It was hard to believe Whitman and Norman belonged to the same species. Norman was shorter and had no edges. He was the sort of person if you looked at for too long, started to blur; there was nothing to focus on. He wasn’t fat or muscled; his body was like an armature with only the first layer of clay pressed onto it, the sculpting not yet begun. I think that was one of the problems in our relationship. I couldn’t get a grip on him; even in an argument, he melted away like a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Whitman was all edges and angles like a weathervane, an animate, unembellished armature. He radiated intensity and his leg jiggled up and down as he sat.
So, what happens when you put an ectomorph, an endomorph, and an old man in a room together? Not much, apparently. Then Norman said something, Mr. H. nodded, and Whitman laughed. Someone else said something and then they all laughed. What were they being so jovial about?
They were talking about me. I knew it. Norman was probably telling them about my backwards bustier. Whitman about the toilet paper between my toes. Mr. H. about how I had dialed the wrong phone number and ended up here.
Here. Here, standing outside of my home spying on people. Madness. I was going to go in there and face them head on. I’d walk right into the living room, sit down, and have a conversation like a normal person. I walked up the front steps, onto the porch and in the front door. I took off my shoes and walked around the corner into the living room. It immediately grew silent. They turned their faces towards me.
“Well,” I said, “I see you’ve all met. I’m going to bed now. Goodnight.”
As I walked down the hall, they resumed their conversation. Mr. H. was talking about the Art Centre and the financial troubles they were having, Norman was saying that times were tough for corporations and Whitman that the tax breaks they used to get for filming in Canada were going down in many provinces.
Fine. Great. Good, get along, fellas. Get along, little doggies. I was going to sleep. I closed the door.
“I think you should go sit with them.” Gladys was in her customary chair.
“Well, I don’t think so, Gladys.”
“Are you taking that spoon to bed?”
The damn wooden spoon was still in my hand. I held it up and looked at it.
“The way things are going, I just might.”
“Oh.”
“Well, good night.” I laid the spoon on the nightstand, climbed into bed with my wet clothes on, and turned out the light.
From the corner in the darkness came Gladys’ voice. “Are you going to be comfortable sleeping like that?”
“I’ll be fine, thank you. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.
“Gladys, what are you doing?”
“I’m rocking.”
“I can hear that. Do you have to rock here?”
“The chair is here.”
I sat up and turned on the light. “You’re not going away, are you?”
“I thought we could have a talk.”
“Sure, a nice little confab is on the top of my list right now. Fire away.” I put the pillow between my back and the headboard, folded my arms, and waited. And waited.
“I thought you wanted to have a talk,” I said.
“I’m thinking.”
“Well, while you’re thinking, how about getting going on that story of yours. Like what kind of dancer you wanted to be and all that. That was your ghostly mission, was it not?”
“Part of it. The other part is up to you.”
“And what part might that be?”
“I can’t tell you,” she said.
“Of course not. That would be far too easy, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t make the rules and don’t ask me who does. Well, I grew up on a farm just outside of what wasn’t Winnipeg then.” “What do you mean, it wasn’t Winnipeg?”
“If you keep interrupting, I’ll never get it all told.”
“Right. Sorry.” I pulled the pillow up behind my back and settled in.
“I mean it was the 1800s and the town was a cluster of buildings — a hotel, a blacksmith’s, that sort of thing. My parents moved to Winnipeg from Ontario, where they first settled. My father had land hunger. It was like gold fever. A lot of men from Europe got it. They kept moving to where they could get more and more land. They never stayed anywhere long enough to develop the land, they just wanted more. Twenty acres here, then a quarter section, then two sections. Owning all that land made him feel rich even though we had nothing.”
“I thought you were going to tell me about dancing.”
“I’m getting there. So, we ended up outside of Winnipeg and it seemed like he finally had enough land to satisfy him. We got animals — cows, chickens, pigs, and some mean old geese. He started to farm properly or as properly as a bookkeeper from Prague could. Mother used to play the violin in Prague. Maybe I inherited the music in my head from her. I never heard her play the violin that I could remember. I found the instrument in an old trunk. I’d taken it out and tried to play it, but she got angry and took it away. ‘There’s no time for that here,’ she’d said. But the music played for me anyway.”
Gladys cocked her head to the side slightly as if she listened to the music as she spoke. I wished I could hear it.
“I knew from the time I was a little girl that I wanted to dance. I’d dance for the chickens when I was supposed to be feeding them. Sometimes I’d forget to feed them. I’d wander off when I finished dancing for them, go and perform for the cows. Hungry chickens, but well-entertained. I was always in trouble for forgetting something. I danced on the way to school and on the way home. I danced taking the threshing crews out their lunches.”
“That’s how I felt about painting,” I said. “It was like there was always a canvas in my mind. I could look at something, sketch it, try it out, and paint it all in my head. If it worked, I’d go and paint it for real. Did you take lessons?”
“When I was about fifteen, a lady moved to town and started a dancing school. Winnipeg had grown by then and it was almost like a city. We had a proper general store and even a town hall. I suppose it would have seemed laughable in a big city, but we were starved for culture out there in the little towns and farms. Almost all of our parents came from European cities where culture had been everywhere. Prairie life would scour away even their memories of polish eventually but, at that time, they still could recall it, respect it, and hunger for it. Her name was Miss Johnstone and she was lovely. Her clothes and shoes were wonderful, probably years out of date, but they seemed so stylish to us farm girls. She wasn’t paid much, thank goodness, or my mother never would have let me go. I think she was paid in eggs from one family, firewood from another — she made out all right, I guess.”
“What sort of dancing did she teach?” I was fully awake now, imagining a young Gladys whirling her way across the fields, leaving wild graceful tracks in the dust behind her.
“Ballroom mostly. That’s why most parents let their girls go. They hoped it might help us to make a good match. Five or six of us girls would gather once a week and foxtrot with each other, trying to remember who was the gentleman and who was the lady. She also taught us bits of ballet and jigs and about everything you could imagine. She was like a fairy godmother to me. I couldn’t believe anyone understood how I felt about dancing, but she did. She started giving me private lessons without charging any extra. She said I showed great promise.”
“I guess you never got hung from a broomstick.”
“Pardon me?”
“Nothing. I didn’t make out so well in tap dancing classes. Where did the teacher come from?”
“She never said. We girls made up stories of jilted lovers and risqué pasts for her and I’m sure the adults had their own opinions. Opinions that might have stopped a lesser woman, but she convinced enough of them that it was necessary and proper that a young lady be schooled in the social graces and that ballroom dancing was the most important of tho
se graces.”
“So what happened?”
“I got married.”
“Just like that? You’re getting private lessons, showing great promise, and then you get married?”
“No, not just like that. Miss Johnstone wanted to take up a collection for me. She wanted to go door to door and raise money to send me to dance school down East. She told them I’d put the town on the map. My mother was certain I’d end up as a harlot all painted up and lurking in smoky lounges in the evil city of Toronto.”
“Did you go?”
“No, I told you, I got married.”
“Oh shit, Gladys, what do you mean you got married?”
“Married, you know, white veil, minister, rice in the face, married.”
“I know what it means, but why did you do it?”
“Because he asked me, I suppose.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“Someone’s coming,” said Gladys and then swept her arms out dramatically. “My hour is almost come, when I to sulphurous and tormenting flames must render up myself.”
“Are you serious?”
“No. Shakespeare.”
“Oh right, Hamlet, English 30. The ghost. That’s funny.” I turned my head towards the stairs; someone was coming up. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” I whispered.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
“Touché.”
There was a knock on the door. I got out of bed and opened the door a crack. Norman, of course. He stood there with a hopeful smile on his face.
“Ah,” I said, “The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.”
He looked confused for a moment, then smiled. “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
“Wrong play, Norman.”
He continued, “It is the East, and Frieda is the sun!” He went down on one knee. “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, get up.”
He stood and dusted off his knee. He blushed. “It’s amazing what you can remember. I was Romeo in a play in high school.”
“You were Romeo?”
“Nay, good goose, bite not.”
“You may be a millionaire but you’re a bit of a goof.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should. Now what do you want?”
“I can’t remember. Can I come in?”
I turned and looked back into the bedroom. The rocking chair was empty. I opened the door.
“Are you staying here tonight?”
“Here?” Norman surveyed the bedroom.
“Not in my room, buckaroo. I mean in the house.”
“Your friend Mr. Hausselman has offered me the other spare bedroom. I might take him up on it if you don’t mind.”
“What, the five-star Fairmount isn’t worthy of you?”
“There actually aren’t any five-star hotels in Winnipeg. My travel agent checked.”
“Now, that’s sad. All the rich people wandering the streets with their Louis Vuitton luggage and nowhere to stay.”
He looked at the easel set up on the desk. “You’re painting.”
“I’m not. Don’t bug me.”
“But you. . . all that work. . .”
I held up my hand. “Stop right now or there’s a four-star hotel waiting for your reservation. Besides, I’ve signed up for training in a career.”
“Good for you. What is it?”
“Locksmithing,” I said.
He laughed. “No, really, what?”
“Really locksmithing.”
He tried to get his face under control, but the only way he could stop smiling was to frown. “I didn’t know you were good with tools,” he said.
“I’m not. But they teach you at schools, right? So I’ll learn how to be good with tools.”
“Right,” he said, “I suppose they would.” He looked at me for a long moment and then said, “If it upsets you, I won’t stay.”
“Stay. The more the merrier. Just promise you won’t bother me about my painting. Now, it’s been a long strange day for me. I don’t know why you’re here —”
“Mr. Hausselman invited me,” Norman interrupted.
Now that was funny. What a pair Mr. H. and I were.
“And I don’t really care right now. Stay. I’ll talk to you in the morning, okay?”
“All right. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, for what I don’t know. Good night.”
“Good night.” He went back down the stairs.
The next morning, the house was quiet but it felt different, probably the vibrations of Whitman and Norman sleeping somewhere in it. “Vibrations” had been one of Norman’s mother’s favourite terms.
Thinking of Norman, I supposed I should get up and cook breakfast for him or something. Make him breakfast? Forget it. I hadn’t invited him here. I had, however, invited Whitman. Did that mean I was obliged to cook breakfast for him? By the time I decided that none of them were my responsibility and I didn’t have to cook anything for anyone, I could smell bacon frying.
I got up and went downstairs in my slept-in clothes without combing my hair. Not only did I not have to make breakfast for any of them, I didn’t have to impress them either. Nothing like starting the day with a positive attitude.
Mr. H. stood at the stove stirring a big pan of scrambled eggs.
“Does your friend Norman like eggs?”
I got a cup of coffee. “I suppose so. Yeah, he does. So, Mr. H.?”
“So, Frieda? I wrote to Norman.”
“I wrote to Whitman.”
“Hmm. Mate minds link alike. Would you set the table?”
“Sure. I guess it’s nice to know we both care.”
“It is.” He stirred the eggs. “Both of us overstepping the confoundaries at the same time. However, I don’t want to sit around the house staring at each other all day.”
“Tell you what. I’ll take Whitman off your hands for the day, you do the same with Norman, and we’ll meet back here for a nice civilized dinner tonight.”
“You have yourself a deal. But what will we do with them?”
“Take Norman somewhere boring and historical. He’ll love it.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about. What’ll you do with Whitman?”
“I’ll figure something out. Don’t be worried.” I poured another cup of coffee.
CHAPTER TWELVE
An Unhealthy And Disgusting Habit
I should have been worried. We made it through breakfast, all right. We ate, drank, and made, if not merry, at least civil. Whitman had on his completely black tortured-genius-who-has-become-extremely-wealthy-despite-his-difficult-life-uniform again. Norman wore a red golf shirt and khaki shorts that exposed his peaked knees. When Mr. H. and I outlined our plans for the afternoon, Norman agreed cheerfully to go to the Art Centre with Mr. H., but Whitman wasn’t at all enthused about going to the “concert in the park” with me.
I took it personally.
“That’s fine,” I said after Norman and Mr. H. had left. “If you don’t want to go with me, I understand. I’ll go wind wool with Miss Kesstle. You go amuse yourself.”
“I doubt Miss Kesstle has taken to spinning her own wool.”
“Fine. I’ll sit around and wait until Beethoven gets him-self up a tree and go rescue him.” We stood in the front hall. I already had my shoes on.
“I can’t believe people are still getting that cat out of trees. If they left him, maybe he’d figure out how to climb down by himself.” Whitman took his leather blazer off the hook.
“You’re an authority on Beethoven, I suppose?”
“He was my cat once.”
“Your cat?”
“I found him in an alley when I was skipping school and kept him in the garden shed for a few days. But he wouldn’t even look at me when I called
him. I didn’t realize he was deaf, I thought he didn’t like me. I took him over to Miss Kesstle’s while she was out shopping and put him in her wool basket to see what sort of mess he’d make.” He took his boots from the mat and sat on the bottom step of the staircase to put them on.
“Miss Kesstle’s door is always locked.”
“It wasn’t back then.”
I shrugged. “So you gave Beethoven to Miss Kesstle. Is this supposed to make me like you?”
He stood. “I didn’t give him to her, I wanted to see what he’d do. Kittens. Wool. You know.”
“All right, we’ve established you were a troubled child. Now, what’s the problem with the concert in the park?”
“Listen, I’m interested in finding out what sort of woman my father is living with, but I’ve seen that concert about twelve times.” The dark sunglasses went on top of his head.
“I suppose you have a better idea.”
“As I matter of fact, I do. I have someone to see.” He opened the door and stood waiting. “Are you coming?”
We went by bus. I’d refused using any other form of transportation, hoping to gain the upper hand on Whitman by watching him slide on shiny orange seats and grate his teeth at every stop and shudder. Whitman had acquiesced, trying, I supposed, to be a good sport. He wouldn’t tell me exactly where we were going or whom we were going to see.
“So, downtown?”
“Yes, downtown,” he answered, adding as the bus halted to pick up another group of people, “Are all these stops necessary? This is inhumane. We could have been there fifteen minutes ago.”
“This is public transit. That means the huddled masses can get on and off where they need to. Life’s a bitch, hey?”
He groaned.
“Think of it as a tour,” I said. “Look out the window, relax, see the sights.”
“What sights? Sidewalks? Cars?”
“People. If you look very closely, you’ll see living, breathing humans.” I gestured out the window.
“One of them is breathing down my neck right now,” he said.
Dance, Gladys, Dance Page 10