Read Online Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright - Free Book Online Page B

138 East 38th Street
New York
April 29, 1935
    Dear Clara,
    I’m glad you’re feeling better about life in general, but I wish you wouldn’t be so descriptive. That bit about laying a paring knife against your wrists! I don’t particularly enjoy reading that kind of thing from my sister, even if you were just kidding. I still think you should talk to someone about religion, or maybe read some books on the subject. Going to church and believing in God have been an important part of your life, Clara. You can’t just cast things like that aside. We all need to believe in something. It’s only human nature.
    As for your sarcastic questions! Yes, I’m still doing some freelance work on shows. I’m still calling for Dr. Donaldson to do his rounds at the hospital. I’ve also been a patient of his (I was shot by a gangster boyfriend). It’s funny. For some reason producers hear my voice and see me not only as the helpful sister, but also as the tough dame who hangs around hoodlums. No, Les Cunningham has made no passes at me. In fact, I haven’t seen Les for a while, though he’s been chosen to announce our show and so I guess we’ll be working together. We go on the air in two weeks, by the way, so wish me luck. I’ve lost about six pounds over the last month and I’ve had my hair cut really short. I’ll bet you wouldn’t recognize me. But I’m saving the best news forlast. I think I can now afford my own place and so I am moving next Saturday into a little apartment five streets from here. My new address will be 135 East Thirty-third Street. My very own place,
Clara! No more sharing the bathroom with nine other girls!!! Hope all is well up in dear old Whitfield.
    Love, Nora
Sunday, May 19
    Walked out to the cemetery this morning. Past the church where I could hear the voices of the congregation.
Unto the hills around do I lift up
My longing eyes,
O whence for me shall my salvation come,
From whence arise?
From God the Lord doth come my certain aid,
From God the Lord who heaven and earth hath made.
    One of Father’s favourites, and how many times did I stand beside him singing that hymn? Felt a little strange walking there on the empty street in my old brown coat, carrying the garden shears and trowel in a cloth bag. Saw myself as others might; as a woman in an old brown coat turning a bit odd in her middle years. I was glad to get beyond the village and out into the country with the sunlight on my face and the smell of the ploughed fields around me.
    Spent an hour or so tidying up the grave. I should really have planted something, geraniums perhaps. Yet the plain clipped grass seemed to suit Father best. His name and years are like fresh wounds in the grey stone. Stood listening to some crows across the fields near a woodlot. They were chasing a marauding hawk that was swooping and climbing to avoid them. All those dark birds against a blue sky.
Friday, May 24
    Victoria Day with flags and bunting on storefronts and verandas. Warm and sunny and two busloads off to Linden for the parade. What a fuss people make over an old dead queen! At noon two tramps came to the kitchen door and asked if I wanted my summer wood split and piled. One fellow was about thirty, tall and thin in overalls with an old suit coat and cap. He had a wide comical mouth and was talkative and eager to please. The other was sixteen or so, a homely boy and simple-minded from the look of him. He had a short thick body and a walleye. I had misgivings, but I set them to work, watching from the kitchen window. To their credit they worked steadily all afternoon, the man splitting and the boy piling the wood in neat rows against the side of the shed. They finished about five o’clock and I took out some food to them: cold pork and mustard sandwiches, some tea and half an apple pie. They sat on the back stoop to eat. When they finished their meal, I gave them a package of sandwiches with the rest of the
pie and a dollar. I was certainly pleased with