Clara Callan (9 page)

A letter from Nora. The new program appears to be catching on and she has received a fan letter. Well, good for her, but I can’t yet summon either the energy or the goodwill to reply.

Dear Clara,

How are things anyway? As for me, I am very happy, believe me. Everyone here is excited about the show and the agency people think that we’ll be picked up by one of the networks in the fall. If that
happens, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to hear me up there. And guess what? I got my first fan letter the other day. A young woman in Queens (that’s another borough of New York) wrote me this wonderful letter telling me all about herself. She’s confined to a wheelchair (automobile accident) and lives with her mother. She’s only twenty-one and says if it wasn’t for the radio, she doesn’t know how she would get through the day. It’s just like I’ve always said to you, Clara, radio is so important to so many people. Anyway, she just loves “The House on Chestnut Street.” It’s her favourite program and I’m her favourite character. How about that? She says she admires the way I’m always helping Effie out of jams and she wishes
she could be just like me. She says she’s rooting for me all the time. It’s really something to get a letter like that and realize how important your character becomes in the lives of listeners.

When I showed the letter to Evelyn, she just said, “Get used to it, kid, because once we get on the network, you’ll be reaching out to the great spongy heart of America. You’re going to be wringing the old sponge dry, and you’ll be getting bushels of letters.” It was something like that anyway. But that’s Evelyn for you. She never takes anything seriously, but I can tell you she’s very pleased with how the show is doing.

Anyway, that’s my story, but what about you? Do you have any plans for the summer? I wish you’d consider coming down here for a couple of weeks. I’m told by everyone that it just gets boiling hot in New York in the summer, but that shouldn’t stop you. I am going to buy some fans. I’d love for you to see my little apartment and you could come over to the studio and watch me at work. You could see how they put a program like ours on the air with the sound effects and everything. People from all over the country visit Radio City and go on tours to see how their favourite shows are produced. I wish you’d think about it, Clara. You’d find New York a fascinating place and if it gets too hot, we can always go to the movies. All the big movie houses are now air-cooled. So please think about. And how about a letter!!!

Love, Nora

A wakeful and depressing night. At ten past two I was wrenched from an ugly dream in which the tramp had seized my wrists and was dancing with me in the field, twirling me around just as he did last Saturday. This time, however, we were both naked and attached to him was the boy’s member, a raw red club. The evening train from Toronto was passing and people were looking at us. Milton’s face was pressed against the coach window. And beside him were Ida Atkins and Mrs. Bryden and Cora Macfarlane. Could not get back to sleep and so I read. Chose the Bible. Even though I no longer believe, the words somehow still comfort me.

Unto thee will I cry, O Lord
my rock; be not silent to me:
lest, if that be silent to me,
I become like them that go
down into the pit.

Dear Nora,

I’m sorry not to have written before this. I can only plead sheer laziness. I’m happy to learn that your program is doing well and that you are receiving letters from admiring listeners, though perhaps the young woman in the wheelchair would be well advised to read a good book now and then. Depending on afternoon programs to get her through the day strikes me as rather pathetic, if you don’t mind my saying so. It’s all very well to escape into daydreams, we all do that from time to time, but the young woman sounds . . . Oh never mind, forget all that. It’s not important really. If I had the energy, I’d tear this up and start over again, but I haven’t. Please forget what I said about the young woman in the wheelchair. She will survive as will we all.

The school year is winding down and I am looking forward to the holiday months. I don’t know about New York. It’s a long way to go and travel is so dear. I’ll have to think about it, Nora. Meantime, I hope everything continues well for you. I shall write when I have more news. I am sorry about this awful letter.

Clara

Two weeks now and I await signs that I am all right. Any day now, and if all is well, I will try never to complain again about trivial vicissitudes. I suppose that is a mere vain hope, for it is in our natures to grumble over trifling setbacks. But I will try. I do promise to try.

After school I washed and waxed all the downstairs floors. Gruelling labour, but it keeps my mind off things. Tomorrow evening I will tackle the upstairs.

The annual field day and Milton in high spirits, refereeing events and measuring out the long jump. At the end of it all, he said, “Well, Clara. We’re nearly there. Another couple of weeks. I think we’ve both done a fine job. I hope you’ve been happy working with me. I can’t pretend that I’ve filled your father’s shoes, but I’ve certainly tried.”

“Yes, Milton,” I said. “It’s been a good year. We’ve both worked hard.”

Dear Clara,

I hope you’re feeling better than the last time you wrote. Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed that day? I also think you were pretty hard on the young woman who wrote to me. Not everybody enjoys reading, Clara, and that’s where radio can help. There are a lot of folks out there (and I’m getting more and more letters from them) who just don’t have a lot to look forward to and shows like ours can help them out. They can sit in front of their radios and imagine a whole other world where people have worse problems than they have and sooner or later they see how these problems are solved. It gives them hope, I think.

Just the other day I read this piece in
Radio News
about how listening to “Amos and Andy” actually saved a poor fellow’s life. Apparently he was all set to jump off the roof of this apartment building in Brooklyn, but a neighbour talked him out of it. “Amos and Andy” was on at the time and the neighbour said, “Before you jump, you should listen to these guys. They are so funny and every night you can listen to them for nothing. No matter how frightening and imperfect the world may be, every day you can look forward to hearing these comical people in the evening and it’s something at least.”

I know it was in a radio magazine and maybe it didn’t happen exactly like that, but when you think about it, it’s true. And it saved the guy’s life. People have to have something to look forward to, even if it’s only a radio show.

I’m sorry you’re so lukewarm to the idea of coming down here for a holiday this summer. I don’t understand why. You have all that time on your hands. Wouldn’t a change be a good thing? Personally I think it would do you the world of good to get out of Whitfield. We could
have a wonderful time together. So think about it some more, okay? And take care of yourself.

Love, Nora

P.S. Happy thirty-second on the twenty-seventh!!!

I am sure it’s happened and it is nonsense to pretend otherwise. Sick to my stomach this morning. Is that not a clear sign? In my breasts a kind of tingling. In small ways my body feels different and strange. The damnable bad luck of it all. This was the last day of the school year and the entrance form were off at the town hall finishing their examinations. Milton was supervising and so I had the rest of the school to look after. Nothing much one can do with the last day except word games and races. We ate our lunch out under the trees. There was lemonade and cake and the Junior Third girls presented me with an embroidered apron and a box of chocolates. After a year’s scolding I wasn’t expecting that. Looking back I think I was rather hard on some of them. The boys played in the dusty sunlight or wandered off and I was surrounded by a cluster of little girls. Their chatter and their bright excited faces made me happy for half an hour. I think I must have forgotten my “unfortunate condition.”
But then, sitting back against a tree and watching them, I decided I must go down to Toronto and find a doctor.

Train to Toronto and my condition confirmed. I am pregnant. It was not as difficult to find a doctor as I had imagined. Nothing is ever as difficult as I imagine it will be and I should probably take heart from that truth, but I know I won’t. I found Dr. Allan in a large house on
Sherbourne Street near Wellesley Hospital and passed myself off as Mrs. Donaldson, newly arrived from Winnipeg. I wore Mother’s wedding ring. She had a much smaller hand, and I had an awful time getting the ring off when I got home. Dr. Allan was a cheerful and talkative young man (younger than I am) who is just starting a practice. Told me his wife was going to have a baby too, and they are very excited about the prospect of starting a family. We had a pleasant little conversation, Dr. Allan and I, and my lies were all believed.

“How do you like Toronto after Winnipeg, Mrs. Donaldson?”

“Oh fine.”

“And what does your husband do?”

“Tom works for the Canadian Pacific Railway. In their offices. He has just been transferred. We’ve been trying to have a child for the longest time.”

“Well, you’re a little old for a first child, but you seem healthy enough.”

He told me to expect the baby in February and to come back to see him in a month. I paid the nurse and left.

On the train home, I decided that I must tell Nora, but I am far too nervous about all this to talk to her. I will write.

Dear Nora,

What you are about to read will no doubt be startling and so you should brace yourself. I hope you are in a chair and not standing by the stove waiting for an egg to boil. Or sitting on the edge of the bed as you used to, trimming your toenails. And leaving the trimmings in a little pile on the dresser as I recall. Be firmly seated then, away from stoves and scissors. I have something important to tell you and it is not easy. It looks as if I am pregnant (a doctor in Toronto has confirmed this, and so I don’t know why I say “as if” because I am). And
please
do not ask
for details of how this unfortunate situation has come to pass. It has happened and I must deal with it. I simply don’t want to go into the whole story at the moment. The father cannot marry me. That is out of the question, and so I am left wondering what to do about it.
What would
you
do if you were in my situation?
I know how excitable you can get, so please try to be composed in your response. I am trying to stay calm in
the face of this “event,” and so I don’t need any “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.” It obviously has to be dealt with, and so what would you do? I’m sorry to have to write this kind of letter to you, Nora. I know you’re occupied with your radio business down there, but I’m not quite sure where to turn at the moment.

Clara

P.S. Please don’t phone the Brydens and ask for me. I can’t risk it. Try to understand my situation.

Dear Clara,

Damn it, I wish you would join the twentieth century and get a telephone!!! We are wasting so much time because you insist on living in the last century. God Almighty!!! Well, that’s the way you are, I suppose, and so now that I’ve had my little rant, I will do what I can for you, Clara.

You will see that I have enclosed a ticket with the number on the Pullman car for the New York train for Friday, July 19. I’m sending this letter first class and it should reach you by next Tuesday and that will give you a couple of days to get ready. Can you get over to Linden and phone me from a public booth and let me know that you got this letter and that you’re coming a week from Friday. I don’t leave for the studio until about ten, so you could take that morning train over to
Linden, or get a ride with someone. You can surely understand how not having a telephone makes everything so damn awkward. As you can see from the ticket, the N.Y. train leaves Toronto at nine o’clock. Show the conductor your sleeping-car ticket and you will get a berth for the night. The train gets into Penn Station around nine-thirty and I’ll be there. Just follow the other passengers into the grand concourse. It is a very busy place, so follow the other passengers.

I promise to ask no questions. What’s done is done and nobody is sitting in judgement on you. These things happen. I’ve had a scare or two myself, believe me. You don’t say how far along you are. I hope it’s not more than two months. After that (so I understand) it can be tricky. Of course, I’m assuming that you’ll want to have something done about all this, in which case I can help you. Or I should say, we can help you. I’ve already talked to Evelyn and she knows some reliable people. There will be no backroom butchers or anything like that, so you musn’t worry. I have complete faith in Evelyn’s judgement on this. Things will work out, Clara, if you will just come down here and let me look after you. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, try to do anything yourself. None of those old wives’ tales or home remedies work and they can be dangerous. You need people who know what they are doing.

Please do me this favour. As soon as you get this letter, get over to Linden or some place, find a public telephone and give me a call. Try not to worry, Clara. We’ll work this thing out, and
no questions will be asked
.

Love, Nora

P.S. It’s hot as blazes down here, so make sure you pack three or four sundresses and plan to stay at least a month. You’ll need plenty of rest after all this is over. Thank heaven you’re on your summer holidays.

P.P.S. At the train station, I’ll be wearing a yellow dress and I’ll be looking for you.