Clara Callan (26 page)

“I wish you would drop by now and again for a visit, Clara. I know there are things we could talk about. Come when Henry is out, if that would make you feel better. Come and see me when the car isn’t there.”

I wondered about that remark as I watched her hurry across the street.

To Miss Callan
What nights of bliss you must be enjoying there in your house all alone with your phantom lover. We cannot see into your bedroom but we can imagine . . . Do you stroke his dark hair and swarthy skin as he leans across your bed at night? Do you sigh over his kisses when he takes you in his arms? Is it not wonderful to have such a phantom lover? To kiss you and tell you that you are not alone? Oh, you are so lucky to have your phantom lover, Miss Callan. Be careful however or one day we will see you pushing a baby carriage with a little phantom baby inside.

Interested bystanders

When do they put these notes under the veranda mat, I wonder? It must be very late. Do their parents not notice their absence? I must watch Jean Patterson closely tomorrow and see if I can detect anything in her expression. I am convinced that she and her friends are behind all this.

Jean Patterson and Mary Epps passed me in the hall this morning on their way to Milton’s room. “Good morning, Miss Callan.” I merely nodded. Duplicity can bear an innocent face even in the young. This afternoon a letter from Nora filled with concern about my “spell.” She also sent me a book.
Live and Learn How to Live
by Dr. Ralph Crispin
whose picture is on the back wrapper. A plump cheerful-looking fellow who is the minister of some large church in Los Angeles, California. I have had such a time this evening glancing through Dr. Crispin’s pages. Some chapter headings: “Wake Up and Sing, Don’t Mind the Stormy Weather”; “Look at the Forest, But Don’t Miss the Trees”; “You Can Do It If You Want To”; “God Loves a Happy Person.”

I will write Nora about all this, but tomorrow when I am, and if I am, feeling calmer.

Dear Clara,

Yesterday I received a letter from a Mrs. Helen Jackson, the new minister’s wife. She was writing about a talk you gave to the Women’s Auxiliary on our trip to Italy last summer. She said that you had a spell or something, became sick with nerves. I have since telephoned her. Clara, I do wish you would have a telephone installed. Why do you resist such an obvious convenience in today’s world? I will be more than happy to pay the monthly charges. In any case, I telephoned Helen Jackson. According to her, you seemed to go to pieces that evening. She sounded very nice and she’s concerned about you as are others in the village. She feels, and I certainly agree, that you spend far too much time by yourself. You seem to have just your work and that old house to look after. You really ought to make more of an effort to get out and meet people, Clara. It would be good for you. Everyone needs friends. I don’t know what I would do without Evelyn. I wish you would take advantage of Helen Jackson’s
offer of friendship. Why not invite her over from time to time? You’ll probably find out that you have a great deal in common. She certainly sounded like an educated woman to me. You are just too stubborn in your insistence on being alone and independent. You should make more of an effort
to get out and meet people. As Dr. Crispin says, “No man is an island.” I’m sure he meant that to apply to women as well. I’m worried about you, Clara. Please let me know how you are.

Love, Nora

Dear Nora,

Your letter arrived on Friday, but I put off replying because I was annoyed by it, and I still am. I think it was presumptuous of Helen Jackson to get in touch with you. I suppose her heart’s in the right place as is yours, of course, but I wish people wouldn’t fuss over me. Please keep the following in mind:

1. I don’t want a telephone in my house.
   
2. I don’t want to “make more of an effort to get out and meet people.”
   
3. Helen Jackson leads a more pathetic life than you imagine I do.
   
4. Dr. Crispin is full of shit.
   

Clara

I stayed up until two last night, sitting in the dark by the front door hoping they might come by. What foolishness! At two o’clock I climbed the stairs to bed and today I paid the price. So did the children, for I was fretful and cranky.

Dear Clara,

I was going to ignore your letter, but I don’t see how I can. After all,
I am your sister
. We are pretty much on our own in this old world, Clara, and so it seems to me that we should look out for one another. Helen Jackson was only trying to be a good neighbour. I will tell you something — your last letter doesn’t leave me feeling very confident that you are quite yourself these days. What is the matter anyway? If you can’t tell me, who can you tell? I have to say this too. Last summer on our trip, I noticed that you were behaving oddly. I know you have always been a quiet broody type of person, but last summer you just seemed so remote from everything. Even Lewis remarked on it. On the ship you wouldn’t join in on any of the activities, even though there was something for everyone. They even had a book club. Do you remember how I urged you to join that and talk to other women about books you’ve read? But all you wanted to do was be off by yourself reading or sitting in the
deck chair staring out to sea. You just sat there for
hours
staring at the ocean. I don’t call that normal, Clara. I think you need to talk to somebody about all this, and if not me, perhaps a doctor. Evelyn has her problems and she sees a doctor every week about them. It’s not all that uncommon nowadays. Maybe you could arrange to go down to Toronto on Saturday mornings or something. I would be more than happy to help because those kinds of doctors can be expensive. I’m really serious about this, Clara. I just don’t like the sound of your last letter. I sent you Dr. Crispin’s book in the hope that you might have found it helpful. Okay, there are things in it that you might not agree with, but that book has helped thousands of people get through their days. He was interviewed on the radio the other night and he talked about the thousands of letters he has received. Are you so special that you can ridicule him with rude language?

Here is something I would like to do and I hope you have no objections. I have asked Evelyn to write me out of the script for a few days over Christmas so that I can come up to Whitfield to see you. We’ll spend the holidays together. I want to see our little village on Christmas Eve just as I remember it with the snow falling and the band playing at the skating rink. Do they still have skating parties? Remember how we used to lie in bed and listen to the band? On a clear night, we could just faintly hear it from the bedroom. If I were behaving myself or you were in the mood, you would make up a story to tell me. I’d like to do that again, and I’d like to keep you company over the holidays. I’ll probably arrive on Christmas Eve (a Thursday) and I’ll likely stay until the Sunday or Monday. I hope you like the idea. We should have a swell time together. Evelyn sends her best.

Love, Nora

Dear Clara,

Surprise, surprise! Remember me? Evelyn Dowling, Nora’s pal. She told me you’ve been under the weather, so to speak. It must be catching, because so have I, and I’m seeing a quack about it. He calls himself a psychiatrist and every Wednesday afternoon he asks me questions about days of yore when I was a fat cuddly moppet living with Mommy and Daddy.

Your sister wondered if I had any words of wisdom to pass along, but I really don’t, beyond saying that women who live alone should probably buy a cat or something. In my case, I’d need a large one, say a leopard or a panther. Maybe one of those roaming about the place would help concentrate the mind (thank you, Dr. Johnson). We single ladies seem to be susceptible (whew, all those sibilants crowded
together) to some kind of malaise in the air, particularly as old man Winter approaches. Of course, we don’t have the husband and his goddamn slippers and the kiddies to deal with (thank heavens), though I imagine that that kind of clutter in your life could take your mind off certain things. Like who the hell am I, and what am I doing here? And how am I going to get through the next thirty years?

You’ll have to forgive me, kiddo, for going on like this. I guess I should be consoling you and here I am whining away. But it’s a wet Sunday afternoon in New York and I’ve seen all the movies. There is nothing on the radio and I’m too tired to read. Besides, I’m sick of words, the thousands of hackneyed ones I churn out each week, and even the other ones, better arranged in books by more talented people. The truth is I’ve been trying to do some real writing lately. By real writing, I mean stories. But they always turn out to be pale and very sickly imitations of Dorothy Parker or Dawn Powell. There is always something missing. It’s probably called talent. But put me down in front of my trusty Smith-Corona and ask me to crank out another episode of “Chestnut Street” or “Manhattan Patrol” (a new cop show I’m writing), and voilà — there you have it, ready for the oven.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I suffer from a corrupted imagination and there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it. I suppose Nora has told you (maybe I already have) that this corrupted imagination of mine has been noticed by various and sundry moguls out in Hollywood where such imaginations are much sought after. So, I have had a few offers and I have to say I sometimes feel tempted. By way of temptation these moguls offer to pay hilariously vast sums for my services, and on days like this, I can see myself under the palm trees. I also understand that Hollywood is filled with psychiatrists and beautiful women and sometimes they are one and the same. Well, we shall see what the new year brings.

You must write and tell me how life is unfolding in that picturesque Canadian hamlet of yours. Are the people as gosh darn nice as the folks in Meadowvale, U.S.A.? Nora talks so much about Whitfield
that it has become Meadowvale for me. Please don’t tell me that you have an actual Chestnut Street (I have been afraid to ask Nora) or I’ll probably cut my throat. Why not drop me a line when you have a moment?

Fondly, Evelyn

Nothing for over two weeks. I thought they had grown tired of their game, and then today a letter actually sent through the post.
Ruckus. Raptures. Ardently. Luxurious
. They must find such words in magazines.

Dear Miss Callan,
A little bird has told us that your phantom lover has returned from the land of the Latins. We understand he favours Saturday night visits and stays over. And so it was last Saturday night that we heard your commotion. What a ruckus you two kick up! Such shrieks of delight as he chases you around the house. It must be fun playing hide-and-go-seek bare naked! And when he catches you in his arms — what then, Miss Callan? What raptures as he embraces you ardently in his strong arms and covers your face with kisses. And as he carries you up the stairs to your bedroom, your mind gives way to luxurious thoughts of love as he lays your bare-naked body across the bed. Oh, Miss Callan, you musn’t. You shouldn’t. Ohhh.

Fascinated bystanders

Dear Evelyn,

Thanks for your letter. You may have been feeling a little melancholy on that wet Sunday, but your letter was certainly amusing. Isn’t it odd
how, even when we are not feeling quite ourselves, we can still transcend our feelings through words. I suppose this is what poets and novelists and playwrights do only in a more concentrated and artistic way. I like to imagine Shakespeare, for example, inventing Falstaff on a day when his spirits were especially low. Or writing the final act of
King Lear
in a particularly sunny mood.

Anyway, it was kind of you to think about me and write. Nora worries so. She thinks I am by myself too much and am therefore turning into a funny old maid in my father’s house. There was a minor episode last month at one of the local churches that may have furnished her with evidence for these suspicions. I foolishly agreed to talk to the Women’s Auxiliary about our trip to Italy last summer. And something happened, I’m still not sure what, but I lost my way during this talk. Perhaps I just realized the sheer fatuity of what I was trying to do. So I went on and on about a man and a woman I saw in Rome. This particular man and woman had formed the most interesting memory of my entire trip and I suppose I began to laugh at the absurdity of trying to explain something that is perhaps unexplainable to certain people, and of course it all came out badly. I must have sounded hysterical. I can see how those women might have thought that. The new minister’s wife was so alarmed by my performance
that she saw fit to get in touch with Nora. But I must record here and now that I feel as sane as one can feel if one is fully conscious on this benighted planet.

There has been, however, a troubling offshoot to this episode. For the past month I have been receiving poison pen letters in which I am imagined to be having a torrid love affair with an Italian! My “phantom lover,” as he is called by the letter writers, implies, that I am a frustrated victim of sexual fantasies. How diabolical these brats can be! I am unable with certainty to prove the authorship of these scurrilous little notes which arrive every so often under my doormat, but I suspect two or three of my former pupils who are now in their entrance year (I teach the four junior forms). They are playing out
some kind of schoolgirl fantasy, the erotic daydreams of thirteen-year-olds, perhaps as revenge for slights of long ago. That’s my theory anyway. The notes are a bit unsettling. It’s never pleasant to be made fun of, but I hope eventually to get to the bottom of it all. What I shall do about it then, I am not quite sure. But enough of all that, and by the way, please don’t mention
any of this to Nora. She is already far too needlessly concerned about my “mental condition.” Take care of yourself and write now and again. I do enjoy your letters.