Clara Callan (45 page)

Milton seemed touched and gave me a weak smile. “Well, thank you, Clara, for telling me. I wouldn’t have expected anything but the straight goods from you. I’ll speak on your behalf. I’ll do my best for you.”

There was nothing more to say, and after an awkward moment of silence we shook hands. I still don’t know why.

I have just told Mrs. Bryden. I called her in from the garden where she was weeding her lettuce patch. We sat at the kitchen table and she cried a little. “Oh, Clara!” I asked her about a doctor. They go to a man over in Linden named Murdoch, but she thinks someone younger and less set in his ways might be better for me. There is a Dr. Miller who has just started a practice with Murdoch and she is going to make an appointment for me next week.

To Linden this afternoon to see the doctor. I had an appointment with Miller, but just as I arrived he was hurrying out the door with his raincoat and black bag. Miller is younger than I am and handsome enough to be in the movies. He will make many a female heart flutter. But he was quickly on his way, and I watched through the window as he climbed into his car. The nurse told me that he was off to a farm east of the town to deliver a baby that wasn’t expected until next week. Oddly enough I was the only patient in the waiting room on this dark thundery afternoon. Then the nurse said, “If you’d like, I can ask Dr. Murdoch to look at you. You’ve come all the way in from Whitfield.”

Just then Murdoch came out of his office, a tall, spare and severe-looking Scot. About sixty. Wiry eyebrows. An old man used to getting his way and impatient with the folly of this world. It was all there in his face. Father saw him once years ago, but didn’t like his manner. He and the nurse began to talk about a patient who was coming in at five o’clock and then she began to whisper, and I knew she was referring to me, for Murdoch kept looking across the room. Finally he said, “I can see you today if you like. Miller is probably going to be out there for a while. You’ve come in from Whitfield?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Come along then.”

And so I got Murdoch instead of Miller, which will be fine; I don’t think he is as difficult as he would like people to believe. He asked me how old I was and when I told him I would be thirty-five in another two weeks, the wiry eyebrows were raised and he said, “And this is your first, Mrs. Callan?”

“Yes,” I said, and just then we heard an enormous clap of thunder and the lights dimmed. A warning from the heavens about mendacity? I had to set Murdoch straight.

“It’s Miss Callan,” I said.

The long stern face regarded me not unkindly, I thought. “I see.”

We could hear the downpour. Gusts of wind were pushing the rain
against the windows. It had also been raining that night in New York three years ago when the other “doctor” had stood over me preparing to scrape away the life within. Now I felt Murdoch’s large finger in me. “Sometimes,” he said, “having the first one at your age can be a problem, but you seem healthy enough, so I wouldn’t worry.”

When he finished he said, “I’ll tell Miller that I’ve looked at you and you can make an appointment with the nurse to see him next month.”

“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I’d like to come back and see you.”

He was rinsing his hands at a basin. “As you wish. About this time next month. Try not to do too much in this heat. You’re not married then? Do you work at something?”

“I teach school.”

He came back towards me, drying his hands. “Well that will soon be over for the summer, won’t it? Just put your feet up and take it easy. We’ll get you through this.”

Dear Clara,

I’m so sorry for my last letter which must have struck you as awfully hurtful and cruel. I just feel terrible about it. Why in heaven’s name didn’t you tell me about those men three years ago? They might have been caught if you had told someone, though I suppose your name would have been dragged through the mud and everything. Still it seems so wrong they got off scot-free after doing something like that. Oh, Clara, what a thing to go through all by yourself!!!

As you say in your letter, this is very different. I’d ask you to come down and stay with me, but it just gets so hot here in the summer and you’d probably be uncomfortable. How are you feeling anyway? Isn’t it funny how I am the one who always wanted to have a baby and here you are, about to be a mother. I guess it’s my lot in life to be an aunt. Is
there anything I can do for you at the moment? Do you need anything? I’ll try to get up to see you this summer, probably in late August. Sorry again about my last letter. If only I’d had some idea. I just can’t imagine how you lived through all that on your own.

Love, Nora

Miss Callan’s condition is now known to all and sundry. Whose tongue wagged? Mrs. Bryden’s? Milton’s? Who knows and what does it matter? Sooner or later it had to happen. In a way it’s a relief; people can now get their fill of staring and talking. In the fullness of time they will turn to other things. Marion came by after church brimming with questions, though at first she was too wary and shy to ask outright. She sat in the rocker on the veranda in her Sunday dress and white gloves, the big hymnal in her lap. I tormented her a little.

“You look ready to explode, Marion. Have you been hearing things? What’s the news on the church steps this morning?”

“Oh, Clara, is it true?”

“Why yes,” I said. “It’s true. I’m going to have a child. Probably late December or early January.”

The look on Marion’s face. That such things should come to pass! “Clara, what are you going to do?”

“Why I’m going to get on with my life, Marion. What else can I do?”

A few moments to consider that weighty resolution. Then, “Golly, Clara, a baby. Imagine!”

We both sat looking out at Church Street on this early summer day at noontide. Imagining.

My pupils do not seem particularly intrigued by my predicament. They were as usual bent across their scribblers and readers. Perhaps
they have not been told yet. In the hallway, a few (from the entrance class) cast sidelong glances my way.

Dear Clara,

Nora phoned last night with her news. So you are going to keep the child! What a brave soul you are! It won’t be easy, of course, but you do have folks in your corner. Your sister, for one. She was so excited when she told me. I feel the same way, and I insist on being called Aunt Evelyn. I think it suits me now that I am beginning to take on a rather ample matronly look. I waddle around out here, a pale old thing among all these tanned sybarites. Anyway, I hope you are looking after yourself so you can deliver a big healthy baby that Nora and I can take turns spoiling.

Life out here takes some getting used to, but it’s not so bad. I bought a car the other day from a shifty-looking character. I hope he didn’t skin me. It’s a second-hand Chrysler convertible. Cream-coloured. Very sporty. I have to report that it’s a pleasure to get into this thing in the morning and drive to the studio. I now feel like a true Californian, off my feet and moving on four wheels. On Sundays I drive over to Santa Monica or down to Ocean Park with Fred who tells me stories of the stars and their peculiar sexual alliances and preferences. Oh, if only the great public knew! As galley slaves, Fred and I spend a lot of time together, and we’ve become great pals. He is a funny bitter fellow, a natural storyteller who, like me, has a weakness for the bottle. I find myself in the unnatural role of playing mother hen to him, warning him about the excesses of drink and so on. Still it doesn’t stop him from bringing along a bottle of vodka on our Sunday excursions.

My Nancy Brown stuff is now about ready to go. Mr. M. seemed to
like the first script, and they are hoping that it will be as successful as the Hardy series. They are now looking for the girl to play Nancy. They want someone like Deanna Durbin, but she had a fight some time back with the studio and apparently hates MGM. We’re looking for someone cute and sexy, but not too sexy. The young American girl. I suggested this kid Garland who is in the latest Hardy.

Anyway, that’s what I’m doing. Toiling and spinning out here in the Yarn Factory (another of Fred’s locutions). Keep in touch and eat plenty of vegetables or whatever it is mothers-to-be are supposed to eat.

Love, Evelyn

It’s been so hot and dry for the past few weeks that everything is parched. Summer has just officially begun, but already the gardens are burnt up and the lawns are as brown as August. Today was the last day of school and the children gave me an illustrated New Testament. Did one of their parents have a hand in the selection of this gift? Hoping perhaps to reclaim me from my apostasy or, at the very least, provide me with a measure of moral instruction.

As the children said goodbye, the girls gave me shy, interested looks. They now know that I am going to have a child next winter, and in their own secret, little ways they are fascinated by the mystery of it all. One day they too hope to have babies, but not, of course, until after the white gown and the procession up the aisle on that distant, magical day. The boys don’t know what to make of me and so it was just “Goodbye, Miss Callan,” and they were running into the afternoon and all the afternoons of the summer that lie before them. From the open window in my classroom, I could hear their shouts and laughter.

As I was leafing through the Testament with its timorous-looking Christ standing by a door and beckoning to the reader, “Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you,” Milton came into
the room. The weather had got to him and his face was enflamed and glistening from prickly heat. He looked ill at ease and out of sorts. “Whew! You could have used a fan in here, Clara. I should have got you one.” Walking across the room he stood by the open window, jingling the change in his pants and looking out at the bare dry schoolyard and the empty ball diamond. “How are you feeling anyway?” he asked.

“Actually, I’m feeling fine, Milton,” I said. I was waiting for him to tell me what I already knew but he was having a difficult time. Finally, however, he got it out.

“Well, the board had a meeting last night over in Linden. Of course I spoke up for you, Clara. I did my best. I told them you had been a teacher in this school for sixteen years and your father was here before you.” Milton shook his big plain head as though the perversity of his fellow humans was beyond his comprehension. “Those fellows can be so set in their ways. That Jack Morrison. I tell you, Clara, he’s a corker. That man hasn’t got an ounce of pity in him.”

I didn’t bother telling Milton that I want no one’s pity, least of all some lawyer’s in Linden. I told him instead that I understood how he had done his best for me and I appreciated that, but I couldn’t see how the board had much choice. How would it look to have an unmarried woman with a child teaching in one of their schools? There would be a litany of complaints from parents. They had to get rid of me.

“I hope we can remain friends, Clara.”

“Of course we can, Milton.”

“If there’s anything I can do.”

I shook the warm moist hand and got him talking about Sparrow Lake. This time next week he will be at his cottage, and Clara Callan’s embarrassing condition will only be an uncomfortable memory that will recede with each passing day.

After he left I packed up my things and took them out to the car: two boxes of books and papers, my window plants. I left the large brown teapot in the little kitchen. Father bought it years ago, but I have no use
for it. I said goodbye to Jimmy Burke who was sweeping the halls and closed the door that I have entered nearly every day of my life for the past thirty years. I was holding Father’s hand the first time; a warm September day. The year was 1909 and I was six years old.

Relief at last from this heat wave. Rain all weekend and now it is clear and fresh with a strong wind scattering fragments of cloud southward. A wonderful freshness in the air. The gardens and lawns have revived. Helen Jackson is back home. On Saturday morning I watched her husband help her from the car and into the house. I would visit her, but I dislike that man so much that I am afraid of running into him. Letter today from Nora.

Dear Clara,

How are things with you? Is the heat wave up there too? New York is murder right now. It has been over ninety every day for the past week. The only place you can escape is the movies. Sometimes I go out right after supper and catch the first show. Even with the fans, my apartment is almost unbearable.

Well, we sure aren’t having much luck with men, are we? Yesterday Les took me to Romanoff’s for lunch. I thought something was up because it’s a pretty fancy place and he doesn’t usually splurge like that. And it turned out to be one of those lunches that remind you of that Cole Porter song “It Was Just One of Those Things.” Of course, I knew it was coming sooner or later, but I didn’t expect him to be leaving town. It turns out he’s accepted a new job as staff announcer at a Chicago station. That’s probably why we went to Chicago a couple
of months ago though Lover Boy didn’t tell me at the time. Anyway, he’s leaving at the end of July and he’s hoping that he and Miriam can start all over in a new place. Well, good luck to her is all I can say. I don’t think it will be long before he finds himself a new dolly out there. Anyway, that’s it and I guess I’m not really so heartbroken. I had been kind of expecting something like
this for the past little while. The truth is we haven’t been hitting it off on all cylinders since about Christmas, so maybe it’s for the best.

I wouldn’t have minded so much. It was a great lunch and Romanoff’s is air-cooled. I could have stayed in there all afternoon. But here’s the thing. After lunch we’re standing out on Forty-second Street in this godawful heat and Mr. Wonderful suggested we go back to my place just once more “for old time’s sake.” The guy tells me we’re washed up, and then he wants to go to bed with me one more time. What a nerve! I told him to go home and park it in his wife where it belongs anyway. I wish he were leaving for Chicago tomorrow because I’m going to have to stare at him across the microphone for the next six weeks. Oh well! I’ll live through it, but really, Clara, why can’t either of us find a decent guy who isn’t already spoken for?