Clara Callan (25 page)

Trite:
hackneyed from much use. Stale.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

The notes are not illiterate and I’m inclined to believe that it’s the work of a former pupil or perhaps two or three, a cabal of spiteful girls, perhaps in the Senior Fourth. Their mothers probably mentioned my performance last Tuesday. How many, I wonder, would have typewriting machines? It is so tiresome and dispiriting to look at such words on a brilliant sunlit morning in autumn.

Another today. Thumbtacked to the back door.

Miss Callan
We note that the mystery man from Rome, Italy, has been visiting you again. Your love life is certainly a busy one, isn’t it? We peeked in on you two the other night and my, my, what we saw! It might be proper, Miss Callan, to draw the curtains. We have to report that it was quite the sight to see you and your Latin lover with his long dark hair seated together on the piano bench. And both of you bare naked! What was he whispering in your ear while he stroked your flanks? Aren’t you the lucky one to have such a handsome lover?

Interested bystander

I am more than ever convinced that two or three girls are behind the notes. Thirteen- or fourteen-year-olds, filled with a vague prurience, giggling as they compose their sentences. I probably taught them two or three years ago and they still remember slights and scoldings, the failing grade on an essay. The Patterson girl comes to mind. Jean Patterson. She never liked me. I sensed her hostility the first day she
stepped into the classroom. She is always around Louise Abbott and Mary Epps. Laughing and whispering in the hall. Milton has told me what a nuisance they are in class. When I think of it, Jean Patterson’s sister attends the business college in Linden. She could very well have a typewriting machine at home.

Flanks
: An interesting choice of word. Hard to imagine Jean Patterson’s pedestrian mind coming up with it. Perhaps one of the others? Mary Epps lives on a farm in the township. “Flanks” might be a term she would contribute.

A visit after supper from Helen Jackson, who appeared suddenly at the front door looking ill at ease. I was not at my best this evening. The coal man had delivered today and since four o’clock I had been cleaning coal dust off the furniture and windowsills. And there was the minister’s wife, perched on the edge of the sofa in the parlour. She seemed terrified of me and I can’t say that I blame her. I must have been staring fiercely when she told me that she had written Nora about “your little spell two weeks ago. We’re concerned about you, Henry and I.”

“You wrote my sister? Why would you do that?”

“Yes, I did, Clara. I took the liberty. I got her address from Mr. Manes at the post office.”

Bert Manes giving out addresses that he reads off the public mail? Surely that is against the law, but what can one do?

“I don’t want you to think that I’m a busybody, Clara. I’m not that way at all. But I just thought your sister ought to know.”

I had still not asked her to take off her coat. It was rude, but I couldn’t help it. I was furious enough sitting there in my soiled housedress and slippers. The coal dust had been everywhere. I certainly wasn’t expecting company.

“I’ve walked past your house so many times,” said Helen Jackson.
“Trying to find the courage to knock on your door. Henry, of course, has been after me to see you, but I wanted to anyway. You seemed so confused and unhappy that evening.”

“Confusion and unhappiness are often what life is all about,” I said. “Don’t you think that is true?” Now, when I think of it, that was perhaps an odd remark to make in a casual conversation. I am far too intense about such matters. Too much alone. Too much brooding. I can see how I must look to others. Still it’s true enough, isn’t it? Aren’t we often unhappy and confused? What is so wrong with saying so?

“Perhaps,” said Helen Jackson. “We could take the train down to Toronto. I like to look at paintings. We could go to the art gallery together some Saturday.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m not much for that kind of thing. I like books and music.”

She looked so dissatisfied sitting there on the edge of the sofa. A meek and pretty little woman. Married to the fiery minister and childless like me. All that tea pouring with the Ida Atkinses of this world. I didn’t offer her any tea. I couldn’t bring myself to go through with all that: boiling the water, putting out the best cups and saucers, the sugar bowl and cream jug. Couldn’t and wouldn’t. In the hallway as she left, she took my hand. Such small hands she has!

“I will pray for you, Clara. God always listens to those who ask for help.”

“Well, I wish I could believe that,” I said. “It would make things a great deal easier. But I don’t believe it to be true and that is the great pity. As far as I am concerned, there is nobody listening. I’m afraid we are on our own, Mrs. Jackson.”

“Surely that isn’t true, Clara. If I believed that, my life would not be worth living.”

She looked up at me and grasped my hand tightly. Such strength in that small hand. I felt awkward standing beside her under the hallway light. The beginning of grey in Helen Jackson’s hair, though she can’t be much older than I am.