All the Years of Her Life

MORLEY CALAGHAN

The drug store was beginning to close for the night. Young Alfred Higgins who worked in the store was putting on his coat, getting ready to go home. On his way out, he passed Mr. Sam Carr, the little gray hair man who owned the store. Mr. Carr looked up at Alfred as he passed and said in a very soft voice, ''Just a moment, Alfred, one moment before you go.''

Mr. Carr spoke so quietly that he worried Alfred. ''What is it, Mr. Carr?''

''Maybe you'd be good enough to take a few things out of your pockets and leave them here before you go.'' Said Mr. Carr.

''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?'' Alfred answered. ''Do you think I am crazy?'' His face got red.

Mr. Carr kept looking at Alfred, coldly. Alfred did not know what to say and tried to keep his eyes from meeting the eyes of his boss. After a few moments, he put his hand into his pockets and took out the things he had stolen.

''Petty thieving, eh, Alfred?'' said Mr. Carr. ''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.''

Mr. Carr was quick to answer, ''So now you think you tell me a lie? What kind of a fool do I look like, hah? I don't know what goes on in my own store, eh? I/ tell you, you have been doing this for a long time.'' Mr. Carr had a strange smile on his face. ''I don’t like to call the police,'' he said, ''but maybe I should call your father and let him know I'm going to have to put you in jail.''

''My father is not home, he is a printer, he works nights.''

''Who is at home?''Mr. Carr asked.

''My mother, I think.''

Mr. Carr started to go to the phone. Alfred's fears made him raise his voice. He wanted to show he was afraid of nobody. He acted this way every time he got into trouble. This had happened many times since he left school. At such times, he always spoke in a loud voice as he did tonight.

"Just a minute!" He said to Mr. Carr. "You don't have to get anybody else into this, you don't have to tell her." Alfred tried to sound big, but deep down he was like a child. He hoped that someone at home would come quickly to save him. But Mr. Carr was already talking to his mother, he told her to come to the store in a hurry.

Alfred thought his mother would come rushing in, eyes burning with anger. Maybe she would be crying and would push him away when he tried to explain to her. She would make him feel so small. Yet he wanted her to come quickly before Mr. Carr called in a policeman.

Alfred and Mr. Carr waited but said nothing, at last they heard someone at the closed door. Mr. Carr opened it and said, "Come in, Mrs. Higgins." His face was hard and serious. Alfred's mother came in with a friendly smile on her face and put out her hand to Mr. Carr and said politely, "I am Mrs. Higgins, Alfred's mother."

Mr. Carr was surprised at the way she came in. She was very calm, quiet and friendly. "Is Alfred in trouble?" Mrs. Higgins asked.

"He is, he has been taking things from the store, little things like toothpaste and lipsticks, things he can easily sell."

Mrs. Higgins looked at her son and said sadly,"Is it so, Alfred?"

"Yes".

"Why have you been doing it?" she asked.

"I've been spending money, I believe."

"On what?"

"Going around with the boys, I guess." said Alfred.

Mrs. Higgins put out her hand and touched Mr. Carr's arm with great gentleness as if she knew just how he felt. She spoke as if she did not want to cause him any more trouble. She said, "If you will just listen to me before doing anything." Her voice was cool and she turned her head away as if she had said too much already. Then she looked again at Mr.Carr with a pleasant smile and asked, "What do you want to do, Mr.Carr?"

"I was going to get a cop. That is what I should do, call a police."

She answered, "Yes, I think so, it's not for me to say because he is my son. Yet I sometimes think a little good advice is the best thing for a boy at certain times in his life."

Mrs. Higgins looks like a different woman to her son Alfred. There she was with a gentle smile saying, "I wonder if you don't think it would be better just to let him come home with me. He looks like a big fellow, doesn't he? Yet it takes some of them a long time to get any sense into their heads."

Mr. Carr had expected Alfred's mother to come in nervously, shaking with fear, asking with wet eyes for a mercy for he son, but no, she was most calm and pleasant and was making Mr. Carr feel guilty.

After a time, Mr. Carr was shaking his head in agreement with what she was saying. "Of course," he said, " I don't want to be cruel. I'll tell you what I'll do. Tell your son not to come back here again, and let it go at that, how is that?" And he warmly shook Mrs. Higgins's hand.

"I will never forget your kindness. Sorry we had to meet this way," said Mr. Carr. "But I'm glad I got in touch with you, just wanted to do the right thing, that is all.

"It's better to meet like this than never, isn't it?" She said.

Suddenly they held hand as if they liked each other, as if they had known each other for a long time.

"Good night, sir."

"Good night, Mrs. Higgins. I'm truly sorry."

Mother and son left. They walked along the street in silence. She took long steps and looked straight in front of her. After a time, Alfred said, "Thank God it turned out like that, never again!"

"Be quiet, don't speak to me, you have shamed me enough, have the decency to be quiet."

They reached home at last. Mrs. Higgins took off her coat and without even looking at him, she said to Alfred, "You are a bad luck. God forgive you. It is one thing after another, always has been. Why do you stand there so stupidly? Go to bed."

As she went into the kitchen, she said, "Not a word about tonight to your father."

In his bedroom, Alfred heard his mother in the kitchen. There was no shame in him, just pride in his mother's strength. "She was smooth!" he said to himself. He felt he must tell her how great she was. As he got to the kitchen, he saw his mother drinking a cup of tea. He was shocked by what he saw.

His mother's face, as she said, was a frightened, broken face. It was not the same cool, bright face he saw earlier in the drug store. As Mrs. Higgins lifted the tea cup, her hand shook. And some of the tea splashed on the table. Her lips moved nervously. She looked very old.

He watched his mother without making a sound. The picture of his mother made him want to cry. He felt his youth coming to an end. He saw all the troubles he brought his mother in her shaking hand and the deep lines of worry in her grey face. It seemed to him that this was the first time he had ever really seen his mother.

VOCABULARY

* ''Petty thieving – furt mărunt / мелкое воровство * Jail[] – închisoare / тюрьма * Printer – tipograf / печатник; типограф * To sound big – a părea matur / казаться взрослым * Deep down – în adîncul sufletului / в глубине души * To rush in – a se repezi, a da năvală / врываться * To go around – a ieși, a se vedea cu cineva / появляться вместе в обществе, встречаться * To ask for mercy – a cere îndurare, milă / просить пощады * To get in touch with smb. — a face legătură, a se cunoaște /связаться с кем-л. * Bad luck - ghinion; nenoroc / невезение, несчастье, неудача * Smooth - (d. caracter) constant, statornic, liniștit / ровный, уравновешенный

MORLEY EDWARD CALLAGHAN BIOGRAPHY
(February 22, 1903 - August 25, 1990), novelist, short story writer, playwright, TV and radio personality.

Callaghan grew up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, his birthplace. He was educated at the University of Toronto, Osgoode Hall Law School. He never practiced law, however. During the 1920s he worked at the Toronto Daily Star where he became friends with fellow reporter, Ernest Hemingway formerly of the Kansas City Star. Callaghan began writing stories that were well received and soon was recognized as one of the best short story writers of the day. He then spent a couple of creative years in Paris, France in the late 1920s where he was part of the great gathering of writers in Montparnasse such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce and others.

He recalled these years in his 1963 memoir, That Summer in Paris. In this memoir he discusses the infamous boxing match between him and Hemingway. Callaghan took up Hemingway's challenge to a bout and, being a better boxer, Callaghan knocked Hemingway to the ground (along with his ego). The blame was centered on Fitzgerald's lack of attention on the stop watch as he let the boxing round go over time. This event injured the pride of Hemingway more than anything else.

Callaghan's novels and short stories are marked by undertones of Roman Catholicism, often focusing on individuals whose essential characteristic is a strong but often weakened sense of self. His first novels were Strange Fugitive (1928), a number of short stories followed in A Native Argosy (1929), A Broken Journey (1932) and Such Is My Beloved (1934). Callaghan published little between 1937 and 1950 - an artistically dry period. However, during these years, many non-fiction articles were written in various periodicals such as New World [Toronto], and National Home Monthly. Luke Baldwin's Vow, about a boy and his dog, was originally published in the Saturday Evening Post in (1947) and would soon become a juvenile classic read in school rooms around the world. The Loved and the Lost (1951) is considered by many to be his masterpiece among many fine imaginative novels for which he won the Governor General's Award. Callaghan's later works include The Many Colored Coat (1960), A Passion in Rome (1961), Stories (1967), A Fine and Private Place (1975), A Time for Judas (1983), Our Lady of the Snows (1985) and his last novel, A Wild Old Man Down the Road (1988). Publications of short stories have appeared in The Lost and Found Stories of Morley Callaghan (1985), and in The New Yorker Stories (2001). The latest work Morley Callaghan: The Complete Short Stories Two Volumes (2003) gathers for the first time '90 stories that authenticate Edmund Wilson's comparison of Callaghan to Ivan Turgenev and Anton Chekhov.'

Callaghan married Loretto Dee, with whom he had two sons: Michael (born November 1931) and Barry (born 1937), poet and author. In (1998) Barry Callaghan wrote a memoir entitled Barrelhouse Kings about his families writerly life. After outliving and outwriting most of this contemporary writers of his day Morley Edward Callaghan died after a brief illness in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was 87.

Morley Callaghan was the subject of a CBC documentary, Life & Times episode, and CBC mini-series, Hemingway Vs. Callaghan in March 2003.

‘‘All the Years of Her Life’’ is a short story by Canadian writer Morley Callaghan. It was published in his second collection of short stories, Now That April’s Here and Other Stories (New York, 1936). ‘‘All the Years of Her Life’’ is a straightforward story with only three characters, written in an economical, unpretentious style typical of Callaghan’s work. A young man, Alfred Higgins, is caught by his employer, Sam Carr, pilfering items from the drugstore where he works. Instead of immediately calling the police, Mr. Carr sends for Alfred’s mother. The story focuses on Mrs. Higgins’s psychological state, which by the end of the story turns out to be quite different from how it first appears. When Alfred observes this change in his mother, he has a moment of insight in which he understands something about her he never before noticed. In just a few pages, Callaghan manages to tell a moving story of a mother’s devotion to her wayward son and the son’s sudden acquisition of a new maturity. The story ends on a note of quiet hope.
Summary
‘‘All the Years of Her Life’’ is set in a drugstore in an unnamed city that may well be New York. The story begins one evening in late summer when Alfred Higgins, who works in the drugstore, is putting on his coat, ready to go home. The owner of the drugstore, Sam Carr, says he wants to have a word with Alfred before he leaves.
Alfred knows something is wrong because of the tone of voice in which his employer speaks. His heart begins to beat fast. Mr. Carr asks him to remove some items from his pocket, including lipstick and toothpaste.
Red-faced, Alfred tries to protest. Then he grows frightened and does not know what to say. He removes the items from his pocket. Mr. Carr asks him how long he has been stealing from the store, and Alfred says he has never done it before. But Mr. Carr knows Alfred is lying. Alfred is always getting into trouble at work, and he cannot hold a job.
Mr. Carr reproaches Alfred, saying he had been willing to trust him. He does not immediately want to call the police. He indicates he will call Alfred’s father, but Alfred says his father is not at home. Over Alfred’s protests, Mr. Carr calls Mrs. Higgins. She comes to the drug store and speaks in a very kind and calm manner to Mr. Carr, who is immediately won over by her kind demeanor. The owner of the drug store feels somehow guilty by the way they met. He was about to call the police but Alfred’s mother makes him give up. As Alfred and his mother leave the drug store, she tells him not to talk to her when he begins to promise not to get into such trouble again. At the end of the story, Alfred has the opportunity to observe his mother without her knowledge. He notices her age for the first time, and sees her hand trembling. It is at this point that he realizes the devastatingly effects his past behaviors have had on his aging mother, and how worried about him she really is.