There has been, however, a troubling offshoot to this episode. For the past month I have been receiving poison pen letters in which I am imagined to be having a torrid love affair with an Italian! My “phantom lover,” as he is called by the letter writers, implies, that I am a frustrated victim of sexual fantasies. How diabolical these brats can be! I am unable with certainty to prove the authorship of these scurrilous little notes which arrive every so often under my doormat, but I suspect two or three of my former pupils who are now in their entrance year (I teach the four junior forms). They are playing out some kind of schoolgirl fantasy, the erotic daydreams of thirteen-year-olds, perhaps as revenge for slights of long ago. That’s my theory anyway. The notes are a bit unsettling. It’s never pleasant to be made fun of, but I hope eventually to get to the bottom of it all. What I shall do about it then, I am not quite sure. But enough of all that, and by the way, please don’t mention any of this to Nora. She is already far too needlessly concerned about my “mental condition.” Take care of yourself and write now and again. I do enjoy your letters.
Clara
Monday, November 16 (7:22 a.m.)
A strange and troubling dream which I feel almost ashamed to record. I sometimes wonder if, in fact, I am not a little mad. For the first time in months, I dreamt of Charlie. He was pursuing me through the rooms of this house, yet the images were indefinite and at times indistinct. We seemed, for instance, scarcely to be moving. It was as if we were floating, our bare feet not touching the floorboards of the hallway and rooms. I did not seem to be afraid. In my bedroom, we were both naked and then he seemed to be the young man from Rome and yet he had Charlie’s wide monkey mouth and grin. I could no longer stay in bed or endure the darkness, so I turned on the bedside lamp and sat in the chair by the window. I must have been there two hours or so before I fell asleep (my neck now aches from the way I slept). I awakened at first light and through the window saw the faint greyness and the dark branches.
135 East 33rd Street
New York
Sunday, November 29, 1936
Dear Clara,
I haven’t heard from you for ages. Hope everything is okay. I’m still planning to come up for Christmas and I’ve looked into the connections. I’m taking the evening train out of Penn Station on the twenty-third and I’ll arrive in Toronto the next morning. I thought I’d spend the day in the city looking around and maybe call on a couple of old friends and have lunch with them. Then I’ll catch the Linden train. Does Bert Manes still pick up the mail and drive passengers into the village? If he doesn’t, would you mind asking Joe Morrow to come down to the station for me? Of course, I’ll pay him. I just don’t feel like toting two bags all the way home. I’m really looking forward to an old-fashioned Christmas with you. Hope there will be lots of snow. Are my old skates still in the basement? I thought I might go for a skate if they have ice at the rink by then. Busy down here as usual, and I’ve been offered some freelance work in the new year. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. I’m worried about Evy who is awfully blue these days. She is just in a real funk. She’s nice enough to me, but she bites nearly everyone else’s head off if they cross swords with her. Brother, can she be mean!!! I think she’s just lonely. Well, who isn’t, huh?
Our travelling companion from last summer has published this article in a magazine down here. It’s all about the war in Spain and European politics. He mentions the streets of Rome, but he doesn’t bother to write about how he behaved one day. Remember? It just proves that what you read isn’t anything like what actually happened. He makes himself out to be a hero, telling off the police, blah, blah, blah. We don’t even get a mention, and it’s probably just as well. It’s almost as though we never even went along with him. He talks about that man with the yellow hair making fun of a radio actress, but she is at another table. It’s me, of course, only he makes it sound like it’s another person. I’d like to think he was sparing my feelings, but what I really believe is that His Lordship didn’t want to admit that he was travelling with a lowbrow like me. According to the magazine, a number of these pieces by him are going to be published in a book next spring or summer. Big deal!!!
Do you think the King is really going to abdicate? In today’s Trib, there’s a big picture of him and Wallis Simpson. What do people up in Canada think about all this? I’ll bet they’re not too happy with the situation. Just imagine though — giving up the throne of England for the woman you love. You have to admit, Clara, that’s awfully romantic. See you Christmas Eve.
Love, Nora
Monday, December 7
As I was about to leave today, Ella Myles came into the classroom to ask for help in an essay competition. She doesn’t feel comfortable talking to Milton. I wonder she can talk to anyone; she is such a grave, quiet and shy creature. Her dark blonde hair has been cut severely across her brow, butchered really by her mother’s scissors. A pale unhealthiness to the girl. It’s as though she exists on white bread and milky tea. A damp, unclean smell. The mother should talk to her about personal hygiene. Ella stood by my desk and showed me the advertisement in the Toronto paper. The competition is sponsored by one of the banks. A twenty-five-dollar prize for the best essay. Open to all members of the entrance class across the province. Five hundred words. The predictable topics: The Responsibilities of a Good Citizen; The Future of the British Empire; The Miracle of the Airplane; How the Railways Made Canada. Which one should she choose? A vein throbbing in her slender throat as she asked.
The poor child doesn’t stand much of a chance in this; her sensibility is far too dreamy and lyrical. That’s why she didn’t win our little essay competition about the miners last June. These topics call for closely reasoned arguments and logical development of a thesis. It’s just not in her gift. If they were asking for a short story or a poem! But I couldn’t bring myself to discourage her. We decided on the responsible citizen topic and I loaned her a little book of essays to study, though I doubt whether Chesterton and Leacock will interest her very much. The deadline is February, but she wants to work on this over the holidays. Swore me to secrecy, of course.
An awful fuss on the radio about the King and his American lady friend. It looks now as if he is going to abdicate and marry this woman. Nora, along with millions of others, will be agog.
Tuesday, December 8
I have to do something about all this. When I arrived in the classroom this morning, I saw the piece of paper sticking out of the dictionary on my desk. They now feel bold enough to enter my classroom. The children were crowding into the room, and I felt such an urge to run. I have never felt this before. I saw the day and week ahead and heard a kind of roaring in my ears. Hurried off to the lunchroom to compose myself, but Milton was still in there finishing his morning cup of tea. His broad back was to me and he turned, embarrassed and red-faced. “Oh Clara, good morning! I thought you were in class by now. We’re late, aren’t we?” Felt sick to my stomach over everything. Can Jean Patterson and her friends hate me so much that they put words like these between the pages of my dictionary?
Dear Miss Callan,
Another visit on Saturday night from your dark and handsome lover with his yellow shoes and bicycle. We watched the both of you. We can see inside your mind. We watched him remove your clothes. Ah, there he is as you touch yourself in that forbidden place, Miss Callan. Oh, that is naughty of you. And now he is kissing your breasts. His lips are now upon them. Then he moves across your body. Down, down across the whiteness of your belly. There, there, there, there. Doesn’t that feel good, Miss Callan?
Jealous bystanders
Thursday, December 10
I have made a serious mistake and in the days ahead I will surely pay. And I was so certain. After supper I walked over to the Pattersons’, determined once and for all to sort out this business of the notes. I knew Jean attended Girl Guides on Thursday evenings, and I wanted to talk to her mother alone. That too may have been a mistake. Mrs. P. was understandably surpris
ed to see me. She had sat near the front of the church hall that night, and I remembered her look of astonished distaste at my performance. In the hallway tonight, she was smiling fiercely, almost a grimace. “Why, Miss Callan, what a surprise!” Yes, a surprise. Jean’s older sister Carol was home listening to dance band music. “Carol! Turn that off, for heaven’s sake!” Through the doorway to the front room I could see Carol swinging her legs off the couch.
In the front room she gave me a brief, interested look. The weird Miss Callan whom she remembers only as her crabby junior-form teacher. Carol was a lazy, stubborn child and we didn’t like one another. She is now at business college in Linden, a younger version of the mother, full-bosomed in her sweater, a pretty, childlike face. Mrs. P. had hung up my coat and now fluttered into the room, a chesty little wren of a woman. Years ago she had designs on Father, and for a few horrible months I imagined the worst, this dumpy widow with her two brats as my stepmother. Now we sat facing one another; Carol had fled upstairs and I could hear the clatter of a typewriter. Mrs. P. maintained her tight little smile. I could only imagine what was going through her mind. I no longer taught either of her daughters, so what was I doing there clutching my envelope of notes? And so I began with something like the following:
“Mrs. Patterson, I am sorry to have to say this, but I believe Jean and some of her friends have been writing notes to me.” A puzzled frown, and I continued. “These are notes of a personal nature, I’m afraid.”
“I see,” said Mrs. P. “And what makes you think that Jean may be responsible for writing these notes?”
Her face was now a mask of dislike and suspicion. And what indeed had made me think so? I had no genuine evidence.
“The notes,” I said, “have been written on a typewriter. I have always suspected that Jean disliked me. Perhaps she still harbours some resentment for the grades I used to give her.”
“I’m sure that isn’t true, Miss Callan.” A chilliness to her voice and who could blame her? “Jean is not like that at all. She does not bear grudges. I have never heard her say an unkind word about you.”
I had to carry on now. The fat, as Father used to say, was in the fire. “I don’t think Jean was alone in this,” I said. “The Abbott girl may have been in on it and Mary Epps. The three of them stick together.”
“We do not own the only typewriter in the village, Miss Callan.”
“Perhaps not, Mrs. Patterson, but Jean seems the most likely person. I would like to get to the bottom of this. These notes have been terribly upsetting to me.”
The typewriter had stopped. I had not heard Carol coming down the stairs, but she now stood at the entrance to the front room.
“I am sure,” said Mrs. P. “that you would like to get to the bottom of this. But you are very much mistaken in accusing my daughter. What are these notes about, may I ask?”
I felt myself faltering then, but what could I do but go on. “I’m afraid,” I said, “they are rather salacious.” Another mistake. They didn’t know the meaning of the word, and they hated me for using it. I could see the hatred in their faces. There I was, the schoolteacher showing off her knowledge of fancy words. Why had I not simply said rude or offensive? Carol was leaning against the wall with her arms folded across her chest.
“I am sure you are mistaken about all this,” said Mrs. P. “I can’t for the life of me imagine Jean writing notes to you anonymously. Of course, Jean is not here to defend herself and, by the way, I think that is very unfair of you, Miss Callan. The child should be allowed to defend herself. You schoolteachers can be very unfair about these things. You don’t give your pupils a chance to speak for themselves.”
“I wanted to talk to you first,” I said.
“I don’t understand any of this,” said Mrs. P. “May I see one of these notes, Miss Callan?” I handed over one of the least offensive and Carol moved to her mother’s side. Both read of my “phantom lover.” As she read, Mrs. P. muttered, “Ridiculous. I can’t believe Jean had anything to do with this.”
I blundered on. “You were there that night, Mrs. Patterson. You heard me. You could have told Jean.”
“And what if I did?” said Mrs. P., looking up at me sharply. “I must say you acted very strangely that night, Miss Callan. What if I did tell my daughters? That doesn’t prove that one of them wrote this note or any of the others.”
Carol then uttered the terrible words. She had taken the note from her mother and was reading it again. “This note was not typed on my machine, Mother, and I can prove it. If you and Miss Callan will come up to my room, I can prove it.”
Mrs. P. looked understandably satisfied with this turn of events. “Well that certainly sounds like a good idea.”
Climbed the stairs following Mrs. P.’s sizeable bottom, an intimation of catastrophe in the very air I was breathing. difficult to put into words the emerging despair enveloping me. Into the little pink bedroom with its pennants and pictures of movie stars, the teddy bear on the bed. Carol sat down at the desk and rolled a piece of paper into the machine. The sound of her tapping was like nails in my skull. She handed her mother the piece of paper. “Mine is a Royal,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that note to Miss Callan was typed on an Underwood. We have Underwoods at the college. You can see the difference in the lettering.”
Mrs. P. holding both pieces of paper, unmistakable triumph in her face.
How hateful we look in such circumstances! I am sure that I have arranged my features in just that way after discovering a pupil cheating or lying.
“Well,” said Mrs. P, “this certainly proves that Jean had no part in the writing of these notes. You can see for yourself, Miss Callan,” she added, thrusting the pages under my nose. And indeed I could see that each had been typed on a different machine.
“Yes,” I said. “I can see that. I am sorry, Mrs. Patterson.”
“I would think you should be, Miss Callan. It’s a terrible thing to accuse a child of something like this without proof. I certainly intend to talk to Mr. McKay about this.”
“As you wish, Mrs. Patterson,” I said, or I think I did. By then I had perhaps fled from Carol Patterson’s pink bedroom, hastening down the stairs and out the door into the night. An ignominious retreat. That was hours ago. Will I sleep at all tonight?
Friday, December 11
As I expected, Milton called me into his office at recess this morning. Mrs. P. had telephoned and Milton looked flustered, face reddened with embarrassment. He was listening to the news on his small radio and he didn’t bother to turn it off; a man with an English accent was going on about the King who was to address the Empire at five o’clock today. Milton was half-listening to this larger drama, wishing probably I were somewhere else. Maybe Timbuktu. Yet he treated me as gently as you would a madwoman who might suddenly decide to hurl a book across the room. Oh, I am doubtless exaggerating, but he did seem to regard me with a wary eye.
“It’s a terrible thing to receive anonymous letters,” he said. “I once had some poison pen letters sent to me. It was my first school in Pine Falls. I found out they came from a girl I gave a bad grade to. It’s always girls who do these things, isn’t it? You would never get a boy writing anonymous letters. It’s just not something boys do.”
Milton frowned, irritated at that moment perhaps by the very presence of females in the world: spiteful schoolgirls, nagging mothers, capricious teachers, wealthy socialites who turn the heads of kings. He mumbled something about exercising more caution in the future and left it at that. Returned to his radio news. Milton’s primary strategy in dealing with problems is to do nothing, hoping that in time they will go away or be forgotten. It used to annoy Father who said that Milton would never make a satisfactory principal for that very reason. Yet, I was grateful. Perhaps all this will pass over.
Listened to the King announcing his abdication but turned him off after a few minutes. Couldn’t stand the sound of his tinny little English voice going on about “the woman I love.”
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br /> San Remo Apts.
1100 Central Park West
N.Y.C.
13/12/36
Dear Clara,
I’m sorry not to have answered your letter sooner, but I’ve been fighting a cold and feeling generally lousy. I seem to be on the mend now, getting back to my old self. That’s not a particularly appealing sight, but at least it’s me.
It’s too bad you’re plagued with those letters, sent no doubt by some rotten little girls. Or maybe they are not so little? My goodness, the things that go on in idyllic villages like yours! I am sure you’ll forgive me if one of these days, our Alice starts receiving poison pen letters. So you started laughing in the middle of this talk you gave to the Women’s Club or whatever you call it? Hell, that isn’t a sign of craziness, it’s a display of sanity. In the middle of it all, you realized the entire absurdity of the situation. Sometimes all we can do is laugh, right? They should have been on their feet, applauding you. In any case, I wouldn’t worry about these notes. Why not just throw them in the garbage? Don’t even read them. Whoever is responsible will get tired of the game in time. They always do. Speaking of writing, I just finished the Christmas week episodes of “Chestnut Street.” (Your sister has decided to visit an old woman who is alone and friendless at Christmas and so she is out of the script, visiting you, I understand). And so Uncle Jim, played by that merry old drunk Graydon Lott (I believe you met him last summer at my place) will give his annual peroration around the stuffed turkey to Effie and Aunt Mary. How we should all be grateful for the good Lord and everything he gives us in this little corner of America where folks know the meaning of love and trust and neighbourliness. “And seldom is heard a discouraging word/And the skies are not cloudy all day.”
Clara Callan Page 22