The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Two Page 5

  In the evenings, after ten o’clock feeding-time, she would go into the nursery when the lights were turned down looking at one small crib after another with an expert eye that made the nurse in charge wary. But she stood by Baby Macsorley’s crib, frowning, puzzled by her own uneasiness. She lifted the baby up as though to see it for the first time. The baby was wearing a little pink sweater coat one of the nurses had knitted. Sister Bernadette knew that Baby Macsorley had become the pet of the nursery. Only last night one of the nurses had performed a mock marriage between the baby and another fine baby boy who was being taken home that day. When she put the baby back into the crib she found herself kissing her on the forehead and patting her back, as she hoped, quickly, that no one had seen her.

  As soon as she saw Doctor Mallory next day she blurted out, “If you don’t get that baby out of here by tomorrow, I’ll throw it in the snowbank.”

  Doctor Mallory was a bit afraid of her now, for he knew that she was a determined woman, so he said, pleading, “Wait till tomorrow. I’m trying to get one particular lady to adopt it. Wait till tomorrow. I’m working with her.”

  “You’ll have to work faster, that’s all,” Sister Bernadette said, without even smiling.

  Instead of one day, she waited two days longer, but now she was so angry that whenever she went into the nursery and saw the baby, she felt herself resenting the young mother with the candid blue eyes and the baby blond curls and the bold straightforward lover who came so openly to the hospital and felt no shame. Once Sister Bernadette picked the baby up and then put it down hastily for she felt with disgust that the sordidness in the life of the mother and father might be touching her through the baby and disturbing her too much. “I can’t go on thinking of those people,” she muttered, “the baby goes out of here tomorrow.”

  But Doctor Mallory was avoiding her and she didn’t have a chance to speak to him for three days. She saw him turn a corner and duck into an elevator. “Doctor,” she called, “listen to me. I’m going to put that baby in the rear seat of your car and let you drive off with it. We’re through with it.”

  “Why, what’s the trouble now, Sister?” he said.

  “It’s demoralizing my nursery. I’ll not have it,” she said. “It’s the pet of the whole place. Every nurse that goes in there at night picks it up. The baby’s been here too long, I tell you.”

  “But just thinking about it surely doesn’t bother you?”

  “It certainly does. It’s staring me in the face every moment.”

  “Here’s some cheerful news then. Maybe you’ll be rid of the baby tomorrow. I’m getting an answer from the lady I wanted to adopt it tonight.”

  “Honestly, Doctor, you don’t know how glad I am to hear that,” she said, taking a deep breath.

  There was such light-hearted relief within Sister Bernadette when she entered the nursery that night that she had a full, separate smile for each baby as she moved, a tall, black-robed figure, amount the cribs. When she stood beside Baby Macsorley’s crib, she began to chuckle, feeling it might now be safe to let the baby have some of the warm attention she had sometimes wanted to give. She seemed to know this baby so much better than all the other babies. Humming to herself, she picked up the baby, patted her on the back and whispered, “Are you really going away tomorrow, darling?”

  Carrying the baby over to the window she stood there looking down at the city which was spread out in lighted streets with glaring electric signs and moving cabs, the life of a great city at night moving under her eyes. Somewhere, down there, she thought, the bold young girl with the confident eyes and her lover were going their own way. As she held their baby in her arms, she muttered, frowning, “But perhaps they really are in love. Maybe they’re out dancing.” The girl and her lover belonged to the life down there in the city. “But that man ought to be home with his wife,” she thought uneasily.

  Sister Bernadette began to think of herself as a young girl again. For the first time in years she was disturbed by dim, half-forgotten thoughts: “Oh, why do I want so much to keep this one baby? Why this one?” Her soul, so chaste and aloof from the unbridled swarm in the city streets, was now overwhelmed by a struggle between something of life that was lost and something bright and timeless within her that was gained. But she started to tremble all over with more unhappiness than she had ever known. With a new, mysterious warmth, she began to hug the child that was almost hidden in her heavy black robes as she pressed it to her breast.

  Last Spring They Came Over

  A lfred Bowles came to Canada from England and got a job on a Toronto paper. He was a young fellow with clear, blue eyes and heavy pimples on the lower part of his face, the son of a Baptist minister whose family was too large for his salary. He got thirty dollars a week on the paper and said it was surprisingly good screw to start. For five dollars a week he got an attic room in a brick house painted brown on Mutual Street. He ate his meals in a quick-lunch near the office. He bought a cane and a light-gray fedora.

  He wasn’t a good reporter but was inoffensive and obliging. After he had been working two weeks the fellows took it for granted he would be fired in a little while and were nice to him, liking the way the most trifling occurrences surprised him. He was happy to carry his cane on his arm and wear the fedora at a jaunty angle, quite the reporter. He liked to explain that he was doing well. He wrote home about it.

  When they put him doing night police he felt important, phoning the fire department, hospitals, and police stations, trying to be efficient. He was getting along all right. It was disappointing when after a week the assistant city editor, Mr. H.J. Brownson, warned him to phone his home if anything important happened, and he would have another man cover it. But Bowles got to like hearing the weary, irritable voice of the assistant city editor called from his bed at three o’clock in the morning. He like to politely call Mr. Brownson as often and as late as possible, thinking it a bit of good fun.

  Alfred wrote long letters to his brother and to his father, carefully tapping the keys, occasionally laughing to himself. In a month’s time he had written six letters describing the long city room, the fat belly of the city editor, and the bad words the night editor used when speaking of the Orangemen.

  The night editor took a fancy to him because of the astounding puerility of his political opinions. Alfred was always willing to talk pompously of the British Empire policing the world and about all Catholics being aliens, and the future of Ireland and Canada resting with the Orangemen. He flung his arms wide and talked in the hoarse voice of a bad actor, but no one would have thought of taking him seriously. He was merely having a dandy time. The night editor liked him because he was such a nice boy.

  Then Alfred’s brother came out from the Old Country, and got a job on the same paper. Some of the men started talking about cheap cockney laborers crowding the good guys out of the jobs, but Harry Bowles was frankly glad to get the thirty a week. It never occurred to him that he had a funny idea of good money. With his first pay he bought a derby hat, a pair of spats, and a cane, but even though his face was clear and had a good color he never looked as nice as his younger brother because his heavy nose curved up at the end. The landlady on Mutual Street moved a double bed into Alfred’s room and Harry slept with his brother.

  The days passed with many good times together. At first it was awkward that Alfred should be working nights and his brother the days, but Harry was pleased to come to the office each night at eleven and they went down the street to the hotel that didn’t bother about Prohibition. They drank a few glasses of good beer. It became a kind of rite that had to be performed carefully. Harry would put his left foot and Alfred his right foot on the rail and leaning an elbow on the bar they would slowly survey the zigzag line of frothing glasses the length of the long bar. Men jostled them for a place at the foot-rail.

  Alfred said: “Well, a bit of luck.”

  Harry, grinning and raising his glass, said: “Righto.”

  “It’s the stuf
f that heals.”

  “Down she goes.”

  “It helps the night along.”

  “Fill them up again.”

  “Toodle-oo.”

  Then they would walk out of the crowded barroom, vaguely pleased with themselves. Walking slowly and erectly along the street they talked with assurance, a mutual respect for each other’s opinion making it merely an exchange of information. They talked of the Englishman in Canada, comparing his lot with that of the Englishman in South Africa and India. They had never traveled but to ask what they knew of strange lands would have made one feel uncomfortable; it was better to take it for granted that the Bowles boys knew all about the ends of the earth and had judged them carefully, for in their eyes was the light of far-away places. Once in a while, after walking a block or two, one of the brothers would say he would damn well like to see India and the other would say it would be simply topping.

  After work and on Sundays they took a look at the places they had heard about in the city. One Sunday they got up in good time and took the boat to Niagara. Their father had written asking if they had seen the Falls and would they send some souvenirs. That day they had as nice a time as a man would want to have. Standing near the pipe-rail a little way from the hotel that overlooks the Falls they watched the waterline just before the drop, smooth as a long strip of beveled glass, and Harry compared it favorably with a cataract in the Himalayas and a giant waterfall in Africa, just above the Congo. They took a car along the gorge and getting off near the whirlpool, picked out a little hollow near a big rock at the top of the embankment where the grass was lush and green. They stretched themselves out with hats tilted over their eyes for sunshades. The river whirled below. They talked about the funny ways of Mr. Brownson and his short fat legs and about the crazy women who fainted at the lifted hand of the faith healer who was in the city for a week. They liked the distant rumble of the Falls. They agreed to try and save a lot of money and go west to the Pacific in a year’s time. They never mentioned trying to get a raise in pay.

  Afterwards they each wrote home about the trip, sending the souvenirs.

  Neither one was doing well on the paper. Harry wasn’t much good because he hated writing the plain copy and it was hard for him to be strictly accurate. He liked telling a good tale but it never occurred to him that he was deliberately lying. He imagined a thing and felt it to be true. But it never occurred to Alfred to depart from the truth. He was accurate but lazy, never knowing when he was really working. He was taken off night police and for two weeks helped a man do courts at the City Hall. He got to know the boys at the press gallery, who smiled at his naïve sincerity and thought him a decent chap, without making up their minds about him. Every noon hour Harry came to the press gallery and the brothers, sitting at typewriters, wrote long letters about the country and the people, anything interesting, and after exchanging letters, tilted back in their swivel chairs, laughing out loud. Neither, when in the press gallery, seemed to write anything for the paper.

  Some of the men tried kidding Alfred, teasing him about women, asking if he found the girls in this country to his liking; but he seemed to enjoy it more than they did. Seriously he explained that he had never met a girl in this country, but they looked very nice. Once Alfred and Bun Brophy, a red-headed fellow with a sharp tongue who did City Hall for the paper, were alone in the gallery. Brophy had in his hands a big picture of five girls in masquerade costumes. Without explaining that he loved one of the girls Brophy asked Bowles which of the lot was the prettiest.

  “You want me to settle that,” said Alfred, grinning and waving his pipe. He very deliberately selected a demure little girl with a shy smile.

  Brophy was disappointed. “Don’t you think this one is pretty?” — a colorful, bold-looking girl.

  “Well, she’s all right in her way, but she’s too vivacious.

  I’ll take this one. I like them kittenish,” Alfred said.

  Brophy wanted to start an argument but Alfred said it was neither here nor there. He really didn’t like women.

  “You mean to say you never step out?” Brophy said.

  “I’ve never seemed to mix with them,” he said, adding that the whole business didn’t matter because he liked men much better.

  The men in the press room heard about it and some suggested nasty things to Alfred. It was hard to tease him when he wouldn’t be serious. Sometimes they asked if he took Harry out walking in the evenings. Brophy called them the heavy lovers. The brothers didn’t mind because they thought the fellows were having a little fun.

  In the fall Harry was fired. The editor in a nice note said that he was satisfied Mr. H.W. Bowles could not adapt himself to their methods. But everybody wondered why he hadn’t been fired sooner. He was no good on the paper.

  The brothers smiled, shrugged their shoulders and went on living together. Alfred still had his job. Every noon hour in the City Hall press room they were together, writing letters.

  Time passed and the weather got cold. Alfred’s heavy coat came from the Old Country and he gave his vest and a thin sweater to Harry, who had only a light spring coat. As the weather got colder Harry buttoned his coat higher up on his throat and even though he looked cold he was neat as a pin with his derby and cane.

  Then Alfred lost his job. The editor, disgusted, called him a fool. For the first time since coming over last spring he felt hurt, something inside him was hurt and he told his brother about it, wanting to know why people acted in such a way. He said he had been doing night police. On the way over to No. 1 station very late Thursday night he had met two men from other papers. They told him about a big fire earlier in the evening just about the time when Alfred was accustomed to going to the hotel to have a drink with his brother. They were willing to give all the details and Alfred thankfully shook hands with them and hurried back to the office to write the story. Next morning the assistant city editor phoned Alfred and asked how it was the morning papers missed the story. Alfred tried to explain but Mr. Brownson said he was a damn fool for not phoning the police and making sure instead of trying to make the paper look like a pack of fools printing a fake story. The fellows who had kidded him said that too. Alfred kept asking his brother why the follows had to do it. He seemed to be losing a good feeling for people.

  Still the brothers appeared at noontime in the press room. They didn’t write so many letters. They were agreeable, cheerful, on good terms with everybody. Bun Brophy every day asked how they were doing and they felt at home there. Harry would stand for a while watching the checker game always in progress, knowing that if he stood staring intently at the black and red squares, watching every deliberate move, he would be asked to sit in when it was necessary that one of the players make the rounds in the hall. Once Brophy gave Harry his place and walked over to the window where Alfred stood watching the fleet of automobiles arranged in a square in the courtyard. The police wagon with a load of drunks was backing toward the cells.

  “Alfie, I often wonder how you guys manage,” he said.

  “Oh, first rate.”

  “Well, you ought to be in a bad way by now.”

  “Oh, no, we have solved the problem,” said Alfie in a grand way, grinning. There was a store in their block, he said, where a package of tobacco could be got for five cents; they did their own cooking and were able to live on five dollars a week. “What about coming over and having tea with us sometimes?” Alfred said.

  Brophy, abashed, suggested the three of them go over to the café and have a little toast. Harry talked volubly on the way over and while having coffee. He was really a better talker than his brother. They sat in an armchair lunch, gripped the handles of their thick mugs, and talked about religion. The brothers were sons of a Baptist minister but never thought of going to church. It seemed that Brophy had traveled a lot during wartime and afterward in Asia Minor and India. He was telling them about a great golden temple of the Sikhs at Amritsar and Harry listened carefully, asking many questions. Then they talk
ed about newspapers until Harry started talking about the East, slowly feeling his way. All of a sudden he told about standing on a height of land near Amritsar, looking down at a temple. It couldn’t have been so but he would have it that Brophy and he had seen the same temple and he described the country in the words Brophy had used. Alfred liked listening to his brother but he said: “Religion is a funny business. I tell you it’s a funny business.” Alfred had a casual way of making a cherished belief or opinion seem unimportant, a way of dismissing even the bright yearns of his brother.

  After that afternoon in the café Brophy never saw Harry. Alfred came often to the City Hall but never mentioned his brother. Someone said maybe Harry had a job but Alfred laughed and said no such luck in this country, explaining casually that Harry had a bit of a cold and was resting up. In the passing days Alfred came only once in a while to the City Hall, writing his letter without enthusiasm.

  The press men would have tried to help the brothers if they had heard Harry was sick. They were entirely ignorant of the matter. On a Friday afternoon at three-thirty Alfred came into the gallery and, smiling apologetically, told Brophy that his brother was dead; the funeral was to be in three-quarters of an hour; would he mind coming? It was pneumonia, he added. Brophy, looking hard at Alfred, put on his hat and coat and they went out.

  It was a poor funeral. The hearse went on before along the way to the Anglican cemetery that overlooks the ravine. One old cab followed behind. There had been a heavy snow in the morning, and the slush on the pavement was thick. Alfred and Brophy sat in the old cab, silent. Alfred was leaning forward, his chin resting on his hands, the cane acting as a support, and the heavy pimples stood out on the lower part of his white face. Brophy was uncomfortable and chilly but he mopped his shining forehead with a big handkerchief. The window was open and the air was cold and damp.