Clara Callan (7 page)

Clara

Dear Clara,

Got your letter yesterday and thought I’d better drop you a note today because I won’t have time tomorrow. I’m going to spend most of the day with Evelyn and Vivian Rhodes, going over the first scripts of our show.

I found your letter upsetting, to say the least. You say you no longer believe in God? How could that happen? You were always so religious, or at least I thought you were. You and Father never missed church on Sunday mornings, and when I was home on weekends and slept in, you and Father would give me such dagger looks when you got home from church. What on earth happened? You read the Bible almost right through one summer! Remember? You must have been only eleven or twelve, but you spent nearly every day that summer reading through those long chapters of the Old Testament. I thought for a while you were going to be a missionary or something. I’m worried about you, Clara. I just don’t understand how you could lose your faith like that. I wish you would talk to someone about all this. I know you don’t think much of this new minister, but maybe if you told him sincerely how you feel, he might be able to help. I mean, isn’t that what he’s trained to do? It just strikes me as odd. You of
all people! What would poor Father think?

I’m afraid I have to run because a girl down the hall (she’s a nurse)
has asked me to go to the movies with her this afternoon. She’s from some place in Minnesota, a small town like Whitfield, and last night she said she was feeling a little blue and homesick. Well, it’s been awfully wet and gloomy down here and I’m feeling a bit that way myself, so what better place to be when you’re feeling blue than at the movies. Ruth will be at the door any minute, so I’ll say goodbye for now and get this in the mail. Please write and let me know if you have talked to anyone about all this.

Love, Nora

P.S. It occurs to me that all this may have something to do with Father’s passing. It will soon be a year, and you are probably dwelling on that. You have to put things behind you, Clara.

A letter from Nora advising me to talk to Jackson about my apostasy. Well, she can forget about that. Jackson is the last person on earth I would approach. Have gone instead to the poets. Reading Vaughan and Dickinson at two o’clock this morning.

I saw eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;

And Emily D.

I shall know why, when time is over
And I have ceased to wonder why;
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky.
He will tell me what Peter promised,
And I, for wonder at his woe,
I shall forget the drop of anguish
That scalds me now, that scalds me now.

But they lived in other centuries when it must have been easier to believe.

Father died a year ago today. A windy cool Sunday with dampness in the air. After dinner he looked out the window and told me he thought he might spade the flower beds by the side of the house, but it looked too much like rain. Said he wasn’t feeling well and took some bicarbonate of soda. I told him he always ate too quickly and he said it was a habit picked up from years of eating in boarding houses before he married. He said he would lie down until the indigestion passed, and so he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. His final words came from the head of the stairs. “Why don’t you play something?” I told him I would, but then after I finished the dishes, I sat down to read the rest of the
Herald
and forgot.

At three o’clock I went upstairs; I can’t remember why. I could see his stocking feet through the open doorway of his bedroom. He had slept, I thought, too long and would have trouble in the night, so I approached him. He was lying on his back, and when I entered the room, I knew at once that he was dead. I just knew, and I was startled a little at my own certainty. It was the greyness of the flesh around his eyes, I think. Or the perfect stillness of his body. I didn’t touch him, but I knew he was dead.

Went over to the Brydens’ and Mrs. Bryden met me at the door. She must have seen something in my face, but I was not in tears. Why? Already his death was a fact. Unalterable. I said this to her. I remember
the words. “I think Father must have had a heart attack in his sleep. He’s gone.”

Mrs. Bryden’s puzzled, kind little face. “Gone, Clara? Do you mean he’s passed away? Oh, my dear child!”

Hurrying across the yard with me, the rainy wind in our faces. Mrs. Bryden surprised me by her quickness. She is Father’s age exactly, but nimble and quick, a little sparrow of a woman. In the bedroom she bent over him and pulled the sheet across his face. “Yes, yes, you’re right. He’s gone, poor Ed. We must phone the doctor.”

Marion came by this evening with Mildred Craig and her mother to decide on the music for the wedding. Mrs. C. favoured “The Holy City,” but her daughter wanted “Because.” Marion suggested “I Love You Truly.” When asked for my opinion, I said that any or all would wring dry the hearts of the wedding guests and therefore would be suitable. Wry little looks of bafflement from the Craigs and Marion’s usual benign acknowledgement of my strangeness. “Oh, shoot, Clara. You never take anything seriously.” Wrong, wrong, wrong, I felt like saying, but didn’t, of course. In the end I played and Marion sang all three ditties. The pretty little bride and Mum were won over by “I Love You Truly,” which Marion shrewdly sang last.

Dear Nora,

Sorry to have upset you with my last letter. Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone on like that about God and faith. You musn’t worry, Nora. I have no intention of laying the sharp edge of the paring knife against my wrists. It’s spring, for goodness’ sake. I am reconciled to my state; of course, I have to rethink the notion of time. If I no longer believe in
immortality (heaven, if you like), then it follows that my time is finite. It will therefore end one day and so the question becomes, How may I best use what time is left to me? That’s what I must work on. I have to confess that when I last wrote to you, I was a little edgy and distraught. Perhaps I still am, but not as much. It’s just that I must learn how to live another way.

Are you still appearing in those detective shows and hospital dramas? When will Miss Dowling’s saga of small-town life appear? Has your handsome announcer made his pass yet? Should I buy a radio or continue to play the piano? Answer to these questions will bring immense peace of mind.

Clara

The Accompanist at the Wedding
. I was thinking of those five words as the title of a poem this afternoon. It was three o’clock and Marion was singing “I Love You Truly.” The lovely afternoon light was colouring Jesus and the Apostles on the church windows. I was thinking of a woman like myself who plays the piano for other women’s celebrations. There she is in her blue dress and white shoes at the piano. And will she be playing for Millie Craig’s daughter in twenty years? Will she be there again in say, 1955? A woman of fifty-two with thickened waist and ankles? With grey in her hair? I wonder.

The silver jubilee of King George and Queen Mary and all over the province there have been celebrations. Today we marched the children to the cenotaph and stood listening to the local MPP, a well-fed lawyer from Linden, talking about the greatness of the Royal Family and how privileged we all are to be a part of the British Empire, the “greatest family of countries the world has ever known.” The children holding
their little Union Jacks listening respectfully to this windbag. No mention at all of the men without work who have no means to feed their families. Who each week have to endure the humiliation of Relief. The man’s sanctimonious blather made my blood boil. Cheered up, however, by a letter from Nora who seems to be enjoying life in the Great Republic.

Dear Clara,

I’m glad you’re feeling better about life in general, but I wish you wouldn’t be so descriptive. That bit about laying a paring knife against your wrists! I don’t particularly enjoy reading that kind of thing from my sister, even if you were just kidding. I still think you should talk to someone about religion, or maybe read some books on the subject. Going to church and believing in God have been an important part of your life, Clara. You can’t just cast things like that aside. We all need to believe in something. It’s only human nature.

As for your sarcastic questions! Yes, I’m still doing some freelance work on shows. I’m still calling for Dr. Donaldson to do his rounds at the hospital. I’ve also been a patient of his (I was shot by a gangster boyfriend). It’s funny. For some reason producers hear my voice and see me not only as the helpful sister, but also as the tough dame who hangs around hoodlums. No, Les Cunningham has made no passes at me. In fact, I haven’t seen Les for a while, though he’s been chosen to announce our show and so I guess we’ll be working together. We go on the air in two weeks, by the way, so wish me luck. I’ve lost about six pounds over the last month and I’ve had my hair cut really short. I’ll bet you wouldn’t recognize me. But I’m saving the best news for
last. I think I can now afford my own place and so I am moving next Saturday into a little apartment five streets from here. My new address will be 135 East Thirty-third Street. My very own place,
Clara! No more sharing the bathroom with nine other girls!!! Hope all is well up in dear old Whitfield.

Love, Nora

Walked out to the cemetery this morning. Past the church where I could hear the voices of the congregation.

Unto the hills around do I lift up
My longing eyes,
O whence for me shall my salvation come,
From whence arise?
From God the Lord doth come my certain aid,
From God the Lord who heaven and earth hath made.

One of Father’s favourites, and how many times did I stand beside him singing that hymn? Felt a little strange walking there on the empty street in my old brown coat, carrying the garden shears and trowel in a cloth bag. Saw myself as others might; as a woman in an old brown coat turning a bit odd in her middle years. I was glad to get beyond the village and out into the country with the sunlight on my face and the smell of the ploughed fields around me.

Spent an hour or so tidying up the grave. I should really have planted something, geraniums perhaps. Yet the plain clipped grass seemed to suit Father best. His name and years are like fresh wounds in the grey stone. Stood listening to some crows across the fields near a woodlot. They were chasing a marauding hawk that was swooping and climbing to avoid them. All those dark birds against a blue sky.

Victoria Day with flags and bunting on storefronts and verandas. Warm and sunny and two busloads off to Linden for the parade. What a fuss people make over an old dead queen! At noon two tramps came to the kitchen door and asked if I wanted my summer wood split and piled. One fellow was about thirty, tall and thin in overalls with an old suit coat and cap. He had a wide comical mouth and was talkative and eager to please. The other was sixteen or so, a homely boy and simple-minded from the look of him. He had a short thick body and a walleye. I had misgivings, but I set them to work, watching from the kitchen window. To their credit they worked steadily all afternoon, the man splitting and the boy piling the wood in neat rows against the side of the shed. They finished about five o’clock and I took out some food to them: cold pork and mustard sandwiches, some tea and half an apple pie. They sat on the back stoop to eat. When they finished their meal, I gave them a package of sandwiches with the rest of the
pie and a dollar. I was certainly pleased with the job they did. They had even raked up all the chips into a pile. Just as they were leaving, the Brydens pulled into their driveway. They had spent the day opening their summer cabin at Sparrow Lake. I think they were amused by the pride I took in my woodpile. I can’t help it. It was deeply satisfying to show them the neatly stacked cord of wood against the shed. We had supper together and later sat on their veranda listening to the firecrackers from the fairgrounds. Then some children came running along the street, laughing and holding sparklers. Tiny showers of light in the darkness.

A terrible thing has happened to me. This afternoon I was set upon by the two men who came by the house yesterday. They hurt me, or one of them did. I have filled the bathtub twice with hot water. But the kitchen stove has gone out and there is no more, and I am too tired to
bother with it until morning. Yet I cannot sleep and must record what happened to me.

This afternoon I went for a walk along the railway tracks. I have done it countless times and usually I go no further than Henry Hill’s. I am afraid of his dog and seldom go past the place. Today, however, the old man and the dog were gone and so I walked as far as Trestle Bridge. I sat on the bridge for perhaps twenty minutes watching the fields turn dark and light under the passing clouds and then I started home. I hurried a bit because I was thinking again of the collie which is bad-tempered. I wanted to get past Henry’s before he and the dog returned, and I felt better when I did. Then as I came around the bend in the tracks, I saw two figures ahead. They were dark against the blue of the sky. One had his arms spread wide like a child walking on the top of a fence. From time to time the figure stumbled and fell between the tracks. Then I could see that it was the man and the boy who had split and piled my wood yesterday. As they came towards me, the man ignored the boy’s antics, walking quickly
and looking down as though he were angry or harried. Each time the boy fell, he would run to catch up and try again to balance himself on the tracks.