In the morning she could return it.

  But as she walked out of the store there was a hope way down within her that Eric would find her so charming in the red hat he would insist she keep it. She wanted him to be freshly aware of her, to like the hat, to discover its restrained elegance. And when they went out together for the evening they would both share the feeling she had had when first she had looked in the shop window. Frances, carrying the box, hurried, eager to get home. The sharp wind had gone down. When there was no wind on these fall evenings it was not cold, and she would not have to wear a coat with her woolen dress. It was just about dark now and all the lights were lit in the streets.

  The stairs in the apartment house were long, and on other evenings very tiring, but tonight she seemed to be breathing lightly as she opened the door. Her husband was sitting by the table lamp, reading the paper. A black-haired man with a well-shaped nose, he seemed utterly without energy, slumped down in the chair. A slight odor of whiskey came from him. For four months he had been out of work and some of the spirit had gone out of him, as if he felt that he could never again have independence, and most of the afternoon he had been standing in the streets by the theaters, talking with actors who were out of work.

  “Hello, Eric boy,” she said, kissing him on the head.

  “’Lo, France.”

  “Let’s go out and eat tonight,” she said.

  “What with?”

  “Bucks, big boy, a couple of dollar dinners.”

  He had hardly looked at her. She went into the bedroom and took the hat out of the box, adjusting it on her head at the right angle, powdering her nose and smiling cheerfully. Jauntily she walked into the living room, swinging her hips a little and trying not to smile too openly.

  “Take a look at the hat, Eric. How would you like to step out with me?”

  Smiling faintly, he said: “You look snappy, but you can’t afford a hat.”

  “Never mind that. How do you like it?”

  “What’s the use if you can’t keep it.”

  “Did you ever see anything look so good on me?”

  “Was it bargain day somewhere?”

  “Bargain day! Fifteen bucks at one of the best shops!”

  “You’d bother looking at fifteen-dollar hats with me out of work?” he said angrily, getting up and glaring at her.

  “I would.”

  “It’s your money. You do what you want.”

  Frances felt hurt, as if for months there had been a steady pressure on her, and she said stubbornly: “I paid for it. Of course, I can take it back if you insist.”

  “If I insist,” he said, getting up slowly and sneering at her as though he had been hating her for months. “If I insist. And you know how I feel about the whole business.”

  Frances felt hurt and yet strong from indignation, so she shrugged her shoulders, saying. “I wanted to wear it tonight.”

  His face was white, his eyes almost closed. Suddenly he grabbed hold of her by the wrist, twisting it till she sank down on one knee.

  “You’ll get rid of that hat or I’ll break every bone in your body. I’ll clear out of here for good.”

  “Eric, please.”

  “You’ve been keeping me, haven’t you?”

  “Don’t, Eric.”

  “Get your fifteen-buck hat out of my sight. Get rid of it, or I’ll get out of here for good.”

  He snatched the hat from her head, pulling it, twisting it in his hands, then throwing it on the floor. He kicked it across the room. “Get it out of here or we’re through.”

  The indignation had gone out of Frances. She was afraid of him; afraid, too, that he would suddenly rush out of the room and never come back, for she knew he had thought of doing it before. Picking up the hat she caressed the soft felt with her fingers, though she could hardly see it with her eyes filled with tears. The felt was creased, the price tag had been torn off, leaving a tiny tear at the back.

  Eric was sitting there, watching her.

  The hat was torn and she could not take it back. She put it in the box, wrapping the tissue paper around it, and then she went along the hall to Mrs. Foley’s apartment.

  Mrs. Foley, a smiling, fat woman with a round, cheerful face, opened the door. She saw Frances was agitated and felt sorry for her. “Frances, dear, what’s the matter with you?”

  “You remember the hat I was telling you about? Here it is. It doesn’t look good on me. I was disappointed and pulled it off my head and there’s a tiny tear in it. Maybe you’d want it.”

  Mrs. Foley thought at once that Frances had been quarreling with her husband. Mrs. Foley held up the hat and looked at it shrewdly. Then she went back into her bedroom and tried it on. The felt was good, and though it had been creased, it was quite smooth now. “Of course, I never pay more than five dollars for a hat,” she said. The little felt hat did not look good on her round head and face.

  “I hate to offer you five dollars for it, Frances, but . . .”

  “All right. Give me five dollars.”

  As Mrs. Foley took the five dollars from her purse, Frances said suddenly: “Listen, dear, if I want it back next week you’ll sell it back to me for five?”

  “Sure I will, kid.”

  Frances hurried to her own apartment. Though she knew Eric could not have gone out while she was standing in the hall, she kept on saying to herself: “Please, Heaven, please don’t let me do anything to make him leave me while he’s feeling this way.”

  Eric, with his arms folded across his chest, was looking out of the window. Frances put the five dollars Mrs. Foley had given her, and the three dollars left ov
er from her salary, on the small table by Eric’s chair. “I sold it to Mrs. Foley,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he said, without looking at her.

  “I’m absolutely satisfied,” she said, softly and sincerely.

  “AIl right, I’m sorry,” he said briefly.

  “I mean I don’t know what makes you think I’m not satisfied — that’s all,” she said.

  Sitting beside him she put her elbow on her knee and thought of the felt hat on Mrs. Foley’s head: it did not look good on her; her face was not the shape of the long silver face of the mannequin head. As Frances thought of the way the hat had looked on the head in the window she hoped vaguely that something would turn up so that she could get it back from Mrs. Foley by the end of the week. And just thinking of it, she felt that faint haughty elation; it was a plain little red hat, the kind of hat she had wanted for months, elegant and expensive, a plain felt hat, so very distinctive.

  TIMOTHY HARSHAW’S FLUTE

  Although both were out of work, Timothy Harshaw and his wife were the happiest people in the Barrow Street house. Timothy was a very fair young man who never thought of wearing a suit coat with trousers to match, and yet somehow he looked carefully groomed and even distinguished.

  In the evenings, Mr. Weeks, a bank teller who lived in the one-room apartment behind the Harshaws’, heard Timothy playing his silver flute. When Mr. Weeks could stand the flute-playing no longer, he rapped on the Harshaws’ door and pretended he was making a social call. Mrs. Harshaw opened the door. A plain gray sweater made her look slim and attractive. She was at least thirty-two, but she was so effusive, with her short, straight black hair, her high-bridged nose and her sparkling eyes that she seemed like a young girl. Mr. Weeks was welcomed so enthusiastically by the Harshaws that he began to feel ashamed of his surliness; both bowed politely and hurried to get him something to drink. They explained that Timothy had learned to play the silver flute at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he had had a scholarship.