Clara Callan

by Richard B. Wright

  At the station he was affectionate again and murmured apologies into my shoulder. I told him about my driving licence and this seemed to cheer him up. We parted on good terms and so I am glad that our little storm cloud has passed. I must get used to the idea that lovers sometimes exchange harsh words. It’s just that I hate quarrelling so much.

  Monday, August 9

  Nora sent me a copy of Lewis Mills’s The Temper of Our Times with a note.

  “It’s pretty good, I guess. I only read parts of it. If only the guy hadn’t been such a crumb!!!

  Chapters on Roosevelt, the union boss, John L. Lewis, the radio priest, Coughlin. An interview with George Santayana. A profile of Italy under Mussolini (no mention of the Callan sisters, thank goodness), a chapter on French Fascism and one on Hitler’s Germany (the weakest, I think, a little haphazard and hurried sounding). But overall, it’s an intelligent and informative book. Picture of L.M. on the dust cover, staring at the camera. Wearing his bulldog look.

  Friday, August 13

  Yesterday I drove to Toronto to be with Frank. It came about this way. Late Wednesday night he phoned to tell me how sorry he was about last Sunday in the car. Said he “needed to be with me desperately” before he faced another weekend at the cottage. I was nervous driving into the city, but I persevered. We met at Loew’s in the late afternoon and then had sandwiches and tea at Child’s. Then we went to his office building on King Street.

  It was nearly eight o’clock and everyone had left for the day. We made love, first on a sofa in a corner of his office, but that was unsatisfactory; the couch was too hard and narrow and so we put some clothes and rugs together on the floor. I remember looking up at the fading light of the August sky through the window. As he released himself, Frank bit me on the shoulder and that is still very sore. To be honest, I didn’t enjoy his rough and anxious lovemaking though I didn’t say anything. We parted with many kisses and agreed to meet again next Wednesday. At first I was frightened driving home by myself at night, but out in the countryside I began to enjoy the experience. It became exhilarating. With the windows of the coupe rolled down, I could smell the cropped hayfields. I was totally dishevelled and sodden, rank with the smell of sex and returning from my lover. The car lights blazed a narrow yellow path along the dark road homeward. Intensely happy.

  Thursday, August 19

  Another “amorous adventure” yesterday. Again we met in the movie house and made our way to his office building. We didn’t even bother to eat. How anxious we were to shed our clothes, casting them aside like children, embracing one another naked, beside ourselves with passion. We both seem to be in the grip of some kind of carnal delirium. I do believe that it is a form of madness. I told Frank not to be so rough and he did apologize, but he was so rushed and frantic in his lovemaking. I find it uncomfortable on the floor and there is, after all, something rather squalid about it. Things I remember: Frank’s pounding heart, the sky darkening through those high windows as I looked across his shoulder, the grinding of the trolley car wheels along King Street, the ticking of the clock by Frank’s desk.

  As I left him, it began to rain, but I enjoyed being safe inside my little car, going home through the wet dark night. I felt sore and bruised, but happy. I told Frank that next week I would be having my period, but he said there was no reason why we could not still meet. “We’ll go out to dinner,” he said. “I’ll take you some place nice.”

  What a wonderful idea!

  Tuesday, August 24

  Frank phoned at suppertime to say that he cannot meet me tomorrow. It has to do with Patrick, a softball game or something. I thought the family was still at the cottage, but I hardly listened, so deep was my disappointment. He wouldn’t be there. What difference did it make why? As we talked, somebody else was on the line, I am sure of it.

  Later I drove into the countryside and parked by a field to watch the swallows. A late summer evening with a moon rising and the hayfields in silvery light. The days are getting shorter and I must begin to think of school. Milton has given me a copy of the new curriculum and I will have to get used to this grade system. Gone forever is Junior First. Now, it is Grade One. Senior First is Grade Two and so on. I suppose I shall get used to it.

  Monday, August 30

  Intense heat all over the province and in fact across the entire eastern half of the continent. Nora phoned this evening to say how stifling it is down there. Everyone she says is fleeing to air-cooled movie theatres.

  Terrible news for Jack and Hilda Parsons; their youngest son, Harold, has come down with what they think is poliomyelitis. He was taken to Toronto on the weekend and is now in an iron lung. They fear paralysis. Eleven years old and he could be crippled for the rest of his life.

  Thursday, September 2

  When we met in the movie house yesterday, Frank whispered, “I have a surprise for you today.” Throughout the picture (The Good Earth) we held hands and then we took a taxi to the west end of the city. I thought we might be going out for dinner, but at the corner of Dufferin and King streets, we got out and Frank told me we were going to a hotel. “No floor tonight, my darling,” he said.

  Perhaps not, but what a hotel to take me to! A beverage room on the main floor with some rough-looking women going in and out; the smell of tobacco smoke and beer, the usual shifty-eyed clerk and hangers-on in the lobby looking us over. Frank didn’t seem to mind, but I felt ashamed standing there while he signed the register and those men stared at me.

  The room on the second floor was small and stuffy. Frank opened a window and we sat on the bed. We could hear people walking down Dufferin Street on their way to the Exhibition, and sitting there, I felt suddenly let down by everything: the shabby hotel, the Exhibition (for I thought again of Charlie and wondered if he were working down there again), the braying female laughter from the beverage room below us. In the lobby, I had seen a woman going into the beer parlour, a woman in a red sundress with a heavy mantle of dark hair across her bare shoulders. She had thick muscular legs. I imagined it was she who was laughing.

  Frank began to kiss me and we took off our clothes. He said, “I know it’s not the King Edward, darling, but you must understand. I have to be careful. Certain people in this city know me and it’s not as big a place as you might think.”

  I’m afraid I was not very good at anything last night. Frank kissed my entire body and that was delicious; I wanted to give way, but I could hear that woman’s laughter from below, and I kept wondering where she lived and what she had done that afternoon. Had she gone shopping for bread and milk? Dressed a child? Was she a prostitute? Now she was in the beer parlour in her sundress with her painted mouth and the thick dark hair on her bare shoulders, surrounded by men. How unseemly and covert my life has become! Then Frank asked me to do something that I did not enjoy. I did it to please him, but I did not like it. At the end of the evening, Frank said, “We won’t come back here if you don’t want to, but we can’t use my office because my brothers will be back this weekend and they work late. It’s getting on for our busy season.”

  He seemed to be out of temper with me, and so I told him the hotel would be fine, but that Wednesday nights would be difficult for me once school resumed.

  “Well then,” he said. “I suppose we can go back to Saturday afternoons or something. Once we close up the cottage, I’ll be in the city on weekends.” We were both a little cross with each other.

  Friday, September 3

  Hot weather continues. Milton phoned this morning to say that school opening may be delayed a week because of this constant threat of poliomyelitis. Apparently, the Toronto schools are waiting for the weather to break. Milton is going into Linden tonight for a board meeting and will let me know tomorrow.

  Sunday, September 5

  Cooler weather at last, and Milton phoned to say that classes will begin as usual on Tuesday. But I can only think of Frank and of how much I want to be with him, even in that awful hotel. I should be preparing lesson plans
. I have been so negligent this summer. I haven’t opened a schoolbook since June.

  Monday, September 6

  Nora phoned this morning. She and Mr. Cunningham had a “swell time” together this weekend; they went to some resort. I could not help feeling a little angry and jealous as I listened to her. Nora lives in an immense city where a woman can do whatever she likes with her life. Here it is “What will the neighbours think?” as Father used to say. What indeed? And wouldn’t it be restful not to care?

  Then Frank phoned at suppertime and I was overjoyed to hear from him. He had just brought his family down from the cottage and was calling from a pay booth. He told me how much he missed me, and how much he was looking forward to seeing me on Wednesday night. He sounded so eager and affectionate that I became overwrought. I began to weep, there on the telephone. Told him I loved him so much and I knew that I was being silly, but I couldn’t help myself. I know others were listening, Cora Macfarlane or those Caldwell girls, but I didn’t care. What a grip all this has taken on my feelings! I must be the talk of the village.

  Tuesday, September 7

  Somehow I got through the day and it was not as bad as I had feared. This new grade system is simpler and should not be a problem. Getting back to work has been a relief. But I see Frank tomorrow night.

  Saturday, September 11

  I have taken a few days to think about what happened last Wednesday night. In the hotel room, Frank did something that bothered me. He had thrown his jacket over a chair and was sitting on the bed. We had talked about my drive down to the city, and of how difficult it was going to be now that I was back in school.

  “Yes, yes, my darling,” he said. “I understand all that and we’ll work something out. You musn’t worry.”

  He then fell silent, and leaning back on his elbows, smoked his pipe and regarded me. His gaze was so intent that I wondered if I had done something that displeased him. Finally I said, “What’s the matter Frank? Is something wrong?”

  “Not at all,” he said smiling. “Nothing’s the matter. It’s just that I want to show you something. Do you think you’d mind?”

  “Why should I mind?”

  He tapped his pipe into an ashtray, reached over for his jacket and withdrew a package of photographs from one of the pockets. “I thought,” he said, “it might be interesting for us to look at some pictures together. They’re a little racy, Clara. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “What kind of pictures are they?” I asked.

  He came around to the other side of the bed where I was sitting.

  “We’ll look at them together and you can tell me what you think.”

  In the first photograph, a naked woman was on her knees in front of a man and she had taken his organ into her mouth while another naked woman fondled the man from behind. The other pictures also involved the man and the two women in various obscene postures. I found them both astonishing and revolting. As we looked at them, Frank kept saying things like, “What do you think of that, darling? Wouldn’t that be fun? Wouldn’t that be exciting to try?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Another person? With us?”

  He shrugged. “Well, why not?”

  I didn’t know what to make of it all. The pictures aroused Frank, but only left me vaguely disgusted, and the idea of another woman sharing our intimacy was unthinkable. I wondered if Frank no longer found me desirable. Was I too dull for him? The experience upset me and I’m afraid I was ill at ease and unromantic. The whole evening was ruined and Frank could not conceal his disappointment.

  “All right, Clara,” he said. “This is clearly a waste of time. You’re like a board tonight.”

  But in that hotel room I felt so cheap and those pictures were so revolting. I don’t know what to make of it all. He said he would phone me, and I told him to be careful about what he said on the line. “Oh, that again,” he said peevishly.

  “Frank,” I said. “Let’s go back to the little motor court by the lake. We’ve been happy there.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “We’ll see.”

  I haven’t heard from him since. I wonder if I should write and tell him how I feel.

  Sunday, September 12

  Spent all morning composing this letter and then didn’t feel I could mail it. This afternoon I wrote another, almost word for word, and sent it.

  Whitfield, Ontario

  Sunday, September 12, 1937

  Dear Frank,

  I am marking this letter personal and trusting to the professionalism of your secretary to pass it on to you unopened. For several days now, I have wanted to write to you or talk to you about what happened last Wednesday night. Please believe me when I say that I want you to be happy with me. I want that more than anything in the world. And I think of how happy we have been in one another’s arms, and, Frank, I want that to continue. But I cannot bring myself to imagine another person sharing our intimacy. That is such a repugnant idea to me and please don’t think I am being merely prudish. It is more than that. What we have together is so special to me that I can’t bear the thought of soiling it with mere sexual games. Please try not to be angry with me about this. It’s the way I am and I cannot change my nature. I want to please you in any way I can, but it must be just us, we two, together, alone. I want to be with you.

  Love, Clara

  Friday, September 17

  No word and I can think of nothing except that I have turned him away forever. I feel distanced from everything around me. A terrible day at school and finally at five o’clock I phoned his office. The secretary told me he wasn’t in. She was not the same woman I have spoken to before and she was very rude about it all. “Mr. Quinlan is not taking personal calls during business hours,” she said in this snippy voice. Has he given this woman instructions not to take my calls? I should never have mailed that letter. I have driven him away.

  Sunday, September 19

  I have done nothing all weekend but walk about the house in this ridiculous wrapper. The phone keeps ringing and always it’s for the Macfarlanes or the Caldwells. Frank has walked out of my life without a word of explanation, and I feel as hollow as a reed, walking from room to room. Last night Marion phoned to ask if I wanted to go to the movies with her and her parents over in Linden, but I couldn’t face them.

  After church today, Mrs. Bryden looked in because she hadn’t seen me all weekend and wondered if I were ill. But I just want to be alone. A pile of scribblers on the dining-room table to mark and I haven’t even glanced at them.

  This evening Nora phoned. She was having a party for Evelyn’s forty-ninth birthday. I could hear the music and laughter and Nora was in high spirits.

  “How I wish you were down here with us today, Clara!”

  “Yes. Well . . .”

  Evelyn came on the line, but I could scarcely concentrate. They all sounded so gay on this lovely September evening that when Nora was saying goodbye, I began to weep. Carried on like a madwoman there on the telephone and, of course, this sent Nora into mild hysterics.

  “Clara, for heaven’s sake, what’s the matter?”

  Lamely I told her not to worry, I would write. But I felt disgusted with myself. I’m sure I ruined her party. That was hours ago and it is now nearly midnight. I can’t believe I’ll sleep a minute.

  Monday, September 20 (4:22 p.m.)

  How a mere day can make a difference in our outlook and expectations! I am writing this hurriedly, but perhaps at least these few poor words will remind me on some bleak Monday ahead that our fortunes can quickly change and for the better. All day I went through the motions, wondering whether I should tell Milton that I had a doctor’s appointment in Toronto tomorrow. I thought of going down there and waiting for Frank outside his office building. Try to talk to him about all this. But I didn’t and now I am glad, for as I got in the door, the phone was ringing and it was Frank. He has been on a business trip to Montreal. Told me he left instructions with the girl in the office to tell me this, b
ut she didn’t and what does it matter now? Yet that woman cost me a weekend of despair, damn her eyes. Frank apologized for all this and told me how much he missed me and could we meet tonight somewhere? He made no mention of my letter and I am just as glad. I am now going to have a cup of tea and drive to Uxbridge station to meet him.

  Tuesday, September 21 (8:35 p.m.)

  So tired and just now, at the door, Mrs. Bryden and the minister’s wife canvassing for the Parsons. Harold is coming home from the hospital next week. I was happy enough to contribute, but desperate to see them go. Yet they lingered with Mrs. Bryden studying my face, as if expecting to find there the secrets of my life.

  “You looked tired, Clara.”

  Is it any wonder? I got in this morning at four o’clock, as she well knows. I saw her light come on as I pulled into the driveway. The village is talking about me; I can sense it in people’s looks. Finally got rid of them and then phoned Nora.

  “Where were you last night? I tried until midnight to reach you. What’s going on, Clara? Are you all right now?”

  “Yes, yes. I’m fine, Nora, thanks. I’m sorry I carried on like that last Sunday. It was nothing. A mountain out of a molehill. I’m ashamed of myself.”

  “I’m worried about you. You don’t sound yourself.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Nora. I’m fine now, really.”

  I can scarcely remember anything I said to the children today. Imagine coming in at four o’clock on a Tuesday morning! Imagine making love in the back seat of a car on the side of a highway! When I think of what might have happened I can only shudder. In love we abandon reason and embrace risk and sooner or later . . . Last night was a close call.