Clara Callan

by Richard B. Wright

  Friday, April 15

  Mrs. Bryden just told me that they have found Helen Jackson. Apparently she was wandering the streets of Buffalo, New York. She has been taken to the asylum in Whitby for observation. Letter from Nora.

  135 East 33rd Street

  New York

  April 7, 1938

  Dear Clara,

  Sorry not to have answered your letter sooner. You’ll never guess what I’ll be doing next weekend. I’m going to take an airplane ride!!! It’s a birthday present from Les.

  I was too sick back in March to care about presents, and so Les held off until this week when he surprised me with dinner at the Rainbow Room. The real McCoy with steak and champagne, and at the end of it all, he put an envelope on the table. Inside were two tickets to Chicago. He has some business there a week from next Saturday and wants me to go along with him. It sounds so exciting and I’m really looking forward to it. I think when I’m there I’ll give Jack and Doris Halpern a call. Do you remember the Halperns and how good they were to me? It was Jack, of course, who helped me get my start in radio here in New York. It should be fun. Les has reservations at the Palmer House, which I am told is very swanky indeed.

  This Sunday I am going to watch the Easter Parade with a couple of gals from the show. I’ve got my new Easter bonnet, how about you? Before that we’re going to the Easter service at St. Thomas’s right on Fifth Avenue. We’ve done this for the last couple of years, so it’s becoming a kind of tradition, I guess. Then we watch the parade and have breakfast together with champagne and everything. If you had come down, you could have joined us. I love going to church on Easter Sunday. I think I enjoy it even more than Christmas. Do you remember how Father would always have new shoes and dresses for us when we were eight or nine years old? If Easter was early and there was still snow on the ground, we had to wear galoshes, and we’d take them off on the church porch so we could show everybody our new shoes at Sunday school. But if the sidewalks were dry, he’d let us wear our new shoes outside and for a while your feet always felt so light. It was as though you were walking on air. Do you ever think about things like that, Clara? Gee, I do. Before I go to sleep at night I think about times like that. About growing up in Whitfield with you and Father. And I’m only thirty-three! What will I be reminiscing about in twenty years? I’ll sound like some old woman nattering on about “the good old days.”

  Well, I better go. I have to wash my hair and do my nails. Tourists come through the studio now and stare at us while we’re doing the show. You look up from your script and there is a whole wall of strangers gawking at you from behind the glass. So we have to be as spiffy as we can make ourselves. Tomorrow is Friday and that’s always a big day for visitors to the studio. So I am going to dazzle them with this new red dress I bought at Bonwit’s the other day. It’s a pretty nifty little number and I don’t look half bad in it, if I do say so. I’ll let you know how my airplane ride turns out. Oh, way up in the sky like that. I hope I don’t get sick. Take care, sister.

  Love, Nora

  Monday, April 18

  A letter from his daughter. In a way I expected something like this; I don’t know why, I just did. Yet how could she know about us? He told me she was no longer living at home. Does she follow him on Saturdays? Does she follow him every day? I am at an utter loss, but I feel defiled by it all, and perhaps I deserve to be.

  Toronto, Ontario

  April 14

  Dear Miss Callan,

  I am disappointed to learn that you are seeing my father again. I thought you had come to your senses last fall, but apparently not. I certainly expected better from you. After all, Miss Callan, you are not some little shopgirl working at Eaton’s. You are a schoolteacher and you should know better. I wonder if you realize that you are sharing him with another woman. She lives here in the city and he sees her through the week. He takes her to a cheap hotel room for sex. You probably don’t believe me, do you? Well, I can prove it’s true and I will. I am going to write this woman and tell her about you and my father. I expect you will hear from her one of these days. I don’t know why women like you can’t behave decently and leave married men like my father alone.

  Yours sincerely,

  Theresa Quinlan

  Friday, April 22

  Marion came by this evening and perhaps it was good that she did, for all week I have been stewing over Theresa Quinlan’s letter and my meeting with her father tomorrow. I am afraid he is going to end this. It was in his voice when I called him last week. He might as well have said, “Oh, it’s you, is it? What can I do for you?”

  I should have written him a letter. I always feel more comfortable with words in a letter. Tomorrow I will be tongue-tied. He will tell me that it’s over and I will go to pieces quietly in the station cafeteria with its streaked tables and dirty cups. A waitress will stop wiping a counter and stare pityingly at me. Marion brought me out of all this for a while with village news, her head shaking in wonder at the follies and misfortunes of her fellow creatures. Yesterday she was down to the asylum in Whitby with her mother and Ida Atkins to visit Helen Jackson.

  “What a place that is, Clara!” said my wide-eyed Marion. “The language some of those women use! It’s terrible.” She then told me about a girl who follows Helen around and says “shocking, dirty things to her.” A revelation for Marion and her mother and Ida Atkins, I suppose.

  I thought of Helen Jackson, a gentle soul in that world and said “the poor woman” and I meant it. She cannot be mad, but merely distracted, overwhelmed by everything, unable any longer to deal with daily life. Anyone can reach such a point. Perhaps Mother felt the same way and perhaps one afternoon I will too. I think I came very near it when I returned from Italy.

  Told Marion I would drive down one Sunday and see Helen Jackson.

  “I think she would like that, Clara,” Marion said. “She asked about you. She really likes you. She said you were the most honest person in the village, though I don’t really know what she meant by that. It seems to me we’re pretty honest decent people around here.”

  Marion was leaning forward with her elbows on the kitchen table, cooling her tea as she has always done by blowing short bursts of breath across her cup. It’s a homely and endearing habit that I have watched since we were children in her mother’s kitchen, drinking cocoa. Marion never asks me personal questions. It’s odd in a way. I am sure she has heard all the stories, all the gossip about the man in Toronto, my precarious nerves and peculiarities. Yet she has never once come close to serious inquiry. The truth is that neither of us is comfortable with the kind of conversational intimacy that I am sure some women enjoy: the secrets of the bedroom, the sorrows and joys of love. Is it politeness, diffidence, fear of exposing our innermost longings? Neither of us has the map for such a journey into the heart. Marion wants everything between us to remain as it once was when I was her only friend. And yet, we weren’t friends in sharing feelings. We never came close to doing so; there was always an emotional distance between us.

  No one else would play with Marion because of her foot. I see her always on the edge of the circle, watching the other girls, waiting for them to tire of their games. Trying to catch up to me as I walked home. Following me about the house and getting in the way. I envied the mantle of shining clean hair which clung to her shapely head like a dark helmet. Her lovely eyes. Even sometimes her boot. I imagined what it would be like not to have to do things because you were crippled. I would scold her for being a nuisance and then promise to play with her another day. But we never shared secrets. Something within us held them back. So I could never reveal what’s important to me. Despite the romance stories and the radio plays she loves, Marion would only be embarrassed by accounts of genuine happiness or heartbreak: I could never speak to her of summer nights when Frank and I lay waiting for the breeze from the screened windows to cool our bodies. I could never talk to her of last winter’s loneliness. It would make us both uncomfortable. Marion’s only nod to
feeling is the frown that crosses her face as she leans into the cloth-covered mouth of the radio and listens to one of her heroines unburden herself.

  Saturday, April 23

  On the train this morning I remembered that it was Shakespeare’s birthday. So thank you for the poetry, Will. I may need it in the months ahead, every syllable. He never showed up. He just wasn’t there when I walked down the passageway towards all those people who were standing behind the rope awaiting friends and lovers. On the loudspeaker they were announcing the arrival of a train from Montreal and so the waiting area was crowded. I looked among all those faces for him. How awkward not to have the one you expected there to greet you with a hug, a kiss, a word, a handshake! In a matter of minutes you are reduced to puzzled anger, forced against the wall to watch the others moving away. I had bought a new hat in Linden Ladies’ Wear, which the saleslady had said was “very becoming.” I could see its jaunty absurdity in my reflection in the glass-panelled poster for train travel through the Rockies. “Becoming.” It looked ridiculous and I felt like shouting, “Liar, liar, ten feet higher!”

  Then everyone was gone and I followed too. One can’t stand by a railway poster all day staring at an ugly hat. Through the main concourse and out onto Front Street, windy and cool on this spring morning. Walking briskly along as though at the end of my stride lay purpose and destination. In every store window I saw myself in that hat. How I longed to hurl it into the gutter and see it crushed beneath car wheels! Ten years ago I might have gone into one of the churches to pray for guidance. Today, I went to the movies and watched Clark Gable in Saratoga. I went to Loew’s. Was I hoping I might see him with another woman? I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought sitting there looking up at the actor’s huge smiling face. All that teeth and hair and everlasting glamour. All I know now is this: it is over and I think I am in trouble.

  Tuesday, April 26

  Letters today from Nora and a Florence Keefe. One of his women. What am I supposed to make of all this?

  65 Edmund Avenue

  Toronto, Ontario

  Friday, April 22

  Dear Miss Callan,

  I hope you will pardon a stranger for intruding into your personal life, but your name was given to me by a young woman named Theresa Quinlan. She happens to be the daughter of a man I am seeing. I don’t quite know how to approach this without sounding distasteful. There seems no other way except to be perfectly honest with you. In the circumstances, I am sure that you will appreciate candour. I have been told that you are a schoolteacher, and so I feel I am writing to someone who can understand and appreciate the situation.

  Let me begin by saying that for the past several months I have been seeing a married man named Frank Quinlan. I am not particularly proud of my behaviour, but I believe I am old enough to appreciate that these things happen. I emigrated to Canada from England ten years ago and I’m afraid that, for the most part, it has been a lonely ten years. By profession, I am a librarian, and in the course of my duties I do not meet many “eligible” men. I am now thirty-eight years old and had more or less resigned myself to living alone. Then last September I met Frank Quinlan and my life has changed.

  You are probably now asking yourself, What has all this to do with me? Well, Miss Callan, last week I received a telephone call at the library from a woman who identified herself as Frank’s daughter. She told me that I was making a serious mistake by seeing her father. At first, of course, I didn’t believe her, but she seemed to know a great deal about Frank and me. It was an unnerving experience listening to her, I can assure you. She then went on to say that I was only one of several women her father had been seeing. I was doubtful about that, but then she told me that she could prove it by giving me the name and address of someone who was “sharing” her father with me. At first it sounded so spitefully outlandish that I could not bring myself to believe her. Then she gave me your name and address, and I was forced to ask myself how she could know about you if there wasn’t at least some shred of truth to her story. Of course, I have asked Frank about all this and he completely denies it. He told me that Theresa lives in a fanciful world; that in fact she is writing a novel and often has difficulty separating fact from fiction. I understand that she has had some problems with her nerves and has had some treatment for this. Frank made it sound as if his daughter had made all this up. I didn’t mention to him, by the way, that Theresa had given me your name because he was angry and I didn’t want to upset him further.

  So now, Miss Callan, I am afraid I must ask you if you are presently seeing Frank. I have to assume that at some point you must have been involved with him. How else would Theresa know about you? But is it all over? At the moment I am at sixes and sevens. Can I prevail upon you to write and tell me the truth? I do understand how upsetting this kind of letter must be to you and I do apologize, but I just have to know.

  Yours truly,

  Florence Keefe

  135 East 33rd Street

  New York

  April 19, 1938

  Dear Clara,

  Got back last night from my “birthday weekend” in Chicago. What a time we had! At first I was scared in the airplane, but after a while you get used to being up there thousands of feet above the ground. Except for a little aching in your ears when you’re taking off or landing, it’s just like sitting in a bus only you’re travelling at over two hundred miles an hour. Imagine!!! We were in Chicago in less than four hours. Of course, it would have taken all day on the train. We visited with some people in the agency (Les had business with them) and they said they use the airplane all the time now to travel to New York or Los Angeles. It just saves so much time. And the girls on board are so nice. They wear these smart uniforms and serve coffee and sandwiches. Linen napkins. It’s very classy.

  I was treated royally by the people at the agency. Everybody listens to our show and envies our ratings. I didn’t get to see the Halperns, though I phoned and talked to Jack. He told me how proud he is of me. I just wish we’d had time to see one another, but our schedule was tight. On Saturday night friends of Les’s had tickets for the hockey match between Chicago and Toronto for the championship. Of course, being a good Canadian, I was rooting for the Maple Leafs, but Chicago won the cup. Afterwards we went dancing at a supper club and didn’t get back to the hotel until after three. Tired? You bet. But all in all, a wonderful weekend.

  Back to earth now and I have to catch up on my sleep (it’s only nine o’clock but I’m on my way to bed), so I’ll say so long for now. Had a letter today from Evelyn by the way. Very funny about Hollywood. Sounds like her old self again, so I guess she is finally settling in out there. Take care and drop me a line when you get the chance.

  Love, Nora

  Saturday, April 30

  I wrote this today, but I did not mail it. What would be the point? He is no longer interested in me or what I have to say.

  Whitfield, Ontario

  April 30, 1938

  Dear Frank,

  Your neurasthenic daughter recently wrote to scold me for seeing you again. How does she know about all your “arrangements”? I wonder. But perhaps I don’t really want to know the answer to that question. It may be just too sordid for words. She is right, however, about one thing. I made a terrible mistake in seeing you again, and now I only hope that I do not regret it for the rest of my life. Your daughter also mentioned another woman (how do you find all the time and energy for this, Frank?), and she apparently phoned this Miss Keefe who, in turn, wrote me a heart-rending account of her involvement with you. It seems that this dates back to last September; that would have been just about the time you were saying how much you loved me in some dismal hotel room. Is it any wonder your wife drinks and your children despise you? The dapper little Catholic coal merchant with his homburg and pipe and his women.

  Well, I behaved stupidly in becoming involved with you in the first place, and certainly I should never have got in touch with you again a month ago. You must find the f
oolish antics of women like Florence Keefe and me amusing. But what bothers me even more is that I thought I was in love with a man who turns out to be a coward. Yes, you are a coward, Frank. If you didn’t want to see me any more, you should have met me at the train station last Saturday and told me so. Instead, I went down to Toronto and you didn’t bother to show up. That was so cowardly and wrong. I don’t know if your Catholic God will forgive you for all this, but I know I never will.

  Clara

  Sunday, May 1

  Wrote Florence Keefe and told her she was welcome to him.

  Monday, May 2

  Lay awake much of last night regretting the vicious tone of my letter to that woman. I needn’t have mentioned being in that hotel room with him a month ago. And the phrase “women like you and me.” Unnecessary and hurtful when, after all, Florence Keefe is hardly to blame for any of this. However, what’s done is done.

  Tuesday, May 3 (12:10 p.m.)

  At ten-thirty this morning I was standing on the steps by the girls’ entrance waiting to call the children in from recess. As I rang the handbell and watched them scatter from their skipping games and softball, it came to me that I must be pregnant again. It is too soon to be certain, but I feel I am, and on this spring morning at that hour, I felt myself on the verge of change. Yes, there in the ordinary moments of today (“Thank you, Wilfrid. Put the ball and bat in the cloakroom please!”), I thought of transformation within the darkness of our bodies, when the cancer spreads or a human life begins. Thought of a poem to be called Eventful Change Occurs Unseen. But will I ever write it?