Clara Callan (38 page)

You should know that I have written letters like this to three other women over the past few years. If you are wondering how I got your name, I can tell you that I sometimes work in my father’s office when Miss Haines is on holiday or ill. I answered the telephone the day you called and my father was in Montreal. I also opened your letter because I wanted your address.

I hope you will come to your senses and realize that my father is not for you. I could tell you of another woman who had a nervous breakdown after involving herself with my father. Don’t let this happen to you, Miss Callan. You have been warned.

Yours sincerely,
Theresa Quinlan

Frank called this afternoon. He got back from Nova Scotia last night and was in his office “catching up on the paper.” He talked about his trip and how much he missed me while I stood by the telephone rigid with nerves, listening for the slightest hint of falsehood or insincerity. Because of that damn letter, I am wretched with suspicion. I asked if it was safe to write him at the office.

“Of course you can write to me,” he said. “I love your letters. Just mark it ‘personal’ and Miss Haines will pass it along to me unopened.”

I said I would write him today because something important has come up, and it was better discussed in a letter.

“Well, of course, darling, if you would prefer to write. By all means, please do.”

I am sure Cora Macfarlane must love to hear me called darling by a strange man. After he called, I went for a drive in the country to calm myself, but it was a mistake. I couldn’t concentrate, and at one point I nearly went off the road. Before I knew it, the car was slewing about
in the gravel and I was fortunate not to overturn. Had to stop by the side of the road to collect myself. All I could think of was that young woman reading my letter. That was unconscionable; I don’t care what kind of difficulties she has had with her father.

Spent all evening on various drafts of this letter. The one I sent was much like this though I took out some of the rhetorical (hysterical?) questions.

Dear Frank,

All this is difficult and it will soon be evident why I could not speak about it on the telephone this afternoon. While you were away, I received a letter from your daughter, Theresa. It was a cruel and disturbing letter, and I have to wonder how much of it is true. Apparently your daughter was at the office while you were away. She answered the telephone one day when I called; I thought she was a new secretary. Unfortunately, that was the week when I chose to write you, and it seems your daughter opened my letter. I find that utterly unconscionable, Frank. That letter was meant for you. It was about us. To imagine your daughter’s eyes upon my words to you is shameful to me. I can never forgive her for that. It is all so maddening.

In her letter she said that you have had other women in your life; that I am merely one among many; that you pick us up in movie theatres and take us to hotel rooms. How could she know all that, Frank, unless it is true? I don’t know what to think about any of this. I would like to see you and talk to you about all this, but I am frightened of what I will hear. Suppose it is all true and I am just another of your hotel-room women?

Frank, I would like nothing better than to hear you tell me that none of this has happened, and that whatever feelings we have between us are honest and good. I know that in a sense we are both living a lie, but
I can’t stand lies, Frank. I like to think I can tolerate many weaknesses in another, but not deceit. Your daughter accuses you of chronic unfaithfulness. To her, you are nothing more than a philanderer. Is this true? Am I just another “fling” for you? She went so far as to warn me against you. It was a terrible, hurtful letter, Frank. I don’t know what to think. Can you write to me please!

Clara

Dearest Clara,

What can I say after reading your letter except to suggest that you are being unfair. After all, you have heard only one side of things. Your letter is filled with accusations and comments that are hurtful to me too, Clara. And everything is based on what my oldest daughter has told you. What about the times we spent together? Those wonderful times that we have both enjoyed. Do they not count for something?

I am sorry that Theresa opened my mail. I did not think she would go that far. I gave her a job for a week while Miss Haines was on holiday. Theresa was at loose ends, and I thought the office routine would settle her down. I never for a moment thought she would interfere with my personal mail. You are right, of course. It was unforgivable of her to read your letter. Why did you write me, by the way? I wasn’t expecting a letter from you now that you have a telephone.

Well, what’s done is done, though it is a shame that Theresa has come between us like this. I should tell you a little about my oldest daughter. She has always been a problem for her mother and me. For years now, we have had medical treatment for her, but she can be difficult. She gets tired of a particular doctor, or he says something that upsets her, and she doesn’t go back. We find out about it weeks later. She is twenty-one, but she still sometimes behaves like a twelve-year-old.
Theresa is a very high-strung young woman, and her mother and I have tried to make her a happier person, but without much success, I’m afraid. Theresa is very intelligent, but she can’t seem to find her way in anything. She has been to university, but she left without a degree. Then she thought she wanted to be an artist so she took up painting. Then it was novel writing. She just never finishes anything.

She also tends to exaggerate things. She has done this since she was a child, always inventing stories. I suppose she wants to make life more interesting and exciting. Given all this, I think you can see that Theresa is not a very reliable witness to my personal conduct. There is also a great deal of spite in Theresa, I’m afraid, and it’s often directed at me. I don’t know why.

She is correct, however, when she says I have known other women. I don’t deny that, though I can’t recall the subject ever coming up between us. I am sure you understand that for many years now, my wife and I have not had a normal life together. In the past, it is true I have sought out other women. I have my needs, Clara. But I chose to speak to you that day outside Loew’s theatre because I thought I saw another person who was as lonely as I was on that Saturday afternoon last April. I hope you believe that.

I can understand how hurt you must have been by my daughter’s letter, but I hope now that you can see that it came from a young woman who sometimes has trouble with the truth. Now that you have heard my side of things, please let me know how you feel about all this. I miss you.

Fondly, Frank

After receiving Frank’s letter yesterday, I phoned him at noon. We agreed to meet this Saturday at Uxbridge station, but I am already sorry I agreed to this. Something has happened; the poison from his
daughter’s pen has infected us. I sensed it in his voice. Yet I so want to see him.

I do not know what to make of yesterday. We met at the station and I followed Frank in my car to the little motor court by the lake, but they had closed for the season and so we drove into Port Hope and registered as man and wife at the Queen’s Hotel. Much cleaner than that place in Toronto. In the room we spoke not a dozen words to one another, and I do not know where the afternoon and evening went. We lay in that room as though drugged. We slept a little. We must have done. Then we ate supper in the dining room and returned to the third floor. I remember thinking, What do I care if he has done these things with other women? It is enough to see him and touch him and feel his heartbeat next to mine. It was as if nothing had come between us. Not once did we mention his daughter or her letter. It seems so odd to me now that we could put all that aside and carry on as if nothing had happened. It’s all my fault really. The truth is I was too frightened to mention it. I did not want anything to interfere
with our happiness in that hotel room. He wants me to come to that awful place in Toronto next Saturday and I suppose I will.

Milton called me into his office after classes today. He looked flushed and uncomfortable, drawing little figures on the desk blotter with his pen.

“Now, Clara, I hope you don’t think I’m being unreasonable. I’m trying to be fair about all this, but there’s talk. You know how people talk.”

He was looking down at the desk blotter all this time. Couldn’t or wouldn’t meet my eyes. Of course, we were both embarrassed;
neither of us can talk about such things without flinching. He has had phone calls from parents about “my excursions down to the city on weekends.”

“They’re upset, Clara. They don’t think it’s right. I understand he’s a married man. Now, don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t bother me. But some of the parents are upset about it.”

He kept taking the top off his fountain pen and then screwing it on again. Over and over. It got on my nerves watching him. I could see that he wanted to be rid of me. He probably felt that he had discharged his duty. I could hear them saying, “You should talk to her, Mr. McKay.” Now he had done that and could he please go home to his supper? Milton is a gentle, nice man who doesn’t want any trouble and now I am complicating his life. He is a little baffled by it all. Yet I sensed he was both curious and sympathetic. Curious because now he must reckon with another side of me; I am not exactly the kind of woman he thought I was; I am perhaps more complex than he imagined. Sympathetic because he likes me and he knows that I like him and we have worked well together these past two years. I am sorry that I am making life difficult for Milton. If only others would mind their own business, but that is a faint and pious hope in Whitfield.

Have just returned from Toronto after spending the afternoon with Frank in that hotel. For the first time, I felt distanced from him and I feigned passion. Feigned! Yes, that’s the word. I felt guilty because he becomes upset if he thinks I am not enjoying him. But sometimes I just want him to hold me. I cannot get used to these antics of his. “Let’s try this, let’s try that.”

Today, he again mentioned the idea of another person in the room with us. He knows a woman who does this sort of thing. A telephone call and she would be there. I thought of the woman in the red dress with the thick legs. I told him he was being ridiculous. What kind of
woman did he think I was? I was sharp with him, and while I went on about it, he lay back on the bed smoking. When we parted, we said little to one another and I have seldom felt so empty.

Nearly a week now and not a word. Both of us are either too stubborn or too proud to talk. The coal people came from Linden and have just left. Six tons now in the cellar, so at least I’ll be warm this winter. As it all rumbled from the truck through the cellar window, I thought of Frank and his family business. The least he could have done was send me a truckload of winter coal. Doesn’t the disobedient child get a lump of coal in her stocking, damn it? Just before six I tried his office, but Miss Haines said he had left for the day.

This afternoon I drove out to the cemetery and tidied up Mother’s and Father’s grave. A wistful lovely afternoon, surely one of the last days of fall. Later I made candy for the children who will be visiting this evening. Before supper I sat down at the piano and tried my hand at a little étude by Arensky. Fumbled it badly and felt gloomy, almost sick with longing and loneliness.

Dear Frank,

I tried to reach you by telephone last Friday, but apparently you had left for the day, so I thought I would drop you a note. Frank, I do not think that I am a cold person. At least, I certainly don’t mean to be, but you must be patient with me. I have come to all this very late. There is nothing that I want more than to be with you. I do miss you so, but I
am confused and unhappy by what’s happened between us. Please don’t shut the door on me like this. The way you left me two weeks ago today — not even a kiss. That was so unlike you. Have you grown tired of me? I have to know, Frank. I have little experience in these matters, so you must tell me. I am writing because I am afraid of making a fool of myself on the telephone. Please write.

Love, Clara

I am glad I didn’t mail the letter. Its air of helplessness, the cringing tone. What would he think of me? How we abase ourselves before another! And for what? A look? A touch? A kind word? A kiss? Abject surrender. I feel so stupid and heartsick about all this. In the evenings I can do nothing but listen to the radio. I cannot read a novel because if it is any good at all, it will only remind me of how truth and pain live side by side. I cannot listen to music, for I hear only loss. Art demands that we pay heed, but I want only diversion. I’m like one of Ulysses’s sailors, “Only let me taste the fruit and forget.”

So I listen to the melodramas, losing myself in “Big Town,” “The Shadow,” “Gangbusters.”

“Come out with your hands up, Rocky!”

“You’ll never take me alive, copper.”

Gunshots ringing through my poor old house. And two hours of my life gone!

Dear Nora,

I wanted to talk to you yesterday when you called, but I don’t want the whole village to know, and thanks to Cora Macfarlane and the Caldwell girls, my business on the telephone quickly becomes the stuff of
breakfast conversation around Whitfield. So here is what I have to say. I have made something of a fool of myself over a man, and since that character of yours, Alice Dale, is always dispensing advice, maybe I could benefit from some of it. All right, that was sarcastic and uncalled for and I’m sorry. I would truly like to hear what you think.