Clara Callan (43 page)

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 foolish 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

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

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.

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?

Listening to the radio. Hitler is visiting Mussolini in Rome. Two years ago, I was dreaming of my visit to that great city. Now I can picture all those men in their uniforms, the crowds lining the stone streets to watch them pass, the German and Italian flags and banners hanging from windows. It’s all so dispiriting. I should write Nora about my pregnancy, but I can’t yet bring myself to tell her. I know she will have a fit when she hears about this. Sat down instead and wrote Evelyn Dowling.

Dear Evelyn,

After reading this letter, you may well wonder what kind of woman I am. On the other hand, perhaps I am writing to you precisely because you are not the type to pass judgement on the sinful and careless of this world. I haven’t written Nora, but I’m sure that when she hears she’ll have a proper fit, especially after what happened three years ago.

Yes, I am pregnant again, or at least I am fairly certain that I am. It’s a complicated story and has nothing to do with what happened three years ago. That also is a complicated story and perhaps one day I will work up enough nerve to tell you about that too. At the moment, however, I am in “the family way” and, of course, I am not sure what
to do about it. There are only so many things one can do about it, and at the moment none of them seems particularly satisfactory.

Do you have any suggestions? I was thinking of how you came to my rescue three years ago in New York. I am not even sure that I want to go through that again, but is it still a possibility? Please forgive me for bothering you about this; I do feel rather foolish writing, but I’m not yet ready to tell Nora. Perhaps it is mortal shame, I don’t know. I have always been the one who does the scolding and the finger pointing in our family and here I am again in this state. Well, I am trying not to give in to self-pity, for it’s all my fault for being so careless and stupid. I hope at least that things are going well with you out there in those mythical regions.

Sincerely,
Clara

Thirty-six days now and no sign of “the maid’s little helper.” And my breasts are beginning to tingle! I’m pregnant all right. As sure as leaves are green and life uncertain! Now what?

Letter from Florence Keefe, poor deluded soul. Her sentiments on love in general and Frank Quinlan in particular cry out for spirited correction, but let it rest, let it rest.

Dear Miss Callan,

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. Your bitterness is quite evident and perhaps understandable. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do know that Frank has had a very difficult time of it, and what he needs, in my view, is a forgiving heart. He needs someone who is prepared to accept him as he is. Frank lives in a houseful of people who have turned against him, thanks to that hateful, alcoholic
wife of his. Is it any wonder the poor man seeks affection elsewhere? I don’t care about the other women in his life. I think that if you love a man, you should be prepared to accept everything about him, including his flaws. That is what love is all about, Miss Callan.

Yours truly,
F. Keefe

Dear Clara,

Yours of the third to hand (as my father used to quaintly put it), and all I can say is that I’m still a little stupefied. You lead some kind of life in that Canadian village. As a matter of fact, you make the characters on “Chestnut Street” seem a little dull in their various entanglements. Please don’t get me wrong. All levity aside, I am very concerned and grateful that you got in touch. So now the question is, What’s to be done? The first thing you should do, and pronto (a word you hear a lot our here these days), is tell Nora. What’s a sister for if not to be there when you need her? So pick up the phone and call her, Clara. When she hears about this, she will run around her apartment for half an hour and then she will sit down and try to figure out how to help you. That’s what happened three years ago when I went over to see her after she called about “your condition,” as she coyly put it. Well, that was then, and depending on how you look at these things,
we were fortunate to secure the services of Doc Holliday. As I told you then, he came highly recommended to me by people who encounter this problem from time to time. But I must tell you not to get your hopes up for the Doc, because the last I heard he was in jail.

I suppose I could make some phone calls to friends and see if anyone else is available, but as you can imagine, you take a terrible risk with some of these people. You have to be absolutely sure that they know what they are doing. I could try if you like, but I feel a little
uneasy because I am so far away from things now. And anyway, are you sure that you want to go that route? Is keeping the child a possibility at all? Would the good citizens of Whitfield, Ontario, tolerate a schoolteacher who has a child out of wedlock?

You might also consider going away. Could you arrange a leave of absence and go to Toronto and have the child? Then give it up for adoption? I understand that the Salvation Army is very good about this kind of thing. They look after you in the final weeks and then find a good home for the baby. This happened to a girl I knew a few years ago. She put herself in their hands and things worked out very well. I really don’t know what else to suggest, Clara. If it’s a question of money, I’d be only too glad to help. But tell Nora. She’ll want to know, and you owe it to yourself to tell her. Please stay in touch. I’ll be thinking of you.