The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Three

by Morley Callaghan

  Shorty was lying on the floor, his knees curled up, his elbows in at his sides, his head toward the window. He had fallen off the bed. A strip of toweling had blocked the open space between the door and the floor. Shorty’s hands were cold. The tin can that had been on his table had fallen to the floor beside him. The banjo was at the foot of the bed.

  Mrs. Scott, who had run downstairs when she smelled the gas, came into the room slowly, still holding her hands up to her face. “I knew something like this would happen sometime,” she said. “The poor fellow, he was so sick, I knew he’d do it.”

  Steve looked at her and shook his head.

  “What’ll I do?” Mrs. Scott said.

  “You’d better call the police,” Steve answered. He was going downstairs. He wanted to get out to the sunlight. He didn’t want to be mixed up in the affair at all.

  The Bachelor’s Dilemma

  The night before Christmas Harry Holmes, the plump young executive with the bow tie, came home to his bachelor apartment near the university and found the janitor had put a turkey on the kitchen table. It was a fine big bird weighing twenty-two pounds, far too big for his small refrigerator and tied to the leg was a note from the manager of his favorite restaurant congratulating him on winning their turkey raffle. Wondering when he had taken the ticket, he thought, “Well. The devil must look after his own,” and he telephoned his brother’s wife who had invited him for dinner on Christmas Day. “This year, for a change, I’ll provide the turkey,” he said, feeling exuberant. “I’ve got it right here.”

  “Oh, Harry, that’s a shame,” she said. “We’ve got a turkey big enough for three days. It’s in the fridge.” There was no room for his turkey and so she had to disappoint him.

  Soon he was smiling and indulging himself, anticipating the pleasure he would get giving the turkey to Tom Hill, his underpaid assistant who had just got married. Then he talked on the telephone to Tom, who had to explain his wife had bought a turkey that afternoon, and he was so apologetic and embarrassed Harry thought, “You’d think I was trying to get him to do something for me,” and he felt amused.

  He called three old friends. Two were out of town for the holiday; the other had won a turkey in a bowling alley. Then he remembered that two other friends whom he admired, sports columnists on the local newspapers, were accustomed to foregathering at this hour in a café on Bloor Street. With the turkey in his arms he took a taxi to the café, grinned jovially at the hatcheck girl who asked him to check the turkey, strode past her to the familiar corner table, laid the turkey before his astonished friends and invited them to toss for it. One telephoned his wife, the other his sister. Both had turkeys and crowded refrigerators. The hostile waiter glared at the turkey lying on the table. And Harry’s friends began to make jokes. “I’m afraid,” one said, teasing Harry and pretending to be in the theatrical business, “we have a turkey on our hands.” It was all very jolly, and he laughed too, but the fact was they didn’t appreciate that he had thought of them, and he had to pick up his turkey and go home.

  In his kitchen, standing beside the turkey, he felt irritat-ed; it was as if his brother’s wife and Tom and all his friends had joined together to deny him the satisfaction of pleasing them with a gift. And as he looked out the window at the lighted houses of his city of a million souls he suddenly felt discontented with his life which had been going so smoothly until he had to get a turkey cooked. “There’s something the matter with the world when you can’t give a turkey to anyone who knows you,” he thought. “To the devil with it.”

  Then he tried to sell the turkey to the restaurant but the manager refused to buy back a turkey he had given away. “Why don’t you try the butcher?” he asked.

  A butcher store a few blocks away on Harbord was still open, but the bald-headed butcher, pointing to his turkey-filled window, said, “Look what I have left, mister! I’ll sell you one at half price.” On the way home the big turkey seemed to take on weight, Harry’s arms ached, and he was glad when he dumped it on the kitchen table. Exhausted, he lay down and fell asleep.

  At the Christmas dinner at his brother’s place, they were surprised to hear his turkey was still on his kitchen table, and he wondered why he felt ashamed. When he got home in the evening he stared uneasily at the naked bird. “It’ll go bad,” he thought and he sniffed. Picking it up he went out and began to cross Queen’s Park. It had begun to snow. Wet dead leaves in the melting snow glistened under the park lights. Shifting the turkey from one arm to the other, he headed for a church along a side street. There he asked the white-haired man who answered the door, “Do you know anyone who would like a Christmas turkey?” He added apologetically, “It’s late, I know.”

  “It’s never too late my son,” the old man said. “I know a hundred poor families in the neighborhood who’ll appreciate a turkey. Won’t you give me your name?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Harry said awkwardly. And as soon as he felt the weight of the turkey being lifted off his arms he understood why he had felt ashamed at his brother’s place. He hadn’t been looking for someone who would appreciate a turkey. He had been looking for someone who would appreciate him.

  Getting On in the World

  That night in the tavern of the Clairmont Hotel, Henry Forbes was working at his piano and there was the usual good crowd of brokers and politicians and sporting men sitting drinking with their well-dressed women. A tall, good-natured man in the bond business, and his girl had just come up to the little green piano, and Henry let them amuse themselves playing a few tunes, and then he sat down again and ran his hand the length of the keyboard. When he looked up a girl was leaning on the piano and beaming at him.

  She was about eighteen and tall and wearing a black dress and a little black hat with a veil, and when she moved around to speak to him he saw that she had swell legs and an eager, straightforward manner.

  “I’m Tommy Gorman’s sister.”

  “Why say . . . you’re . . . ”

  “Sure, I’m Jean,” she said.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Back home in Buffalo,” she said. “Tommy told me to be sure and look you up first thing.”

  Tommy Gorman used to come into the tavern almost every night to see him before he got consumption and had to go home. So it did not seem so surprising to see his sister standing there instead. He got her a chair and let her sit beside him. In no time he saw that Tommy must have made him out to be a glamorous figure. She understood that he knew everybody in town, that big sporting men like Jake Solloway often gave him tips on the horses, and that a man like Eddie Convey, who ran city hall and was one of the hotel owners, too, called him by his first name. In fact, Tommy had told her that playing the piano wasn’t much, but that bumping into big people every night, he was apt to make a connection at any time and get a political job, or something in a stockbroker’s office.

  She seemed to join herself to him at once; her eyes were glowing, and as she swung her head looking at important clients, he couldn’t bear to tell her that the management had decided the piano wouldn’t be necessary any more, he might not be there more than two weeks.

  He sat pointing out people she might have read about in the newspapers. It all came out as if each was an old friend, yet he actually felt lonely each time he named somebody. “That’s Thompson over there with the horn-rimmed glasses. He’s the mayor’s secretary,” he said. “That’s Bill. Bill Henry over there. You know, the producer. Swell guy, Bill.” Then he rose up in his chair. “Say, look, there’s Eddie Convey,” he said. As he pointed he got excited, for the big, fresh-faced, hawk-nosed Irishman with the protruding blue eyes and the big belly had seen him pointing. He was grinning. Then he raised his right hand a little.

  “Is he a friend of yours?” Jean asked.

  “Sure he is. Didn’t you see for yourself?” he said. But it was the first time Eddie Convey had ever gone out of his way to notice him. He started chattering breathlessly about Convey, thinking all the ti
me, beneath his chatter, that if he could go to Convey and get one little word from him, and if something bigger couldn’t be found for him he at least could keep his job.

  He became so voluble and excited that he didn’t notice how delighted she was with him till it was time to take her home. She was living uptown in a rooming house where there were a lot of theatrical people. When they were sitting on the stone step a minute before she went in she told him that she had enough money saved up to last her about a month. She wanted to get a job modeling in a department store. Then he put his arm around her and there was a soft glowing wonder in her face.

  “It seems like I’ve known you for years,” she said.

  “I guess that’s because we both know Tommy.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. Then she let him kiss her hard. And as she ran into the house she called that she’d be around to the tavern again.

  It was as if she had been dreaming about him without ever having seen him. She had come running to him with her arms wide open. “I guess she’s about the softest touch that’s come my way,” he thought, going down the street. But it looked too easy. It didn’t require any ambition, and he was a little ashamed of the sudden, weakening tenderness he felt for her.

  She kept coming around every night after that and sat there while he played the piano and sometimes sang a song. When he was through for the night, it didn’t matter to her whether they went any place in particular, so he would take her home. Then they got into the habit of going to his room for a while. As he watched her fussing around, straightening the room up or maybe making a cup of coffee, he often felt like asking her what made her think she could come bouncing into town and fit into his life. But when she was listening eagerly, and kept sucking in her lower lip and smiling slowly, he felt indulgent with her. He felt she wanted to hang around because she was impressed with him.

  It was the same when she was sitting in the tavern. She used to show such enthusiasm that it became embarrassing. Henry liked a girl to look like some of the smart blondes who had a lazy, half-mocking aloofness. With Jean talking and showing all her straightforward warm eagerness, people turned and looked at her as if they’d like to reach out their hands and touch her. It made Henry feel that they looked like a couple of kids on a merry-go-round.

  A crowd from the theater came in, and Henry was feeling blue. Then he saw Eddie Convey and two middle-aged men who looked like brokers sitting at a table in the corner. When Convey seemed to smile at him, he thought bitterly that when he lost his job people like Convey wouldn’t even know him on the street. Convey was still smiling, and then he actually beckoned.

  “Gees, is he calling me?” he whispered.

  “Who?” Jean asked.

  “The big guy, Convey.” He waited till Convey called a second time. Then he got up nervously and went over to him. “Yes, Mr. Convey,” he said.

  “Sit down, son,” Convey said. His face was full of expansive indulgence as he looked at Henry and asked, “How are you doing around here?”

  “Things don’t exactly look good,” he said. “Maybe I won’t be around here much longer.”

  “Oh, stop worrying, son. Maybe we’ll be able to fix you up.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Convey.” It was all so sudden and exciting that Henry kept on bobbing his head, “Yes, Mr. Convey.”

  “How about the kid over there,” Convey said, nodding toward Jean. “Isn’t it a little lonely for her sitting around?”

  “Well, she seems to like it, Mr. Convey.”

  “She’s a nice-looking kid. Sort of fresh and — well . . . huh, fresh, that’s it.” They both turned and looked over at Jean, who was watching them, her face excited and wondering.

  “Maybe she’d like to go to a party at my place,” Convey said.

  “I’ll ask her, Mr. Convey.”

  “Why don’t you tell her to come along, see. You know, the Plaza, in about an hour. I’ll be looking for her.”

  “Sure, Mr. Convey,” he said. He was astonished that Convey wanted him to do something for him. “It’s a pleasure,” he wanted to say. But for some reason it didn’t come out.

  “Okay,” Convey said, and turned away, and Henry went back to his chair at the piano.

  “What are you so excited about?” Jean asked him.

  His eyes were shining as he looked at her little black hat and the way she held her head to one side as if she had just heard something exhilarating. He was trying to see what it was in her that had suddenly made Convey notice her. “Can you beat it!” he blurted out. “He wants you to go up to a party at his place.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.”

  “What about you?”

  “He knows I’ve got to stick around, and, besides, there may be a lot of important people there, and there’s always room at Convey’s parties for a couple of more girls.”

  “I’d rather stay here with you,” she said.

  Then they stop whispering because Convey was going out, the light catching his bald spot.

  “You got to do things like that,” Henry coaxed her.

  She let him go on telling her how important Convey was and when he had finished, she asked, “Why do I have to? Why can’t we just go over to your place?”

  “I didn’t want you to know, but it look’s like I’m through around here. Unless Convey or somebody like that steps in, I’m washed up,” he said. He took another ten minutes telling her all the things Convey could do for people.

  “All right,” she said. “If you think we have to.” But she seemed to be deeply troubled. She waited while he went over to the headwaiter and told him he’d be gone for about an hour, and then they went out and got a cab. On the way up to Convey’s place she kept quiet, with the same troubled look on her face. When they got to the apartment house and they were standing on the pavement, she turned to him. “Henry, I don’t want to go up there.”

  “It’s just a little thing. It’s just a party,” he said.

  “All right. If you say so, okay,” she said. Then she suddenly threw her arms around him. He found himself hugging her tight too. “I love you,” she said. “I knew I was going to love you when I came.” Her cheek, brushing against his, felt wet. Then she broke away.

  As he watched her running in past the doorman that embarrassing tenderness he had felt on other nights touched him again, only it didn’t flow softly by him this time. It came like a swift stab.

  In the tavern he sat looking at the piano, and his heart began to ache, and he turned around and looked at the wellfed men and their women and he heard their deep-toned voices and their lazy laughter and he suddenly felt corrupt. Never in his life had he had such a feeling. He kept listening and looking into familiar faces and he began to hate them as if they were to blame for blinding him to what was so beautiful and willing in Jean. He got his hat and went out and started to walk up to Convey’s.

  Over and over he told himself he would go right to Convey’s door and ask for her. But when he got to the apartment house and was looking up at the patches of light, he felt timid. He didn’t even know which window, which room was Convey’s. She seemed lost to him. So he walked up and down past the doorman, telling himself she would soon come running out and throw her arms around him when she found him waiting.

  It got very late. Hardly anyone came from the entrance. The doorman quit for the night. Henry ran out of cigarettes, but he was scared to leave the entrance. Then the two broker friends of Convey’s came out, with two loud-talking girls, and they called a cab and all got in and went away. “She’s staying. She’s letting him keep her up there.” He was so sore at her that he exhausted himself, and then felt weak and wanted to sit down.

  When he saw her coming out, it was nearly four o’clock in the morning. He had walked about ten paces away, and turned, and there she was on the pavement, looking back at the building.

  “Jean,” he called, and he rushed at her. When she turned, and he saw that she didn’t look a bit worried, but blooming, lazy, and pr
oud, he wanted to grab her and shake her.

  “I’ve been here for hours,” he said. “What were you doing up there? Everybody else has gone home.”

  “Have they?” she said.

  “So you stayed up there with him!” he shouted. “Like a tramp.”

  She swung her hand and smacked him on the face. Then she took a step back, appraising him contemptuously. She suddenly laughed. “Back to your piano,” she said.

  “All right, all right, you wait, I’ll show you,” he muttered. He stood watching her go down the street with a slow, self-satisfied sway of her body.

  The Novice

  The novices used to walk by the high brick wall dividing Dr. Stanton’s property from the convent garden and whisper that soon the Mother Superior’s prayers would be answered and the doctor would sell his house to her. For five years the Mother Superior had been trying to buy it from the bigoted old man, to use it as a residence.

  The Mistress of novices had asked them to pray that the doctor, who had declared his old home would never be part of such an institution, might be persuaded to change his mind. The Mistress pointed out that God was often more willing to grant favors when the prayers came from fresh eager young souls. Sister Mary Rose, who had been a novice for four weeks, and who was determined to endure all the hardships till she one day became a nun, listened to the Mistress telling how she might help the convent. Sister Mary Rose was a well-built slender girl with a round smooth face who looked charming in the habit with the little black cape. She was suffering none of the pains and troubles of some of the novices; the plain food was almost tasteless at first but she ate hungrily; she got to like immensely the well-buttered slice of bread they had at collation hour in the morning; her body ached at first from the hard bed but, to herself, she insisted she did not feel the pains, enduring this small discomfort much more readily than Sister Perpetua, who secretly stretched her pillow out lengthwise every night so her shoulder blades and hips would be well protected. Already two or three of the novices who had sharp pains in the back, or who had lost all appetite, were taking it as a sign that they really did not have a vocation and were wondering how much longer they would stay at the convent. Because she had such very good health, Sister Mary Rose hoped she might be an instrument of great blessing to the convent.