Clara Callan (32 page)

Fondly, Clara

Wrote Frank, but it is a foolish letter. Too overwrought. Too presumptuous. I sound like a lovesick schoolgirl. I won’t mail it. Marion came by as I was writing. She looks much better than she did last winter and seems her cheerful self again. Went on and on about how she and her aunt enjoyed Nora’s program and could I possibly get an autographed picture of Nora for her aunt? Listening to Marion, I wondered if she ever had sexual feelings. She surely must have had. It’s a pity she has never met a man. Under those severely cut dark bangs, her face is quite lovely. Limpid brown eyes and beautiful skin that darkens a little each summer. I have often wondered if she didn’t have some Mediterranean or Celtic blood in her. It is her lameness though that has kept them away and she has resigned herself to this. After she left, I wrote Nora.

Dear Nora,

It’s probably time that I dropped you a note. It’s a perfectly lovely Sunday afternoon and I’m writing this on the veranda. Marion Webb has just left after her “little visit.” Poor Marion! She is just the same as you probably remember her. Older, of course, like the rest of us, with a touch of grey in her hair now. Still in love with Rudy Vallee and one of your biggest fans, as I’m sure you gathered last Christmas. Marion virtually lives in your mythical Meadowvale. “Do you think Alice will really marry Dr. Harper? Oh, I hope so, Clara, but I keep thinking something will come along to ruin it. They seem made for one another. He’s such a nice man. And a doctor too. But do you know what? I think Effie is jealous of Alice. I wouldn’t put anything past Effie.”

You may tell Evelyn, for me, that she is a sorceress bewitching the women of America (and Canada) with these tales of thwarted love and mysterious happenings.

How are you and your announcer getting on these days? Is there any chance that he will leave his wife (speaking of “real-life dramas”), or is it all hopeless? Or does it matter? I suppose in the circumstances, you just carry on from day to day. In that sense, you are lucky to live in a place like New York. You can imagine the fuss there would be in this village if I had a lover! Yet I sometimes think it would be bracing to shock them all with some kind of amorous adventure. Many here, of course, believe that my only adventures are in my head. But we probably all need someone in our lives, don’t we? It’s easy to grow stale, become mere creatures with undernourished hearts. They say that love nourishes the heart. Well, I am going on, aren’t I? It must be this spring weather. You have to admit that this has been a glorious spring. I just hope that you and Mr. Cunningham are happy. Maybe one day I too will find someone. You never know. Do take care of yourself.

Clara

P.S. Have you and Evelyn decided on a firm date for your visit this summer en route to the quintuplets?

Milton went off to Toronto to attend a conference, and so I had to deal with the senior forms as well as my own. I set various tasks but some of the girls (Jean Patterson and company) were disruptive. A good deal of whispering and note passing, most of it concerning Ella Myles who sits by herself at the back of the Senior Fourth row. She used to be right in front of me when I taught her. It was clear that Patterson and her friends were making fun of the girl, and dear God, it isn’t hard to ridicule her. Ella now smears her mouth with lip rouge and wears a horrible pink sweater that shows her breasts. How can her mother dress her like this? Thin bare legs in soiled ankle socks. She even wears cheap perfume. She looks like a little tart, and the other girls kept glancing back at her and whispering. It got on my nerves. Then,
just before lunch, Ella had had enough and swore at them. Uttered that ugly word right there in the classroom. Even the boys were startled. I had to say something, and so I told her to
stay after school. But then she hardly listened to me. Slumped in the desk she stared out the window while I talked. I told her this was her entrance year and she was clever enough to do well. She could go on to the collegiate in Linden and get a job and make something of herself. Mere words in the wind. After she left, I stood at the window and watched her saunter across the schoolyard towards Martin Kray who was leaning against a tree smoking a cigarette. Watched him take her hand, a clumsy gallant, and off they walked together. Soon they will be down along the township road, looking for a meadow to lie in, hoping the rain will hold off for a few hours. It left me a little heartsick, and then I remembered that it was two years ago on this date that the tramp raped me. I hadn’t thought of him for weeks, but now he is here again, poisoning my day.

Dearest Clara,

I am a little disappointed in you, my dear. I thought there might be a letter waiting for me this morning. I asked Miss Haines to check both deliveries carefully, but nothing. Ah well! Perhaps you had other things to do over the weekend, and in any case, I forgive you. My dear, I have missed you so much this past week. I have been thinking about you all the time. Yes, even up at the cottage while everything and everybody buzzed around me, I was thinking of you.

I can hardly wait until Saturday to see you. It’s just a few dozen hours away. That is how I am looking at it and that way it doesn’t seem so long. I hope this reaches you by Friday, so you can see how very much I miss you. Don’t you think it would be a good idea to have
a telephone installed? I am thinking of how grand it would be to pick up the telephone and hear your voice. I hope you’ll think about it. Till Saturday then.

Fondly, Frank

I have finally made arrangements with a Dr. Watts in Linden. Mrs. Bryden gave me his name and says he is reliable and inexpensive. I am to see him next Wednesday at five o’clock and that time will work well because Mr. Bryden drives to Linden every Wednesday for his service club supper and I can go along with him. What a mistake I made in selling Father’s car! I could have learned how to operate it, and had much more freedom of movement. It will be such a relief to have these teeth fixed, but I hope he doesn’t have to pull any. I don’t think I could bear that.

Frank comes from an Irish Catholic family and so does his wife. I was interested in her “problems,” but Frank was reluctant to talk about them except to say that they no longer love one another; they merely “share a house.” Then he said, “We no longer sleep together, if you know what I mean.” Yes, he means they no longer have relations, though I didn’t say so. Poor Edith Quinlan. And now I am seeing her husband. I am “the other woman” that I have read about so many times in those magazines. I don’t want to think about Edith Quinlan, though I keep seeing her as one of those pretty, dark-haired Irishwomen whose looks begin to fade in middle age. I know she has dark hair because Frank said his eldest daughter Theresa “has dark hair just like her mother when she was twenty-one.” Frank likes dark-haired women. He has touched my hair several times and said how much he likes it. Yesterday he said he wished it were longer and he would like
to see it
“spilling across your bare shoulders.” Then he laughed and said I was blushing and that “it becomes you.”

All this over dinner in another hotel dining room. We were seated at a corner table by an enormous rubber plant, the leaves speckled with dust and insect droppings. The sunlight came through the tall windows. Along a wall was a terrible painting of Indians welcoming a locomotive and the Fathers of Confederation in frock coats and top hats. A radio was playing sentimental music. I felt so happy being in that awful dining room. We were talking about religion. I’ve forgotten how the subject came up, but Frank told me he believes in God. I expected that, but it always interests me to hear this. How I envy Catholics their faith! It is so accommodating. Catholics commit sins and then expect to be forgiven. Frank was surprised to discover that I no longer believe in God. I said to him, “How I wish I could! It would make everything different.”

He smiled. “Different in what way?”

“Well,” I said. “Surely believing in God gives your life a purpose, some shape or direction. It seems to me that without God, we are just putting in time. And then time becomes so urgent, a source of anxiety because, of course, our time will eventually run out.”

Oh, I went on about this. Perhaps I talked too much about God and Time, but I couldn’t help myself. I think about these subjects so much, and like most people who live alone, I overdo it when I have an audience. It felt peculiar to be talking about God and Time in the dining room of a small-town hotel at twelve thirty on a Saturday afternoon, looking up at that terrible mural and listening to “Blue Skies.” Frank told me that he could not imagine a life without God. For him, God was simply
there
. Doubting His existence was out of the question. How could a person not believe in God? I could see that I puzzled, maybe even disturbed him a little by all this. He smoked his pipe and looked grave. I asked him if seeing me didn’t make it difficult for him.

“Will you not have to tell your priest about us when you go to confession?” I asked.

Then Frank said something wonderful. He said, “I suppose I will, but what has that got to do with my belief in God? To tell you the truth, I don’t think God really minds about us. Surely He has more important things to think about than two people who are trying to find a little happiness on this earth?”

I liked that answer, but I sensed that Frank was growing uncomfortable with our conversation. I don’t believe Catholics think much about God. He is simply there and they accept that and get on with their lives. I wish I could do that.

After dinner we went for a drive and then at the station, before we said goodbye, there were more kisses and we grew quite fervent. That is an old-fashioned word to describe our embraces, but it is the only one that comes to mind. His fervent kisses! I felt rushed and breathless beneath them, and a man on the platform was watching us, so after a while we stopped. Frank asked me what I thought of the idea of spending more time together. He said he could probably get away for a Saturday night and we could go some place. That will mean sleeping with him. I said I would think about it. We are to meet again next Saturday at the train station.

My first visit to Dr. Watts. What an ordeal! Several of my teeth need filling, but it looks as if I won’t lose any, thank goodness. Watts scolded me mercilessly as he prodded and drilled and tapped away. “Why on earth did you let these teeth get into such a state, Miss Callan?”

I suffered in silence under his ministrations, but the drilling brought tears to my eyes. I’m sure I’ll hear that infernal instrument grinding away in my sleep tonight. And this will have to go on for another five or six weeks! Something to look forward to each Wednesday. Yet it must be done, and there is a certain grim satisfaction in getting on with it.

Dear Clara,

Well your last letter was certainly worth a few laughs. Of course, you’re right about New York in a way. It’s certainly easier “to have a friend over,” but you’d be surprised how nosy the neighbours can be. Les and I are pretty careful about all that. As for your question about us, I don’t know where this is all going. Nowhere probably, and when I think about it too much, it gets me down. So I don’t think about it too much. Les is very attached to his children (a boy and a girl around twelve and thirteen), and I know he can’t stand the idea of giving them up, so I don’t think he’ll ever ask his wife for a divorce. Anyway, I’m not sure I’m in love with him. He’s swell company and handsome as the dickens, but there’s something missing. I can feel it. It’s funny because Les is considerate and kind to a fault. He’s a little vain, of course, but what handsome guy isn’t? Yet sometimes I actually miss being with grumpy
old Lewis. Can you imagine that? Lewis was always lecturing me on this and that, and cheating on me all the time. I now know that for a fact. But there was still something about him that I just don’t feel with Les. I can’t figure it out.

Speaking of men, you don’t need to tell Marion Webb, but Alice isn’t going to marry Dr. Harper this week. There will be no June wedding for Alice Dale in spite of the bushels of mail we’ve been getting congratulating us. And presents too, believe it or not!!! Tea towels from a lady in Kentucky, bedsheets (imagine) from someone in Indiana. A cream and sugar bowl from a listener in Toronto. It’s crazy. We give this stuff to the girls in the office. Our ratings are so high at the moment that the producers want us to keep everything “on the boil” for a few more weeks, maybe months. So there will be complications. Evelyn hinted on Friday that Doc Harper is probably going to have a car accident on his way to the ceremony (she has been told she cannot kill him off, he’s too popular). Anyway, we’ll know
tomorrow for sure and it should keep them listening and the Sunrise people happy.

I guess next week there will be a real wedding. According to today’s
Trib
, Edward is marrying Mrs. Simpson next Thursday. Wouldn’t you love to be there? Of course, Evelyn knew all this and that’s why our on-air wedding was planned. Clever, huh? Anyway, take care. We’ll be up on Friday, July 9 and leave the next day or maybe Sunday for Callander. Okay? I’m really looking forward to seeing those little girls, aren’t you?

Love, Nora

Went to Uxbridge station this morning, but Frank wasn’t there and I was stuck for the day. It was raining and no train until late afternoon. Infuriating! I spent the day in the library inattentively reading Sinclair Lewis’s
It Can’t Happen Here
. Not very good and all I could do was look out from time to time at the wet street and watch the people hurrying past. I was, of course, an object of interest for the locals who cast furtive glances my way as they checked out their week’s reading. Commotion from the basement where the children were playing some games, but at least the library provided a refuge from the weather. I don’t know where else I could have gone to pass the time. Anyway, why wasn’t Frank there? He is usually so reliable. I keep wondering if he had an accident in this rain. Perhaps I should have a telephone installed. By now he could have called and told me what happened.