Then I was very nearly knocked over by Clayton Tunney who came charging out of the darkness at the corner of Broad Street. It was startling, to say the least, and I was cross with him.
“Clayton,” I said. “For goodness’ sake, watch where you’re going!”
“Sorry, Miss Callan. I was over at the Martins’, listening to their radio with Donny, and now I’m late for supper and Ma’s going to skin me alive.”
And off he went again, that small nervous figure racing along Church Street. Poor Clayton! Always in a hurry and always late. Without fail, the last one into class after recess.
Tatham House
138 East 38th Street
New York
November 10, 1934
Dear Clara,
Well, I made it, and I am now at the above address. Tatham House is an apartment hotel for self-supporting women (I hope to become one soon). It’s very clean, well maintained and reasonably priced. It’s also quite convenient. I stayed with Jack and Doris Halpern for a few days and then I found this place. The Halperns live “uptown” dozens of blocks away, but the subway can get you around the city so fast that you hardly notice distances. New York is not that hard to navigate once you get the hang of it. All the streets run east and west while the avenues go north and south and they are all numbered with a few exceptions like Park and Madison and Lexington. But brother, is it noisy! The taxi drivers are always honking their horns, and you really have to be careful crossing the street. Everyone seems to be in such a blasted hurry (I thought Toronto was bad). There are so many people out on the streets at all hours and I have to say, Clara, that I’ve never seen so many handsome men, though so many of them are swarthy. I guess they must be Italian or Greek or maybe Jewish. Awfully good-looking though. You also see a lot of coloured people down here.
Now about work! On Thursday, Jack took me to Benjamin, Hecker and Freed (an advertising agency) and introduced me to some people, including this writer Evelyn Dowling. How can I describe Evelyn? She reminds me of that song we used to sing when we were kids.
I’m a little teapot
Short and stout
Here is my handle
Here is my spout!
Remember that? She’s only about five feet tall and nearly as wide and she has this big head of reddish hair. Wears beautifully cut tailored suits and expensive-looking shoes. She’s not going to win any beauty contests, but she’s very funny and obviously very successful. Smokes like the dickens. Just one Camel after another and her fingers are yellow with nicotine. Anyway, I did a voice test (several actually), and they liked what they heard, or at least that’s what they told me. They haven’t promised anything yet, but Jack thinks I am exactly what they are looking for with this new show that Evelyn is writing. Meantime, as I told Jack, I am in this big city and I have to pay bills for fairly important items like food and rent, but he said that he will find me some commercial work within the next week or so and I should be all right. Good Lord, I hope so! I have enough money to last about six weeks and after that I’ll have to go on the dole or, what’s more likely, they’ll probably kick me out of their fair country. To tell you the truth though, I am pretty hopeful about all this. I had a very good feeling last Thursday when I was reading for these people. I just sensed that they liked what they heard, particularly Miss. D. So we shall see! Jack and Doris are picking me up in about an hour and we are going out to dinner. They’ve been just wonderful to me. So, all in all, I would say it’s been a good first week and I’m not homesick yet, but please write.
Love, Nora
P.S. There’s a hallway telephone on my floor and I can be reached at University 5-0040 in case of an emergency. I wish you would get a phone, but we’ve been through all that, haven’t we? So I suppose you can use the Brydens’ if you have to, but I wish you’d think about it again, Clara. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could “talk” to one another once or twice a week? But what did Father used to say about saving your breath to cool your porridge?
Friday, November 16
This morning I awakened feeling put upon. Over the past few days the winds have blown the first storm of the winter through the village. In other years I welcomed the first snow because it covered November’s greyness. Now the snow is just a nuisance that has to be shovelled away and I have been at it off and on since Wednesday morning. Then too I have been worrying about the last hundred dollars Wilkins owes me for Father’s car. It was due on the first of the month, and all week I had made up my mind that he was going to take advantage and I would have to hire a lawyer and go through all that business to get the money. I am far too hasty in my judgement of others and probably too pessimistic about human nature. So now, look how benign a place this old world seems! An afternoon of brilliant sunlight (for November), and just as I got home from school, Mr. Wilkins came by with the hundred dollars, apologizing for the delay. God bless him! Now I must get Nora’s share off to her; she sounds as though she could use it.
Whitfield, Ontario
Saturday, November 17, 1934
Dear Nora,
I’m glad that you have found a decent place to stay that isn’t too dear. I hope you will be careful in that city. I know it would drive me to distraction just walking out the door into such crowds. How on earth do people earn their livings, and where, I wonder, does the food come from to feed so many mouths? There must be thousands out of work down there. We are surviving in the village, though over in Linden they are really up against it. The furniture factory has laid off nearly all the men and things are very flat with many families now on relief.
School is fine though Milton and I now have to do the work of three. Because we got on so well in the spring, I think the board just assumes that the school can be run by two people. They claim they haven’t the money this year for another teacher, and that may be so, but I’m inclined to think that they are just being close about it. However there’s nothing we can do. Milton is a pleasant fellow to work for, but he dithers a good deal and he lacks Father’s authority as a principal. I suppose one can’t be too hard on him, but I find he’s not strict enough with some of the rougher children who could benefit from a good hiding now and then. I’m thinking in particular of the Kray brothers who are the bane of my existence these days.
Mr. Wilkins finally gave me the last payment for Father’s car yesterday and the enclosed money order for fifty dollars is your share. I am sure you can put it to good use. To tell you the truth, I now regret selling the car. It has occurred to me more than once over the last little while that I might have kept it and learned how to drive. I just didn’t think that way at the time of Father’s death and maybe I was just in too much of a hurry to get everything settled. Speaking of getting settled, I have also dealt with the man from Linden Monuments who finally got around to seeing me the week before last. These people certainly take their time to conduct business; I’ve been after him since the summer. He wanted to sell me some folderol for the family headstone and showed me a catalogue which very nearly struck me dumb with amazement and horror: hundreds of dreadful little verses which attempt to reassure the living that the dead are not so badly off. Perhaps they aren’t, but in any case I told him that plain words would have to do the job. And so alongside Mother’s and Thomas’s names and years will be Edward J. Callan, 1869–1934. I hope that’s all right with you.
I think I have now mastered the furnace. It has been worrying me all fall, but Mr. Bryden has given me several lessons on how to start it and keep it going. There is a trick to all this. You have to be careful about allowing enough flame through the coals to burn off the gas, but you can’t smother the flame or, of course, the darn thing will go out. I now appreciate the hours Father used to spend watching “this monster in the cellar.” And in a way it is a “monster” that will have to be attended to and appeased every day of the blessed week from now until April. These days I am hurrying home at lunch to make sure that “he” is still breathing and satisfied, but I am also learning how to put eno
ugh coal in after breakfast (“building the fire,” according to Mr. Bryden) so that it will last until I get home from school. I really had no idea what a chore it is just to keep warm. At the same time, there is an undeniable satisfaction in knowing how to do all this.
I was amused by your colourful description of Miss Dowling with her tobacco-stained fingers and tailored suits. You are certainly meeting some exotic creatures down there, aren’t you?
I have noted the telephone number you gave me and passed it on to Mrs. Bryden who says hello and good luck. She will get in touch with you if I fall down the cellar stairs and brain myself some evening. And no, I am not going to rent a telephone. As you say, we’ve been through all that and I still maintain that, in my case, it’s a waste of money. I doubt whether I would phone three people in a month and I see no reason why we can’t keep in touch by letter. Do take care of yourself in that city, Nora.
Clara
P.S. Had our first winter storm this week but I am finally dug out!
Tatham House
138 East 38th Street
New York
November 25, 1934
Dear Clara,
Thanks for your letter, but please don’t talk about falling down the cellar stairs. It gives me the willies when you say things like that. I know you are facing your first winter alone in that big house, but try not to be morbid, okay? Well, I’ve survived nearly a month down here and, to be honest, I’m really glad I made this move. New York is such a fascinating city and I’ve just been too busy to be homesick. People have been terrific to me. Americans are much more open in their ways than us. It sure doesn’t take them long to get acquainted with you.
If you had been listening to the radio last Tuesday night to a program called “The Incredible Adventures of Mr. Wang” (if you get it up there), you would have heard my voice, though you might not have recognized me. I played a gangster’s moll who is trapped in a warehouse surrounded by police and the inscrutable Mr. Wang, and my line was: “Let’s get out of here. NOW!” That was supposed to be delivered in a “hard-boiled egg” kind of way according to the director. Mr. Wang is a detective along the lines of Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu. Do any of these names mean anything to you? Probably not. Anyway, it was fun to do, even if I only had that one immortal line. I know it’s not Uncle Vanya, but it’s a start.
I’ve also been doing some commercial work (thanks to Jack) for Italian Balm. The work is a little boring, but it pays well and, as Jack says, I’m getting all this experience. They seem to like my voice at the agency. Next week we start rehearsals for a show about a surgeon who performs all these life-saving operations. “Calling Dr. Donaldson.” I am going to play the doctor’s nurse, June Wilson, and I actually announce the show by saying through this microphone filter, “Calling Dr. Donaldson, Calling Dr. Donaldson.” As if it were in a hospital ward. That will be an afternoon show. Evelyn is writing another serial about — get this — two sisters who live in a small town somewhere “in the heartland of America.” The younger sister Effie is always getting into trouble (usually men) and the older sister Alice is the wise one who dispenses advice and gets her sister and others out of jams. Now guess which part they are grooming your kid sister for? Wrong! I am going to play the older sister, so there! It will be called “The House on Chestnut Street.” According to Evelyn (and she should know), the big market in radio in the next few years is going to be in afternoon serial dramas for housewives. It makes sense when you think about it. Women are home all day washing and ironing and cleaning, and while they’re doing all that, they can listen to programs about people who lead more interesting lives. It’s the perfect escape when you’re ironing your husband’s shirt to listen to a woman falling in love with a handsome doctor or rich lawyer. There are a lot of food and cosmetic companies interested in this market so there should be plenty of sponsors out there.
The other thing that’s happened is this. Jack and Doris took me to a party down in Greenwich Village the other night and I met this couple, Marty and Ida Hirsch. He’s a playwright and he and Ida are producing this play. It’s not Broadway or anything. In fact, I think it’s fairly small potatoes, but they asked me if I would be interested in reading for a part. I had told them about my experience, limited though it was, with the Elliot Hall Players and my radio work up in Toronto. So they asked me and I said sure and next Wednesday I’m going to try out. I figure I have to get all the experience I can and this seems like a good opportunity. Marty asked me all about Canada and what the politics were like up there. He had this strange idea that we were still ruled by the King of England. I’ve discovered that Americans don’t know a lot about some things. But Marty is a nice guy if a little opinionated, and I’m looking forward to joining this group. He told me I had a lot of moxie coming down here on my own from Canada. I’ve never heard that word before, have you?
Speaking of words, have you written any poems lately? It seems to me you were writing some in the spring just after Father passed away. How did they turn out?
Remember how you used to fill those scribblers with poems and then some Sunday morning, right out of the blue, start tearing the pages and burning them in the kitchen stove? The pipes would get so hot that Father would start grumbling about a chimney fire on the way. But he would never say a word to you about it, would he? Brother, if I’d done something like that, I would never have heard the end of it. I hope to goodness that if you’re still feeding the stove with your poems, you’re careful. Thanks a heap for the money and write again soon.
Love, Nora
Wednesday, November 28
Commotion in the classroom today. Started by the Krays. During the arithmetic lesson they began pushing and shoving and then they were on the floor at the back of the room punching and choking one another. I tried to separate them, but they wouldn’t stop and I had to call Milton. I like to think I can manage these things, but the Krays incite a rage that I find so difficult to check it frightens me. At ten o’clock this morning, I could easily have smashed the yardstick across Manley Kray’s face. Even looking at them provokes me: those brutal bullet-shaped heads, the grimy necks, the ringworm and smelly feet. At recess I sat listening to the measured strokes from Milton’s office. He told me that he learned how to apply “the leather” from Father. “It was one of the first things he taught me, Clara. ‘Even strokes, Milton,’ he used to say. And you never apply them in anger. They have to see the justice in the exercise. You’re just doing your job, not venting your frustration.”
It’s odd that Father never talked to me about strapping. Perhaps he didn’t think I needed talking to. How wrong he was! I always have to be careful about my temper. Afterwards I stood by the window and watched the Krays walk out into the schoolyard. They were surrounded at once by the other boys who dislike the brothers but admire their defiance.
Mr. and Mrs. Cameron came by this evening with Willard Macfarlane. They were collecting winter clothes for the needy. Last Sunday I told them I had some things of Father’s, including the new overcoat he bought on sale in Toronto last January and then refused to wear. He brought it home and, standing in it in front of the hallway mirror, decided that it was too grand. “I can’t walk around in a coat like this when so many people are hard up,” he said.
I told this story to Willard and the Camerons and they enjoyed it. “That sounds like Ed,” said Willard holding up the coat. “But gosh Almighty, this is some coat. It’s a dandy!” Since Father had bought it on sale, he couldn’t return it and so the coat with its velvet collar hung all last winter in the hall closet. The Camerons told me that they are leaving at the end of the year. I shall miss them.
Saturday, December 1
I was out for a walk along the township roads this afternoon. A raw, windy end-of-the-year kind of day with the sky carrying snow somewhere. Approaching the village at nightfall (5:45), I passed Henry Hill who was too drunk to notice me although I wished him a good evening. Henry was singing a mischievous song about love and trying out
a kind of jig in the middle of the road. And all this in Father’s new overcoat! I am glad, however, that Henry will have a fine coat for the winter ahead. When I got home, I started this poem, the first in months.
In my father’s overcoat
The drunken man performs a jig.
With arms flung wide
And overcoat unbuttoned to the wind
He dances in the street.
That sombre banker’s coat
Now the glad rags
Of a foolish man.
It will perhaps go something like that.
Whitfield, Ontario
Sunday, December 2, 1934
Dear Nora,
According to the dictionary, moxie is American slang for courage, though a more precise synonym might be the old-fashioned word pluck. With the car business over now, the only thing I had left to do was clear out Father’s dressers and closet. I should have done this ages ago, but I kept putting it off. Then last Sunday Mr. Cameron asked for donations of winter clothes for the needy, so I got busy and packed Father’s things into boxes. On Wednesday evening the Camerons came by with Willard Macfarlane and took everything to the church hall. I thought that was the end of it, but then a strange thing happened. Well, strange to me at least. Late yesterday afternoon, just as I was coming home from a walk in the countryside, I saw a man in a long coat and he seemed to be shuffling about in the middle of the road, performing some kind of dance. As I drew nearer, I could see that it was Henry Hill. Drunk, of course. Then I noticed that he was wearing Father’s new overcoat. Do you remember last January when he went down to Toronto and bought it? Saw it in a haberdasher’s window on Yonge Street. It was a beautiful coat with a velvet collar, expensive as the dickens but marked down and Father thought it was a bargain. When he brought it home, however, he fussed about it. Said it was far too grand to wear around the village. “I look like a Toronto banker in it,” he said. “People will think I’m putting on airs. It’s a poor time to go about in a coat like this.” He wanted to take it back, but it had been on sale. I told him it looked good on him and he shouldn’t worry about what people might think, but of course he did, and I don’t believe he wore that coat a half a dozen times all winter. And there it was on poor old Henry last night in the middle of Church Street! But then why not? Winter is coming on and Henry needs a coat like everyone else. Yet it was unsettling to see the old man lurching about in Father’s new coat. Well, you’ve seen him in such a state! Watching him, I wondered if perhaps there was a poem somewhere in all that, though I’m beginning to doubt whether I have the talent or the discipline to write poetry. Still these doubts (hobgoblins who perch on my bedstead at night) don’t keep me from trying. I experience this peculiar happiness while puzzling over the selection and arrangement of words on a page even if, in ordinary daylight, their lustre has mysteriously vanished and they seem only pale and worn. And, by the way, you were right. I did attempt some verses about Father’s death, but they didn’t work and they proved to be more useful in the stove, giving off, you might say, more heat than light.
Clara Callan Page 2
