Clara Callan (31 page)

I’m writing this during my lunch hour. My brothers were after me to go out with them to the hotel for lunch (we generally go to the King Edward two or three times a week), but I would much rather sit here at my desk and think about you and of how happy I am that we have met. I hope, by the way, that you can read my handwriting. I haven’t practised my penmanship for years. Miss Haines does all my letters on the typewriter.

What shall we do on Saturday? Would you enjoy a picnic lunch or would you rather a meal in, say a hotel in one of the towns along the lake? Cobourg or Port Hope? I can’t imagine it would be very grand, but we could try a hotel dining room. I think that would be best, don’t you? We’ll try some old hotel where the roast beef will be overcooked and the gravy salty and they will give us some terrible rice pudding for dessert. But we won’t care about any of that because we’ll be enjoying one another’s company. I have so many questions I want to ask you. Who are you, Clara Callan, and why have I been so fortunate to meet you? I know you will tell me the truth about yourself because you’re not the sort of person who lies (not for very long at any rate), and I find it refreshing to know someone who so values honesty. I can see it in your clear, dark eyes and your grave expression. Now, you may think that’s an odd statement since I am a married man, and if we are to go on
seeing one another, I will have to invent another life for
myself, and that, of course, will involve deceit. It has to, I’m afraid, or others whom I care about (my sons and daughters and, yes, Edith in a way) will be badly hurt. So I can see no way around that. Yet it seems to me that when you are lucky enough to find someone who you think is good and true, then the lies you tell others are forgivable. That may sound strange, but I think it’s true.

Well, my dear, I am certainly looking forward to seeing you on Saturday morning, and I shall be waiting in my car at the Uxbridge train station. According to the schedule, your train arrives there at 10:10 so I shall be there waiting. My car, by the way, is a dark green Pontiac sedan (though I can’t imagine there will be many others there), and I will be behind the wheel reading a newspaper. Isn’t that how it is usually done in the movies? I very much look forward to our day together, my dear, and I hope you do too.

Fondly, Frank

P.S. I never bothered to ask whether you have a telephone, and when I tried information for your region, they had no listing. Don’t you find the lack of a telephone a terrible inconvenience?

A fitful sleep because of a toothache that started after supper and now has wrenched me awake. I have tried cloves and a hot towel to my face, but nothing seems to appease the wretched thing. I will have to see a dentist in Linden soon. This neglect of my teeth; it’s gone on for years and now I am paying for it, as pay we must. It’s a wonder they are as presentable as they are. And so I lie in bed and read F.’s letter for the twentieth time. He called me “my dear” twice. Staring at the clock face and waiting for daybreak or sleep. I will surely look a wreck by morning.

Yesterday morning I took the train and got off at Uxbridge station. I wore a skirt and blouse and tied a sweater around my shoulders though the day was mild. There was no one else from the village on the train and I felt wonderfully alive and whole except for the cursed toothache. “There are always ants at the picnic,” as Father used to say. From the window of the train, I could see Frank sitting in his dark green car and I felt so happy seeing him there. It was as if I hadn’t really expected him to appear, but there he was. When I got into the car, he smiled and squeezed my hand. His car is new and I could smell its newness. He told me he has had it less than a month and enjoyed his drive up from the city. We drove out along the highway past villages and farms. I could smell the earth. I worried about making conversation, but talking comes easily to Frank. At one point he rested his hand on my arm and looked across at me. “I’m glad you decided to come, Clara,” he said. And I
was glad too. We stopped by the side of a road and walked along a stream, listening to the water rush over the stones. That gurgling sound and the smell of lilacs and I felt so wonderful except for the toothache which pestered me like the devil. Frank asked if he could kiss me and I was worried that my mouth would taste awful, but then I thought perhaps it wouldn’t matter and it didn’t, I think.
His
mouth tasted of tobacco. His lips were softer than I imagined and his moustache felt odd against my lips, but I liked it. Holding hands, we walked back to the car like schoolchildren, and I thought of Ella and her young man on the township road.

“Is there anything the matter?” Frank asked. “You seem preoccupied, Clara.”

I didn’t want him to think that I found his company tiresome, and so I told him about my toothache.

“Ah, well then,” he said, brightening. “We must do something about that.” He seemed charged suddenly with energy and I get the impression that Frank is one of those persons who likes to have things to do. He was now all business. “We’ll find a druggist in the next town.”

“It isn’t necessary,” I said.

“Of course, it’s necessary. You don’t have to suffer with a toothache in this day and age. You need looking after, Clara,” he said. “Everyone needs looking after once in a while.”

As we drove along the highway, I thought about that and had to agree. We all do need to be fussed over now and then. In the next town we parked the car and walked along the main street like a married couple. Frank insisted that I take his arm and I did. Then we went into a drugstore and Frank said, “My wife has a toothache. What have you got for that?” It felt so peculiar hearing him say “my wife,” but the druggist didn’t bat an eye. He sold us some drops which took away the ache in no time. I felt so relieved to be free of it that I wanted to kiss Frank again there on the street.

In the dining room of the hotel we were the only patrons except for a frail elderly man in a suit who sat at a corner table. The waitress served us a full dinner with soup and roast beef and potatoes and gravy, just as Frank had predicted in his letter. When I reminded him of this, he laughed. “Well, yes,” he said. “I have eaten in these places many times.”

I’m afraid I left a good deal of it on my plate. Frank put it down to my toothache, but really I was too nervous to eat much. I imagined the old man in the suit eating his dinner in this hotel dining room every day at twelve o’clock. I saw him as a widower, a wealthy merchant or perhaps the owner of a local mill. I imagined him having no family and living in a large brick house with a turret somewhere on a leafy street and coming to this hotel every day at a quarter to twelve for his roast beef. And one day he would surprise everyone by leaving his fortune to the pretty young waitress. And again it felt strange when the waitress asked Frank, “Would your wife like some pie?”

When we came out of the hotel it had clouded over, and Frank said, “Let’s go to the movies,” and we both laughed because it seems that this is what we end up doing on Saturday afternoons wherever we are. So we lined up on the main street with all the children and moved along into the little theatre which was crowded and noisy
with all those youngsters shouting and climbing over the seats. Amid this clamour Frank and I held hands. When the cartoon lighted the screen, the children settled down, and we all sat and watched Mickey Mouse and then the fat and skinny comedians and then a picture with cowboys and Indians fighting one another. From time to time Frank squeezed my hand and once he leaned across and kissed my cheek.

When we came out into the warm grey afternoon, I was afraid I would miss the train, but I didn’t. Frank had studied the schedule and knew exactly when it would arrive. We were there in plenty of time and by then it had started to rain. In the car he kissed me many times and I felt a little flushed and breathless and my tooth (damnable tooth) was beginning to throb again. I watched the rain beating on the platform while Frank embraced me and called me his darling. “Oh, my darling Clara,” he said. “I am so glad I’ve met you.”

I don’t know what to make of it all. Should I try to make anything of it? Frank is a married man with a family. Yet I feel so wonderfully happy and reckless with my life at the moment. Yes, it is reckless of me. I know that, and all the way home as I looked out the train window at the rain slanting across the freshly seeded fields, I thought about my recklessness. I won’t see Frank next weekend because the family opens up the cottage on Victoria Day weekend. It’s up in Muskoka and it’s a family tradition and so he can’t possibly get out of it. What shall I do next Saturday?

My dear Clara,

How wonderful it was being with you last Saturday! And how I miss you now as I sit in my office. Everyone has left and now and then I get up and stand by the window. How I wish I could just get in my car and drive up to see you! It’s such a beautiful evening and I just heard the
bells from the Anglican cathedral down the street. This has all made me feel so lonely for you, Clara. Do you miss me too a little bit?

Wasn’t last Saturday fun? Going to the movies like that with all those children. I wonder what people I know would think of such a day. Not much, I imagine, and yet I so thoroughly enjoyed it. What I especially liked, however, was our walk by that little stream and the smell of lilacs and your hand in mine. And our kisses at the Uxbridge railway station. Let me tell you, my dear, that you have made a lonely man very happy, and I do look forward so much to seeing you again. You are quite a wonderful woman and you don’t even realize it, and I want to shower your face with kisses and hold you close to my heart. I don’t care if that sounds corny, it’s how I feel and you must believe it. I am so glad I found the courage to speak to you that day outside Loew’s. Of course, I know how complicated all this can be, but surely it’s worth it. Don’t you think it will be worth this bit of happiness that has come into our lives?

Well, I must be getting on home soon, and so I had better close. I shall miss you this coming weekend, but as I told you, it just can’t be helped. We’ve been opening up the cottages on Victoria Day weekend since I was a very small child, believe it or not. There are now actually three cottages on the property, my brothers and I and our families each have one (I was left my parents’ — the original). So there will be a lot of people up there. We are a kind of clan and there will be a good deal of talking and drinking as we open up our summer places. By Monday night, we will have had enough of one another and some of us probably won’t be talking to others for a while. It’s a tribal weekend and can’t be avoided. But please remember that I shall be thinking of you while I am up there. Can we meet at Uxbridge station again on the twenty-ninth? We’ll go for another drive and perhaps try another town. Please write me here at the office and mark your letter personal. I wish
you would think about having a telephone installed. Would it not be much simpler to pick up a telephone and talk to each other? But never mind that now. Do please think of me and
write
.

Fondly, Frank

Awakened again by this cursed tooth. Three o’clock! By now a familiar hour. A dead hour. The hour of the dead. About ten years ago the band at the skating rink used to play a pretty little song on Saturday nights. “It’s three o’clock in the morning.” A lover’s song, lamenting the end of an evening together. But three o’clock in the morning is also a time for death. I once read in a magazine that more people die at three o’clock in the morning than at any other time. In hospital wards and cottage bedrooms, old men and women are now clutching rosary beads and praying for deliverance. According to that magazine, it has something to do with the blood pressure sinking in the middle of the night and the body’s defences surrendering. But perhaps it is just the sheer bleakness of the hour which dismays the spirit and discourages the sick. One often awakens and hears across the fence that old Mrs. Somebody “passed away in the night.”

Dear Frank,

I am writing this on my veranda. It is just after two o’clock on a perfectly lovely spring afternoon, and I am wondering what you are doing at this very moment. Are you out on your lake in a canoe (please be careful), or are you surrounded by family and relatives after lunch? Cold chicken and potato salad? By two o’clock the meal is over and the women are cleaning up. You and your brothers are smoking out on a lawn overlooking the lake, sitting in those uncomfortable chairs that have been in the boathouse all winter. The children have dusted them; it was one of their chores this weekend. You and your brothers are making plans for the summer. You are listening as your brothers talk, but not really listening because you are thinking of me. Isn’t it foolish of me to imagine that you might be? Oh, what do I know about your cottage weekends anyway?

I only know that I miss you here and now. This very minute. As I sit on my veranda and listen to the leaves stirring. Watch the sunlight spilling across the grass, hear an automobile clattering by raising dust. What I wouldn’t give to see you drive up right now and take me away to some town where we could walk along the streets arm in arm. Go into the Chinese restaurant for a cup of tea. No one would know us. We would be just another couple passing through their town. We could stroll by the river (my little town has a river), and lean against the railing of the bridge and look down at the water passing beneath us. We could tell one another what we like to do best on rainy afternoons or winter nights.

Oh, Frank, I am not at all certain whether I am happy or miserable by all that’s happened in the past six weeks. It was six weeks ago yesterday when we met. I don’t expect you will remember that. I have the notion that men don’t pay much attention to such things, or do they? I don’t know much about men, as I’m sure you have gathered by now. So am I happy or miserable? Both, I suppose. It’s an impossible arrangement as you well know, and yet I am glad I am in the middle of it. At least I think I’m glad. I will see you next Saturday, won’t I? Please don’t disappoint me by saying that you won’t be there. By writing on company stationery to tell me that upon sober reflection, after a weekend at the cottage, surrounded by family and friends, etc., etc., you have decided that this is all too complicated and a terrible mistake. I am sure it is, but perhaps we have to make terrible mistakes to truly live. There, I have split an infinitive. See what you have made
me do. A schoolteacher splitting an infinitive! Let me say again how much I miss you on this perfect afternoon. This lovely, lovely afternoon. Please be at the train station next Saturday.