Of course, speaking of maleness, we had the redoubtable Mr. Mills for company, and though Lewis Mills may be a brilliant man, he can also readily play the role of buffoon. Did Nora tell you of our singular adventure with the police in Rome? All of it brought on by Mr. Mills and his encounter with what dogs leave behind after dinner. How is that for a euphemism? Of course, we ended up in the police station. It was fascinating, but also more than a little alarming. At one point, I watched them bring in a young man; he was obviously poor and he certainly didn’t look like a serious criminal. But the way they treated him was so brutal. It was perhaps a glimpse of how life is for some under Mussolini. Yet, the country has a compelling lustre to it and the ordinary people were friendly and helpful. Certainly I shall never forget it. I saw an Englishwoman in Rome. At Keats’s house, the house where he died. I pitied the woman, but then later I envied her. Ah well! Perhaps I will tell you about it another time.
Nora has mentioned that you might be going out to California to write for the moving pictures. Such a life seems to me impossibly remote and glamorous. For years I wasn’t interested in the pictures, but lately (perhaps on Nora’s urging; she seems addicted to them), I have been looking at some of them. After I have finished shopping in Toronto on a Saturday afternoon, I will sometimes go to the picture theatre. We do not have such a place in the village and in the nearby town of Linden all the movies are about men chasing Indians on horses. When I am in Toronto and waiting for the afternoon train home, I particularly enjoy the gangster pictures. Not very inspiring, I admit, but entertaining. I suppose I am like one of those country dogs that for some reason will eat a mouthful of dirt now and again. I too seem to need to enter a world of vice and corruption. Does that strike you as odd? I sometimes wonder if that’s normal. Not that I’ve ever made any great claims to being normal.
I’ve just been holding my breath as another of these great gusts has shaken the windows of this old house. I feel like jumping into bed and burrowing beneath the covers like a child. Well, never mind, this storm will pass as do all manner of things. In time. Do take care of yourself.
Kindest regards, Clara
Whitfield, Ontario
Sunday, September 20, 1936
Dear Nora,
Thanks for your letter. What a day we are having here! Such wind and rain! The heavens are truly in turmoil. It must have something to do with the changing seasons. I heard on the radio this morning that there have been many deaths from this weather down in your part of the world.
So, it’s goodbye to Mr. Mills, is it? Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised, and it’s probably just as well, don’t you think? L.M. is an intelligent and interesting man, but like all such rare creatures, he is difficult and ultimately incomprehensible. The way he behaved in Rome that day was inexcusable. I am sure you will be better off without him. Remember what I said on the boat ride back?
School has returned to its routines and Milton and I will have plenty of work to do this year. Well, there was another gust of wind against the house. I fear for the trees on our street though they all seem to be upright. But the roads and sidewalks are a mess, littered with leaves and fallen branches. However, I am warm and dry and hope to ride out this rough weather. Do take care of yourself.
Clara
P.S. As you suggested, I have dropped Evelyn Dowling a line.
Wednesday, September 23
Foolish, foolish, foolish! Why do I agree to do such things? Outside the post office today, Ida Atkins persuaded me to address the Women’s Auxiliary a week from next Tuesday. It seems I cannot say no to this woman, and now I must invent some nonsense about travelling with my Normal School “friends.” Then, I must face all those women.
Saturday, September 26 (5:35 p.m.)
Henry Hill lurching about and singing in the streets, still wearing Father’s overcoat with its velvet collar. From the front window I watched him pass the house a few minutes ago. Manley and Melvin Kray and two or three other boys were taunting the old man and throwing stones at him. I got up to look at this after trying all afternoon to gather some impressions of Italy for this damn talk.
(11:15 p.m.)
Fell asleep too early and then awakened at ten. I could not get back to sleep and so I have been reading Startling Detective: “Mismatched Lovers Want to Die Together.” A thirty-five-year-old woman in California runs away with a nineteen-year-old boy who worked for the woman’s husband as an usher in a movie theatre. The woman went to the movies several nights a week and the two became “acquainted.” She persuaded the boy to murder her husband, and so he beat him to death with a hammer one night in the projection room. The pair fled in the family sedan, but the police caught up with them in a tourist court near the Mexican border. “I’m glad I did it,” the woman says. “I don’t care what you do with us now. I want to die with him. We want to die together.”
Both of them sentenced to the electric chair. With dulled eyes the woman stares at the camera in her prison smock. The youth has a torpid, sexual look to him, slack-faced, defiled, brimming with seed.
San Remo Apts.
1100 Central Park West
N.Y.C.
27/9/36
Dear Clara,
Great to hear from you. Yes, we got that storm down here too. The tail end of a hurricane, it seems. According to the Times, the Empire State Building was actually moving in the gale. Apparently it was designed to do just that, but I find the idea a little horrifying. When you look up and see this huge chunk of steel and concrete and glass, you just expect it to stay in place when the wind is blowing. But, swaying back and forth! Jeez! Anyway, it was quite the blow and we had buckets of rain too.
For the past several weeks I have been suffering “the pangs of disprized love.” My little June bug, all five feet ten of her, lit out for Texas where she was reared. She is going to marry some drip she went to high school with. I hope you don’t mind my ending a sentence with a preposition. You have to be careful when you’re writing a schoolmarm. Anyway, Junie left me and my heart has been rent in twain. Can you imagine leaving me for a Studebaker salesman? I could have shown her the world. Offered it, in fact, on a fairly good-sized platter. But no dice. Oh, the powerful appeal of the front porch and apron! Well, there is nothing to be done about these passions except try to get over them. Your sister and I have been commiserating with one another since her return from Europe. She’s told me all about the trip and Mr. Mills’s nutty behaviour. What an experience for you both! Please do not judge all Americans by what you saw and heard from Lewis Mills. Believe it or not, some of us do manage to travel quietly and stay out of trouble when we go abroad. Nora said she didn’t know what she would have done if you hadn’t been along. Gee, I wish I had a big sister!
“The House on Chestnut Street” continues to garner any amount of lavish praise in the trade journals. Radio News called it “the best-written afternoon serial on the air.” So there! Nobody is going to win a Pulitzer writing this stuff, but I’ll take what I can get and it’s always nice to be recognized by people in the industry. We are currently in the top five, but we can’t seem to catch old “Ma Perkins.” We’ve come close, but we can’t close the gap. Exciting, huh? I’ve been busy with two other proposals: one, another weeper for the ladies of the afternoon, and the other, a detective show set in Manhattan. That one is more fun to write. I’ve submitted both to the agency, but haven’t heard anything back yet.
Yes, I am thinking of going out to California. MGM has offered me a lot of money and I am thinking about it. In many ways, it’s appealing. I feel I could use a change of scenery. On the other hand, I love New York and I know I would miss the place. So, I continue to dither. Dithery old Evelyn!
Nora said she asked you down for Christmas. Why not take her up on it? It would be fun to see you again. The three of us could do the tourist stuff: Macy’s windows, Radio City, a Broadway show. Nora loves all that, and I love watching her love it. Love and chaste kisses, Clara.
Evelyn
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br /> Monday, October 5
A showery evening. I walked over to Ida Atkins’s house to tell her that I can’t speak to the Women’s Auxiliary tomorrow night. I just can’t do it. It’s impossible. But the garage was empty and the house in darkness. Returned in damp clothes and spent the rest of the evening cobbling together some impressions of Italy: the Coliseum, the Sistine Chapel, priests, beggars, soldiers, the vineyards of Tuscany, the light on the stones of Venice. Horrible trite stuff! What can I say to these women that has any ring of truth? How will I ever sleep tonight?
Cobble: to mend or patch coarsely; to make or put together roughly or hastily.
Trite: hackneyed from much use. Stale.
Tuesday, October 6 (11:45 p.m.)
Marion has finally left; I didn’t think she would ever go. Fussing over me as if I were an invalid. The tea I have drunk tonight should keep me awake for hours. When did I last sleep? It seems a long time ago. And tonight I most assuredly disgraced myself. Yet, may I now record that the memory of the various startled expressions on all those faces will sustain me over the coming days. No doubt my “performance” this evening is now on its way around the township through the telephone lines. Tomorrow across the fences and over the counters. Well, so be it. It has happened and nothing can be done to change matters. I have to wonder though (I’m sure others are doing so at this very moment), whether, in fact, I am having some kind of breakdown. But, I feel strong and able enough, in command of my poor faculties. Here is the desk. There is the bed. These are my fingers holding the pen against the blue-lined paper under the light. Still I did behave in a most peculiar fashion this evening. Why did I say those things? I did intend to go through with it. I stood before them in the overheated church hall. It was awfully hot, or so it seemed to me. Of course, I was nervous, but it felt unusually warm. I remember someone opening a window before I started. And so I stood before them clutching my notes, “The waterways of Venice are unique and attract thousands of visitors to this fabled city each year,” and I knew in my heart that things would go awry before the evening was over. I knew it. Ida Atkins was introducing me and I looked out at the pleasant, expectant faces of my neighbours. Why did I feel such anger? Contempt? When Father died, these people brought me plates of food and pressed my hand. They gave me scented handkerchiefs embroidered in black for mourning. We greet one another in the stores and on the street. Mrs. A. was going on about the Callan sisters and how proud the village was of our accomplishments. Nora was making such a name for herself on the radio in New York. But let us not forget that we still have Clara in our midst, a talented musician and a valuable mentor to our youngsters, etc., etc.
I stood before them trembling. “This past summer Clara travelled with some of her friends from Normal School, and now she is going to regale us with her impressions of the ancient world.” Regale! When I picked up the glass, my hands were shaking. I spilled some water. They saw that. At least those near the front saw me spill the water. Looking down at my notes, I saw only swirls of black letters on the blue-lined paper. The words might as well have been in Hungarian. “Rome is a wondrous city indeed. And by the way, it is very hot during the summer.” After that impressive topic sentence, I could think of nothing more to say. I must have stood there for how long? A minute perhaps? An awkwardly long time in the circumstances. The faces were looking up at me, the wind stirring the leaves beyond the open window. That dry, rustling sound. I heard that from the open window.
From her chair, Mrs. A. threw me a lifeline. “What is your most vivid memory of Rome, Clara?”
Yes, a vivid memory. I could think only of the Englishwoman in Keats’s house. Her awful violet dress. I began something like this.
“Let me tell you. I saw a woman in Rome. She was English. She was telling visitors about the poet’s last months in this house near the Spanish Steps. She was such a plain woman, tall and pale with a long English face and that purple dress. I felt sorry for her. You wouldn’t have expected such a dismal-looking creature . . . I know that sounds cruel . . . but you wouldn’t have expected. I wondered then how she had managed to end up there. I imagined her loneliness in that city of stones and sunlight. Her pale English homeliness in all that sunlight. Oh, I imagined so much about her. And then . . . Well, how wrong can we be about others? I saw her leave the house. And a young man on his bicycle was waiting for her. She came out of Keats’s house into the sunlight, and this handsome young man was waiting for her and they embraced there on the street. Such an ardent embrace! The Englishwoman leaned into the young man as if she wished to be devoured.”
Did I really say those words? Ardent? Devoured? I believe I did.
They were staring at me now, of course; I had their puzzled attention, and I could feel the onset of laughter within me. Pointless to try to stop it. It’s like a child who begins to giggle in the classroom. All you can do is ask her to leave. And so I continued. I told them that I wondered about this woman and her life in Rome. Where did she live? How did she get from some damp English town to this city of light? How could she endure telling visitors about the dying poet day after day? How did she meet the handsome young man on the bicycle with his brown suit and cap, his cheap yellow shoes? I told them that he didn’t even wear socks. I had seen his bare ankles above those shoes. I told them I saw all this as he wheeled her away through the streets of Rome. The Englishwoman was clinging to the young man’s neck and looked so happy. I suppose they went off to a room. I wondered about that too.
Mrs. Atkins now looked distressed, her face a picture of baffled dismay. That’s perhaps a little precious, but it’s true; she did look like that and I began to laugh. A few of them nervously joined in, but soon stopped. They could now see that something was amiss. Yet I couldn’t stop laughing. I don’t know why. I laughed and laughed and I can only imagine what I must have sounded like. A woman laughing alone in a church hall must be an affliction to the eyes and ears of the sober. I also told them (I may have shouted this, yes, I believe I did) that I had not travelled to Italy with any Normal School chums, but with my sister and her lover, who by the way, I said, made a pass at me in a hotel room in Venice.
Mrs. Atkins and the minister’s wife, Helen Jackson, then came over to the lectern and took my arm and led me off to the vestry. Marion came along too and sat next to me and held my hand in that room that smelled of stale air and furniture polish. I had not been in the vestry since Father’s funeral when Mr. Cameron had tried to speak some words of comfort before the service. Tonight the look of love and pity in Marion’s dark eyes was terrible to behold. I could hardly bear to glance at her. From the doorway, I could hear the murmuring voices of the women in the hall. Squeezing Marion’s hand, I told her not to worry. I told her that, appearances aside, I was sound as a bell. Yet I wonder if that is true. What I did this evening was ridiculous and tomorrow everyone in the village will know about it. Even now, as I write these words, wives are sinking into creaking beds beside their husbands.
“Clara Callan acted peculiar tonight. It was something to see.”
“Who?”
“Clara Callan, the schoolteacher.”
“What about her?”
“She was to give a talk on her summer holiday in Europe and she went on and on about some man and woman in Rome, Italy. The way she carried on! Why, she shouted and laughed. It was something, I can tell you.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Well, how do I know why she’d do that? I just wouldn’t have thought it of Clara. She’s always been such a sensible girl. Maybe she’s going through the change of life though she seems awfully young for that.”
I can hear their voices. I am in their bedrooms.
Wednesday, October 7
Not a word as yet about last night. In the classroom, I was prepared for the sidelong glances of the curious, but life was just Wednesday morning. Not a hint of anything untoward in the children’s behaviour, no smirks or whispers from the upper-form children in the hallway. Milton acted as
though he had heard nothing, but he is a Presbyterian, and news may not yet have reached their households. For a moment, sitting at my desk, I imagined it all as a dream. I hadn’t carried on like that in front of the Women’s Auxiliary; Marion hadn’t given me that dark, pitying look and taken me home. But, of course, it did happen. It is a fact that will harden into village folklore with the passing years.
“Do you remember the night poor Clara Callan behaved so oddly in the church hall?”
“Yes. She told us how she met a man in Italy or something.”
Sunday, October 11
This morning I found a note underneath the doormat on the veranda. Typewritten with the spelling in place. Except for Eyetalian, which is doubtless intended to be crudely satirical.
To the Lady with the Phantom Lover
We have heard about your mystery man from Rome. Does he visit you in the night on his bicycle? Does he climb the stairs to your bedroom and tickle your toes to wake you up? Be careful or you will wake up one day with a little Eyetalian.
Wednesday, October 14
This one under the doormat this morning.
Rumour has it that your Italian Lover Man has been to visit lately, and leaves his yellow shoes under your bed. You are being very naughty, Miss Callan. A little bird has told us that you are planning a spring wedding in the Roman Catholic church in Linden and the Virgin Mary will be there.
Clara Callan Page 20