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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781550961102 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Exile Editions |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2008 |
| Series: | Exile Classics series , #11 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 158 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Morley Callaghan was an award-winning author of numerous books, including A Broken Journey, It's Never Over, More Joy in Heaven, Such is My Beloved, and That Summer in Paris. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Canadian Governor General's Award for Fiction. He died in 1990.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
ALL THE YEARS OF HER LIFE
They were closing the drugstore, and Alfred Higgins, who had just taken off his white jacket, was putting on his coat getting ready to go home. The little grey-haired man, Sam Carr, who owned the drugstore, was bending down behind the cash register, and when Alfred Higgins passed him, he looked up and said softly, "Just a moment, Alfred. One moment before you go."
The soft, confident, quiet way in which Sam Carr spoke made Alfred start to button his coat nervously. He felt sure his face was white. Sam Carr usually said, "Good night," brusquely, without looking up. In the six months he had been working in the drugstore Alfred had never heard his employer speak softly like that. His heart began to beat so loud it was hard for him to get his breath. "What is it, Mr. Carr?" he asked.
"Maybe you'd be good enough to take a few things out of your pocket and leave them here before you go," Sam Carr said.
"What things? What are you talking about?"
"You've got a compact and a lipstick and at least two tubes of toothpaste in your pockets, Alfred."
"What do you mean? Do you think I'm crazy?" Alfred blustered. His face got red and he knew he looked fierce with indignation. But Sam Carr, standing by the door with his blue eyes shining brightly behind his glasses and his lips moving underneath his grey moustache, only nodded his head a few times, and then Alfred grew very frightened and he didn't know what to say. Slowly he raised his hand and dipped it into his pocket, and with his eyes never meeting Sam Carr's eyes, he took out a blue compact and two tubes of toothpaste and a lipstick, and he laid them one by one on the counter.
"Petty thieving, eh, Alfred?" Sam Carr said. "And maybe you'd be good enough to tell me how long this has been going on."
"This is the first time I ever took anything."
"So now you think you'll tell me a lie, eh? I don't know what goes on in my own store? You've been doing this pretty steady," Sam Carr said as he went over and stood behind the cash register.
Ever since Alfred had left school he had been getting into trouble wherever he worked. He lived at home with his mother and his father, who was a printer. His two older brothers were married and his sister had got married last year, and it would have been all right for his parents if Alfred had only been able to keep a job.
While Sam Carr smiled and stroked the side of his face very delicately with the tips of his fingers, Alfred began to feel a fright growing in him that had been in him every time he had got into such trouble.
"I liked you," Sam Carr was saying. "I liked you and would have trusted you." While Alfred watched, his pale eyes alert, Sam Carr drummed with his fingers on the counter. "I don't like to call a cop in point-blank," he was saying, very worried. "You're a fool, and maybe I should call your father and tell him you're a fool. Maybe I should let them know I'm going to have you locked up."
"My father's not at home. He's a printer. He works nights," Alfred said.
"Who's at home?"
"My mother, I guess."
"Then we'll see what she says." Sam Carr went to the phone and dialed the number.
Alfred was not ashamed, but there was that deep fright growing in him, and he blurted out arrogantly, like a strong, full-grown man, "Just a minute. You don't need to draw anybody else in. You don't need to tell her." Yet the old, childish hope was in him, too, the longing that someone at home would come and help him.
"Yeah, that's right, he's in trouble," Mr. Carr was saying. "Yeah, your boy works for me. You'd better come down in a hurry." And when he was finished Mr. Carr went over to the door and looked out at the street and watched the people passing in the late summer night. "I'll keep my eye out for a cop," was all he said.
Alfred knew how his mother would come rushing in with her eyes blazing, or maybe she would be crying, and she would push him away when he tried to talk to her, and make him feel her dreadful contempt; yet he longed that she might come before Mr. Carr saw the cop on the beat passing the door.
While they waited – and it seemed a long time – they did not speak, and when at last they heard someone tapping on the closed door, Mr. Carr, turning the latch, said crisply, "Come in, Mrs. Higgins." He looked hard-faced and stern.
Mrs. Higgins must have been going to bed when he telephoned, for her hair was tucked in loosely under her hat, and her hand at her throat held her light coat tight across her chest so her dress would not show. She came in, large and plump, with a little smile on her friendly face. Most of the store lights had been turned out and at first she did not see Alfred, who was standing in the shadow at the end of the counter. Yet as soon as she saw him she did not look as Alfred thought she would look: she smiled, her grey eyes never wavered, and with a calmness and dignity that made them forget that her clothes seemed to have been thrown on her, she put out her hand to Mr. Carr and said politely, "I'm Mrs. Higgins. I'm Alfred's mother."
Mr. Carr was a bit embarrassed by her lack of fear and her simplicity, and he hardly knew what to say to her, so she asked, "Is Alfred in trouble?"
"He is. He's been taking things from the store. I caught him red-handed. Little things like compacts and toothpaste and lipsticks. Stuff he can sell easily," the proprietor said.
As she listened Mrs. Higgins looked at Alfred and nodded her head sadly, and when Sam Carr had finished she said gravely, "Is it so, Alfred?"
"Yes."
"Why have you been doing it?"
"I've been spending money, I guess."
"On what?'"
"Going around with the guys, I guess," Alfred said.
Mrs. Higgins put out her hand and touched Sam Carr's arm with an understanding gentleness, and speaking as though afraid of disturbing him, she said, "If you would only listen to me before doing anything." Her simple earnestness made her shy; her humility made her falter and look away, but in a moment she was smiling gravely again, and she said with a patient dignity, "What did you intend to do, Mr. Carr?"
"I was going to get a cop. That's what I ought to do."
"Yes, I suppose so. It's not for me to say, because he's my son. Yet I sometimes think a little good advice is the best thing for a boy when he's at a certain period in his life," she said.
Alfred couldn't understand his mother's quiet composure, for if they had been at home and someone had suggested that he was going to be arrested, he knew she would be in a rage and would cry out against him. Yet now she was standing there with that gentle, pleading smile on her face, saying, "I wonder if you don't think it would be better just to let him come home with me. He looks a big fellow, doesn't he? It takes some of them a long time to get any sense," and they both stared at Alfred, who shifted away, a cosmetic showcase light shining for a moment on his thin face and the tiny pimples over his cheekbone.
But even while turning away uneasily Alfred realized that Mr. Carr had become aware that his mother was really a fine woman; he knew that Sam Carr was puzzled by his mother, as if he had expected her to come in and plead with him tearfully, and instead he was being made to feel a bit ashamed by her vast tolerance. While there was only the sound of the mother's soft, assured voice in the store, Mr. Carr began to nod his head encouragingly at her. Without being alarmed, while being just large and still and simple and hopeful, she was becoming dominant there in the dimly lit store. "Of course, I don't want to be harsh," Mr. Carr was saying, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll just fire him and let it go at that. How's that?" and he got up and shook hands with Mrs. Higgins, bowing low to her in deep respect.
There was such warmth and gratitude in the way she said, "I'll never forget your kindness," that Mr. Carr began to feel warm and genial himself.
"Sorry we had to meet this way," he said. "But I'm glad I got in touch with you. Just wanted to do the right thing, that's all," he said.
"It's better to meet like this than never, isn't it?" she said. Suddenly they clasped hands as if they liked each other, as if they had known each other a long time. "Good night, sir," she said.
"Good night, Mrs. Higgins. I'm truly sorry," he said.
The mother and son walked along the street together, and the mother was taking a long, firm stride as she looked ahead with her stern face full of worry. Alfred was afraid to speak to her. He was afraid of the silence that was between them, so he only looked ahead too, for the excitement and relief was still strong in him; but in a little while, going along like that in silence made him terribly aware of the strength and the sternness in her; he began to wonder what she was thinking of as she stared ahead so grimly; she seemed to have forgotten that he walked beside her; so when they were passing under the Sixth Avenue elevated and the rumble of the train seemed to break the silence, he said in his old, blustering way, "Thank God it turned out like that. I certainly won't get in a jam like that again."
"Be quiet. Don't speak to me. You've disgraced me again and again," she said bitterly.
"That's the last time. That's all I'm saying."
"Have the decency to be quiet," she snapped.
They kept on their way, looking straight ahead.
When they were at home and his mother took off her coat, Alfred saw that she was really only half-dressed, and she made him feel afraid again when she said, without even looking at him, "You're a bad lot. God forgive you. It's one thing after another and always has been. Why do you stand there stupidly? Go to bed, why don't you?" When he was going, she said, "I'll make myself a cup of tea. Mind, now, not a word about tonight to your father."
While Alfred was undressing in his bedroom, he heard his mother moving around the kitchen. She filled the kettle and put it on the stove. She moved a chair. And as he listened there was no shame in him, just wonder and a kind of admiration of her strength and repose. He could still see Sam Carr nodding his head encouragingly to her; he could hear her talking simply and earnestly, and as he sat on his bed he felt a pride in her strength. "She certainly was smooth," he thought.
At last he got up and went along to the kitchen, and when he was at the door he saw his mother pouring herself a cup of tea. He watched and he didn't move. Her face, as she sat there, was a frightened, broken face utterly unlike the face of the woman who had been so assured a little while ago in the drugstore. When she reached out and lifted the kettle to pour hot water in her cup, her hand trembled and the water splashed on the stove. Leaning back in the chair, she sighed and lifted the cup to her lips, and her lips were groping loosely as if they would never reach the cup. She swallowed the hot tea and then she straightened up in relief, though her hand holding the cup still trembled. She looked very old.
It seemed to Alfred that this was the way it had been every time he had been in trouble before, that this trembling had really been in her as she hurried out half-dressed to the drugstore. He understood why she had sat alone in the kitchen the night his young sister had kept repeating doggedly that she was getting married. Now he felt all that his mother had been thinking of as they walked along the street together a little while ago. He watched his mother, and he never spoke, but at that moment his youth seemed to be over; he knew all the years of her life by the way her hand trembled as she raised the cup to her lips.
CHAPTER 2DAY BY DAY
Late afternoon sunlight tipped the end of the bench in the park where pretty young Mrs. Winslow was resting a moment before walking home. For hours she had wandered through the department stores, looking in all the shop windows, and had finally begun to feel a quiet contentment in her heart. Every afternoon when she went out, she tried to look gay, attractive, and carefree. Now, glancing idly at an old man who bobbed his head as he passed, she hoped she would never lose this contentment. Only a few slight changes in her life, she felt, would make her happy forever.
She sat absolutely still on the bench and the sunlight no longer shone directly on the park. The sun was dipping out of sight behind the office buildings. Two well-dressed young men who were crossing by the bench turned their heads so they could see her, and one whispered something to the other and she knew they had looked at her with admiration. Mrs. Winslow became so delighted with her own peace of mind that she began to long for the few small things that ought to go with it. All of a sudden she felt like saying a prayer, but then her heart became so humble in its eagerness that she could say nothing. Her silence and her wish really became more eloquent than any prayer she could make. Timidly at first, as though it were hard to get it clear, she began to ask God to make her husband content without any suspicion of her. She asked that she might never be permitted to do anything that might make John think he was losing her. If they could only go on living together as they had done two years ago, when they first got married, she would be satisfied. She was not complaining that their plans had failed, that bad fortune was always with them, or that her husband went from one job to another and the work was always less suited to him. "What is there about me that makes him feel so uneasy?" she asked. "If I say I'm going shopping he seems suspicious, and if I dress up and put on rouge it makes him jealous. I'd stay at home all the time and wouldn't mind looking dowdy if I thought it would make him happy." Then she said, in her quiet little prayer: "Just let us go on loving each other as we used to before we were married."
She leaned back on the bench, full of rich inner consolation. It was so nice to sit on the bench and close her eyes and pretend it was the time three years ago when she and John were going dancing, first driving out to a wayside inn that served a famous chicken dinner. There had been three such fine full years before they had got married; just closing her eyes, she could see the way he used to grin and wave his hand high over his head when he came to the door to see her. She sat there with her hands in her lap, having this very satisfactory dream, without noticing that it had become twilight and many people were passing. At last she looked up at the pale lights in the office buildings around the park, sighed deeply, and then, as though awakening, said: "Oh, my goodness, what time is it?" She got up and started to hurry home.
Traffic was heavy on the streets; everybody was hurrying; but for a moment she stood on the pavement, a tall, inexpensively dressed but distinguished-looking woman whose thoughts were still so pleasing to her that she was radiant. She wished she were home so she could share her happiness; then she thought: "What's got into me? John will be home waiting. I ought to be ashamed of myself." She lived only a few blocks from the corner and she had a childish hope that somehow she might get home before her husband. When she got to the apartment, she was out of breath.
As soon as she opened the door, she heard John moving in the kitchen, moving from the cupboard to the table putting down plates for the dinner that had not been prepared. He was a tall, thin young man with short-cropped, fair, curling hair, a lean boyish face, a small, fair moustache, and worried blue eyes. He was wearing a white shirt frayed at the sleeve and old grey, unpressed trousers. For the past two months, he had had a job, a temporary one he hoped, collecting installments for a publishing house, and his thin face looked tired. When his wife saw him, she suddenly felt ashamed of her sleek hair and red lips, and more ashamed of being late. "John, darling, sit down," she said, hurrying to put on an apron. "I was out shopping and I'm late. I'm awfully sorry." But she couldn't quite take the expression of warm, secret contentment off her face.
"You'd think you'd get tired being out all the time," he grumbled as he sat down and crossed his long legs. She looked so flushed and out of breath and so neat and pretty, still glowing from hurrying and from the animation of her thoughts, he frowned and said: "You were shopping, Madge?"
"Not really," she laughed. "I didn't bring anything home."
"You're dressed up every afternoon as if you'd been some place."
"There's no harm in window shopping if I don't spend anything," she said quickly.
"Remind me that you ought to have something to spend."
"I never mention it."
"But you think it. You're so patient about it. God knows, if I thought you were more contented, I might do better."
She was so surprised, she felt like crying.
"Please don't say I'm not contented, John, please don't."
But as she watched him shift his body around on the chair, and then let his hands drop between his knees, she knew he hadn't said yet what was in his mind, and what had been agitating him while he waited for her to come home. Like a sullen boy, he suddenly blurted out: "What kept you so late, Madge? Where were you?"
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The New Yorker Stories"
by .
Copyright © 2008 The Estate of Morley Callaghan.
Excerpted by permission of Exile Editions Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface,
All the Years of Her Life,
Day by Day,
The Snob,
Silk Stockings,
The White Pony,
An Escapade,
Ellen,
Their Mother's Purse,
The Shining Red Apple,
One Spring Night,
Timothy Harshaw's Flute,
Younger Brother,
The Faithful Wife,
The Red Hat,
The Duel,
Absolution,
The Voyage Out,
The Bride,
The Chiseler,
Lunch Counter,
The Rejected One,
"Toronto's Callaghan" from Saturday Night,
Questions for Discussion and Essays,
Related Reading,
Of Interest on the Web,