Clara Callan (30 page)

I hope you’re happy with Mr. Cunningham. He’s a different type from Lewis Mills, isn’t he? That is probably a good thing. L.M. was an interesting man in many ways, but he clearly wasn’t your type as I’m sure you now realize. Is his book out, by the way? I wouldn’t mind reading it if only because I was briefly acquainted with the man, and I think it would be interesting to read a book by someone you once knew, however fleetingly. If you see a copy in one of the bookstores, would you pick it up for me and send it along? I doubt whether any of the stores in Toronto would carry it. I’ll reimburse you, of course.

Nothing much new in my life. I have got into the habit of going down to Toronto most Saturdays on the train. It makes a change. I walk about the stores though I’m not much of a shopper, as you know. Then I generally see a picture before I catch the train home. It’s an outing and something to look forward to through the week. I am quite contented with my lot in life at the moment, and so you musn’t worry on my behalf. It has just now started to rain. A spring shower that will rinse the air and nourish Mr. Bryden’s freshly turned garden. Boys will look for worms for fishing. I love rainy afternoons like this. I may take Father’s old umbrella and go for a walk under these heavy grey
skies. I think I would like that and I shall mail this letter on the way. Do take care of yourself.

Clara

Frank and I saw
Top of the Town
. Pleasant nonsense and it seemed to be over in no time at all. When we came out, it was raining quite hard and I was hatless. By the time we got to the restaurant, I looked a sight. I used some paper napkins to dry my face and Frank was amused by me. His beautiful hat was stained, but he didn’t seem to mind. The restaurant was crowded but the waitress found us a booth. I think she recognized us from other Saturdays, and I suspect she knows we are not married and may be up to something. In the booth Frank took my hands and rubbed them. “I think we should get to know one another if we are going to the movies together. Tell me about yourself, Carrie. You seem to be such a quiet and serious person.”

“Serious?”

“Yes. Serious. There’s a certain gravity about you. I like that, by the way. You’re not frivolous. You think things through.”

“I tend to, yes.”

“What we are doing now,” he said. “Meeting like this without knowing too much about each other. You’re thinking that through carefully too, aren’t you? Wondering if all this is proper and correct. Right?”

“I suppose I am, yes.”

“I don’t think you’re married, so either you live alone or with your parents?”

“No no, they are both dead.”

“Ah, I see. I’m sorry.” He was studying me as he smoked his pipe. He is not afraid to look me in the eye. I don’t mind him doing that. In fact, I rather enjoy it. I am getting used to his grey eyes.

“You work then,” he said. “Let me guess. You are a secretary perhaps. Or maybe a librarian or schoolteacher?”

“Perhaps I am,” I said and smiled.

He remarked on that. “You have smiled at last,” he said. “My grave young friend has smiled.”

“Not so young,” I said.

“Of course, you’re young. You are what? Twenty-eight or nine? Perhaps thirty?”

“I am thirty-three.” It was only my second truthful statement to him.

“Thirty-three is a good age,” he said. “I’m forty-six.”

We sat in silence for a while drinking our tea. Around us people were coming in out of the weather, shaking the rain from hats and umbrellas. I was happy to be in that crowded restaurant with this man among the other moviegoers and shoppers. I thought, This is how people go about their lives while I am home. And now I was a part of all this Saturday afternoon life. Then Frank told me he was married.

“I’m sure you must have guessed that,” he said. “My wife and I have not been close for years.” He looked out the streaked window of the restaurant at people hurrying past. “This started some time ago. After our last son was born. She seemed to go into decline. She has seen doctors about it.”

Then he told me that he has four children. Michael is twenty-three and lives in Kingston. I have forgotten what he works at, but he went to Queen’s University. He may be an accountant or a bookkeeper. The other three still live at home. Theresa is twenty, and Frank says she doesn’t know what to do with herself. One minute she wants to write a novel, and the next minute she wants to go off to Spain or China and save the world. She takes courses at the university. I gather she has been a difficult child to raise, but from the way Frank talks about her, I think she is her father’s favourite. Anne is eighteen and thinking of entering the religious life this summer. That is how he
phrased it, “the religious life,” by which I take him to mean that she intends one day to be a nun. The youngest child, a boy, is only eleven and I have forgotten his name.

Frank was forthcoming about all this. He also told me about the family business. They are coal merchants and seem fairly well-to-do. Frank has two older brothers in the business, and their offices are on King Street. “So there you have it,” he said. “I want to be honest with you, Carrie. I am not a very complicated man. I work in an office. I look after my children. I tolerate my wife who is not well and who no longer cares for me. I go to the movies on Saturday afternoons because I am unhappy and I want two hours to myself. Edith thinks I am working at the office, but I don’t believe she really cares where I am. When I’m not around the house, she finds it easier to drink. She’s usually asleep in her bedroom by the time I get home. Then she drinks some more before dinner and falls asleep early, waking in the middle of the night to read or wander about. She drinks then too.”

“Why does she drink so much?” I asked. “Why is she so unhappy?”

Frank took his time replying. “I don’t really know,” he said finally. “Her father was a drinker. Perhaps it’s in the blood. I’m worried about Michael too. When he comes home for a visit, I can smell it on his breath.”

In the taxi to the train station, Frank took my hand and asked if I would be there next Saturday and I said I would. So now I am seeing an Irish Catholic who has four children and a troubled wife. I like Frank Quinlan and I must stop lying to him.

Today he did not appear, and I felt such a letdown sitting there alone in Loew’s theatre that I could have wept. I know I was very close to tears, and then before the newsreel began, this happened. The lights had just dimmed and I was watching the usher with his flashlamp
bending across the seats in front of me talking to women who were sitting alone. There weren’t many. Then the young man approached me and whispered, “Are you Miss Hughes?” I was going to say no, but then I remembered my foolish imposture and said yes and he gave me an envelope. I knew it had to be from Frank, and all through the picture (I can’t even remember the name of it) I clutched the envelope and wondered what it contained. I was sure that he no longer wanted to see me and I tried to think of what I may have done to discourage him. From among others, he had chosen me, but then I had done something to make him change his mind. What? Such disappointment there in that darkened theatre this afternoon! Then, once
on the train, I opened the envelope, and like a schoolgirl who has been passed a note, I have read his words a hundred times.

Dear Carrie:
I am sorry, but I can’t make the movies today. I am at the office and Theresa just telephoned. Something has come up at home and I have to be there. Please forgive me. I’m going up to Loew’s theatre now (it’s nearly twelve o’clock) and see if I can get an usher to deliver this for me. I hope you’re wearing the same coat, because I have to tell him what you look like. I will see you next Saturday. Please don’t disappoint m

Fondly, F.

What happiness I felt upon reading those words on the train this afternoon! I cannot continue to lie to him, and when we meet next Saturday, I will tell him who I really am. I wonder what the trouble at home was; probably something to do with the neurasthenic wife.

After supper I walked west of the village along the township road. The evening sky was streaked with red and gold. As Miss Matheson
and Miss Weeks would have said, “God is unfurling his banners.” In the summer of my tenth year, Father sent me to a Bible camp on Lake Couchiching run by the Methodist church. At the end of the day, we gathered on the shore of the lake, a hundred little girls, to watch the brilliant sunsets; and always Miss Matheson or Miss Weeks would announce that God was unfurling his banners. And I would think of Mother somewhere behind those sun-touched clouds with God.

A hundred yards or so ahead of me on the road were Ella Myles and Martin Kray. I had seen them walking together earlier in the day and felt downcast by the sight. Of all the boys in the village, she has settled for Martin Kray, a seventeen-year-old tough who is just back from a year in reform school at Bowmanville. But perhaps no one else expressed interest in her. At fourteen the heart is hungry for affection and will find it where it can. But I fear he will hurt her, perhaps get her into trouble. I watch them walking ahead of me arm in arm, a moment of happiness for both of them under the spring sky. Wondered too what Frank might be doing at that hour of the day. Wondered what Edith Quinlan looks like. He said, “She’s usually asleep in her bedroom,” so they must sleep apart now. Oh, Miss Matheson and Miss Weeks, sleeping now yourselves alone in narrow plots! If you could only know the tangled thoughts and wishes of all those little girls who passed and still are passing by this way!

Today we saw the newsreel of the German airship that burned last Thursday somewhere near New York. The announcer was weeping and we saw the huge ship engulfed in fire and smoke. How terrible to be trapped in all that! Around me people were transfixed by the images. Yet how quickly we all soon forgot the tragedy of those lost lives. Within a minute we were laughing at the antics of a cat and mouse and last Thursday’s dreadful accident had vanished.

I am doubtless too morbid about such things and Frank reminded
me of this in a gentle way. We were in the restaurant and, amid the clatter of the plates and cutlery, I was talking about the people in that airship; how a week ago they were making plans and so on and now everything was over. He took my hand in both of his and told me I was too serious about such matters, but he liked that side of me anyway. Then I told him my name was Clara, not Carrie, and I lived in Whitfield, not Uxbridge; that I had no aunt and I was sorry for having deceived him. I said I came down to Toronto on Saturdays because I was tired of seeing the same faces every day. And then Frank did something; he kissed my hand there in the restaurant. I remember the waitress was laying the cups of tea before us and she was smiling. She was envious of me, I think, and it was wonderful to be sitting there and having my hand kissed like that. I very nearly missed my train.

Before we parted, Frank said, “Why don’t we do something different next Saturday? We could go for a drive in the country. I could come up and get you.” But I am afraid of gossip in the village and so suggested that we meet somewhere along the way, and that’s what we are going to do. He will drive up from the city and meet me at Uxbridge station next Saturday morning. It then occurred to me that someone on the train from the village would see me meeting him and that would set tongues wagging, so we agreed that he would stay in his automobile until the train left the station. Frank also gave me a book today.
Favourite Poems Through the Ages
. I was touched that he remembered I liked poetry.

Dear Clara,

Thanks for your letter. My, don’t you sound gay! It must be this spring weather. This afternoon Evy and I went walking in Central Park and was it ever lovely! The trees and flowers are all out now and
young people are lying on the grass (Ha, ha). Evy and I just walked and talked about everything — the show and where it should be going over the next few months, and this new program that she’s writing. There’s a part in it that she thinks I could do. It’s a detective show and she says it has a little zip and bite and she hopes she can get it past the agency. They don’t like anything too unconventional. Evy is quite lonely these days. It’s hard for women like her to find suitable companionship. It’s not that there aren’t plenty of lesbians in New York, it’s just finding the right one. Well, when I think of it, I guess it’s no different with normal women. Anyway, she is quite restless these days and is talking again about going out to California. A number
of the studios are after her.

We’re still planning to come up to Canada this summer, and we thought the last two weeks of July would be best. Evy will write me out of the script for that time and so we’ll drive up to Whitfield in her mother’s Packard. How about that? We’ll pick you up and then go north to see the little girls. We’ll stay in awful tourist courts and eat terrible food in roadside diners and generally have a whale of a time. What do you think? Doesn’t it sound like fun? I hope you are still on for this adventure because I’m sure looking forward to it. Drop me a note one of these days. It’s great to hear you sounding so cheerful.

Love, Nora

P.S. Wasn’t that an awful tragedy the other day with the Hindenburg burning over in Lakehurst? It was in all the papers and on the radio.

P.P.S. Evy heard that Mr. Crumb’s book will be out this summer and I’ll get a copy for you.

The new King’s coronation and so we got a holiday. At five o’clock this morning, people were listening to the ceremony from England.
Houses are adorned with flags and this afternoon there was a parade and a tree planting at the fairgrounds. Unfortunately for the revellers, it rained off and on most of the day.

Today, a letter from Frank.

My dear Clara,