Dating

by Dave Williamson

  Dating

  Dave Williamson

  Dating

  copyright © Dave Williamson 2012

  Turnstone Press

  Artspace Building

  206-100 Arthur Street

  Winnipeg, MB

  R3B 1H3 Canada

  www.TurnstonePress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or ­transmitted in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or ­mechanical—without the prior ­written permission of the ­publisher. Any request to photocopy any part of this book shall be directed in writing to Access Copyright, Toronto.

  Turnstone Press gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, and the Province of Manitoba through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Book Publisher

  Marketing Assistance Program.

  Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens for Turnstone Press.

  Williamson, Dave, 1934–

  Dating : a novel / Dave Williamson.

  ISBN 978-0-88801-395-8

  I. Title.

  for Laura

  >

  Liz

  It’s New Year’s Eve, 2007, and most of us are struggling to make it to midnight. Bea Branwell promised we would finish dinner before twelve, but at 9:30 she hasn’t yet summoned us to the table. I’m in the Branwell living room with Cliff Knowles, half-listening to Darcy Jephson telling us about his daughter’s intelligent ferret. I recall a New Year’s Eve maybe forty or fifty years ago when, at midnight, someone’s wife or girlfriend filled my mouth with her tongue. Tonight’s New Year’s wishes will be less dramatic: perhaps a brief hug, or a touch of cheeks, a squeeze of hand.

  “Jenkins, you’re a dog person,” Darcy says.

  I missed something; I have no idea how he segued from ferrets.

  “Yes, I was once,” I say. “Um, please excuse me while I refresh my drink.”

  As I turn away, I see the look of panic on Cliff’s face. I’m abandoning him to garrulous Darcy.

  On the way to the kitchen, I notice that the chairs in Bea’s dining room aren’t as close together this year. Of course. There are fewer of us. Our group has shrunk by two more.

  In the kitchen, Betty Whatever-her-name-is pours herself some white wine. The tallest and trimmest of the women, Betty has been divorced twice and I don’t know which surname she’s using these days.

  “Oh, Jenkins,” she says, “I haven’t told you yet.” She flashes a disarming smile—perfect teeth, moist lips. “I should’ve told you earlier. I want people to call me ‘Liz.’ No more Betty. Liz. I know it’s going to improve my social life.”

  I try it out. “Liz.” It suits her face and her brunette bangs. It suits her black dress better than Betty. “Liz. All right.” I reach for the Scotch.

  “Jenkins.” Donald Branwell comes into the kitchen. “Haven’t we got you weaned from that stuff yet? Come on, I’ll pour you a rumsy-cokesy.”

  “No, I—oh, all right. Sure.”

  While I watch Donald open a new bottle of Appleton’s, Betty/Liz leaves the kitchen. I want to catch up with her; she is suddenly the person I most want to chat with, but I have to humour Donald. It is, after all, his house and his booze.

  This gathering is what’s left of a rambunctious bunch who for years spent every winter weekend at Mount Agassiz. In the 1980s and ’90s, Barb and I would start out on a cold Friday evening—even if the temperature was minus 30˚ and snow was threatening—and we’d drive northwest, eating sandwiches as we drove, or stopping in Neepawa for a snack and a pee break, eager to reach our cozy destination: a converted eighty-year-old railway car with a former construction shack attached as a sunken living room. The coach had bedrooms at either end and a washroom, shower and kitchen in the middle; the adjoining shack was cleverly disguised by wall-to-wall carpeting, upholstered furniture, a fireplace and a picture window that faced Nate Hirschfield’s log cabin. Ours was part of a rag-tag scattering of dwellings that had been dubbed Nathanville after Nate, the ski-hill proprietor. The folks who owned places in Nathanville spent all day Saturday skiing, and every Saturday night would be party-time at somebody’s place. Barb and one or both of our kids—and maybe one or more of their friends—would head off to the ski-hill on Saturday morning, leaving me in the secluded settlement. I’d achieved a certain notoriety—and an Honourable Mention in the Winnipeg Free Press’s non-fiction contest—with a little essay called “The Joy of Not Skiing.” In it, I rhapsodized about the solitude of a winter day in Nathanville, the utter quiet conducive to reading, meditating, snoozing, occasionally writing or making preparations for dinner and pre-dinner cocktails. Come evening, when the skiers returned, pink-cheeked and exhausted, I was the one eager to get the party started.

  Those days ended in 1999 when Agassiz closed down. We—the Nathanville Night Owls, as we called ourselves—had tried to recapture the old camaraderie every New Year’s Eve since then, but in the city. We spent a portion of the evening outdoors, at Jack Hogue’s house on the Red River. We didn’t ski down the bank or cross-country along the frozen Red. We competed in a beanbag-tossing tournament. Jack had all the equipment we needed: two sets of four cloth beanbags; two slanted plywood sheets set up the regulation number of metres apart, with a circular hole cut out of each; a fired-up barbecue for warming our hands and keeping the hors-d’oeuvres hot. Betty and I were partners this year and we won. I attributed my success to bowling experience; Betty insisted that the key was the several highballs we’d drunk. While others huddled around Jack’s barbecue or went inside between games, Betty (now Liz) and I ate and drank while we watched the others play. We eliminated every duo we faced and, in the final, we walloped Cliff Knowles and Melissa Hogue, 21–6. And now, for the last half of the evening, we are ensconced in the Branwells’ River Heights home, the men in the sport shirts and jeans they wore under sweaters and parkas, the women in party clothes they changed to in Branwell bedrooms.

  There’s a palpable sense of anti-climax about this part of the evening, as the clock ticks far too slowly down to midnight. I make my way back into the living room after assuring Donald that his rumsy-cokesy is sheer nirvana. There is an absence of the kind of raucous laughter that used to characterize our après-ski parties. Oh, for the days when Doll Maynard would emerge topless from her sauna and make an angel in the fresh snow! Now there are no après-beanbag-toss hijinks. We’re perhaps all too conscious of those no longer with us. In the past three years alone, we’ve lost six of our group, including Barb. You try not to think about that Agatha Christie movie, And Then There Were None.

  “Are you going away anywhere this winter, Jenkins?”

  Rosalind Sherman, who’s never been part of our ski group but is a good friend of the Branwells, has turned away from the Sproxtons and, seeing me, asked her favourite question. Knowing she means Are you going south? I say the first thing that jumps into my head:

  “Thought I’d go to Churchill this year, Rosalind. Love to get a good look at the polar bears.”

  “What a great idea, Jenkins! Would you have room in your suitcase for me?”

  The vision of roly-poly Rosalind fitting herself into my suitcase makes me chuckle.

  “Roz, you’ll be basking in the Florida sun all winter, won’t you?”

  “Hardly basking. Don’t you know direct sunlight is bad for you? When I’m not golfing in appropriate attire and sunscreen, I’ll be supervising the renovations on the condo.”

  “I thought you renovated last summer.”

  “That was the kitchen. Harry and I found it was too nerve-wracking to be here while tradespeople were tearing things apart down there. I had to fly down five times and even then they got the island wrong. So now we’re closing in
the balcony and extending the living room. You wouldn’t believe the trouble the condo association gave us. Threatened to take us to court. Well, you don’t threaten Harry, as you probably know.”

  It seems that Rosalind is always renovating something. Barb used to call her Rozzie the Renovator. I want to remove myself from her clutches, but I realize that, from this particular corner of the living room, I have a good view of Liz. She and Harry Sherman—Rosalind’s Harry—are chatting with Darcy, who has Liz holding his drink while he makes elaborate gestures; he might be demonstrating how a factory robot moves, or perhaps he’s acting out a scene from an old Frankenstein movie. From my vantage point, I think Liz looks quite lovely. She does seem more attractive as Liz than she looked earlier as Betty. I see her take a sip of what I’m sure is Darcy’s drink, but she and Harry and Darcy are too wrapped up in Darcy’s story to notice. Meanwhile, I try to toss comments into my own conversation with Rosalind: “Are you moving the furniture out while they work or just covering it?” and “What did the condo association object to?” and “Remember when Barb and I went down to visit and you took us to that restaurant where a magician performed at our table?” And Rosalind gives me long answers that I barely hear. Liz catches me watching her and she rolls her eyes and smiles.

  It’s close to eleven o’clock when Bea calls us for dinner. We file into the kitchen, pick up plates and serve ourselves from the platters assembled where earlier the booze and soft drinks had been. Being trapped with Rosalind would normally have intensified my weariness, but Liz’s smile has given me new incentive to see the evening through. And when I enter the dining room, Liz waves at me. By some magical coincidence, or Bea’s astute planning, my place at the table is next to Liz.

  “Jenkins, how are you?” she says as I sit down.

  I think she’s drunk. Before I can answer, she leans so close that her breath tickles my ear and she whispers, “Brave of you to listen to Roz so long. I’d die.”

  I glance at Rosalind’s husband, who’s sitting on the other side of Liz. He’s busy talking to Amy Jephson. The chairs on the other side of the table are only now being filled.

  “What exactly was Darcy going on about?” I ask.

  “Who the hell knows?” She is drunk, or feeling no pain, as they say.

  “I saw you take a sip of his drink.”

  “Damn lot better than mine.”

  “So you knew it was his.”

  “Not really, but who’s keeping track? Besides you, I mean. Wine?”

  “Yes, please.”

  She pours pinot noir into my glass. “Guard it with your life,” she says, and we both laugh.

  We eat and banter and drink. Others speak to us, Bea makes a couple of toasts, Harry toasts Bea and Donald, and I comment, loudly enough for everyone to hear, on how marvellous the meat is. I’m grateful, in these days of vegetarianism and dieting and animal rights and having to cook for myself, to be able to enjoy a fine slab of medium-rare roast beef.

  I fetch dessert—apple pie à la mode—for Liz and myself, and, when I sit down again, she quietly says, “Is it going to be another year until we see each other again?”

  It could’ve been a harmless question, mere speculation about whether we might see each other by chance somewhere before next New Year’s. But it strikes me as forward, suggestive, even sensual. Maybe the booze has helped her scale the wall of my bereavement. It’s nearly two years now, isn’t it? she might be thinking. Before I can give her some kind of encouraging reply, Donald is on his feet, pointing at his wristwatch.

  “My god, you people,” he says, “it’s two minutes to twelve! Get yourselves into the living room! Bea, turn on the radio! Or the TV!”

  All of us scramble into the living room and form a circle, crossing our arms to hold hands with our neighbours. Liz doesn’t end up beside me. She isn’t even looking at me as she grabs the hands of Cliff Knowles and Melissa Hogue. Bea puts the television on loud enough that we don’t have to watch it; we just count down with the announcer.

  “Four … three … two … one … HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

  We raise our clasped hands and move toward each other in the circle and we repeat, “HAPPY NEW YEAR”

  We sing “Auld Lang Syne,” most of us making noises that sound like the words because we don’t know them. After that, we yell “HAPY NEW YEAR!” again and cheer, and then we break from the circle to give our individual greetings—our handshakes, our brief hugs, our touches of cheeks. And suddenly there’s Liz in front of me saying, “Happy New Year, Jenkins,” and she takes my face in her two hands as if she needs to line me up to make sure her aim is true, and she kisses me on the lips, lingering there for at least two or three heartbeats.

  When she lets go of me, I blurt out, “Let’s not let a year go by …” but she’s turning away from me because Darcy tapped her on the shoulder, and he takes her and bends her back in a Great-Lover pose, and I don’t know if she’s heard me or not.

  As the New Year greetings wind down, someone turns off the TV and Jack calls for our attention. He’s holding a clipboard and the scoresheet he efficiently keeps every year. It’s time for him to give out the beanbag competition prizes.

  “I know it’s well past bedtime for most of you,” he says.

  A couple of the guys heckle him and we laugh.

  “All right, all right,” Jack says, “I know most of you want to clear out of here. And you know you’ll get out of here a lot sooner if you what?”

  “Sneak out now,” someone says.

  Laughter.

  Jack scowls.

  “Shut up and listen to you,” someone else says.

  “Correct,” Jack says. “All right, where is my lovely assistant?”

  Bea steps forward carrying two or three bulging bags. “Vanna White at your service,” she says.

  We all know the bags contain prizes, mostly items like pens and coffee mugs bearing the logo of Jack’s son’s computer business, Hogue’s Digital Solutions. There’s a prize for everyone. Jack keeps the presentation to the champs until the end, and he comes up with new categories for everyone else. The first two prizes are for “The Best-Dressed Team,” awarded to Cliff and Elaine; and that’s followed by “The Most Serious Team” and “The Team with the Most Original Toss,” and others I lose track of in the laughter and the cheering. At last he calls out, “And now, a fine example for us all, handily knocking down every obstacle that came their way, this year’s undisputed champions, Betty and Jenkins!” He is immediately jeered, the group roaring more or less in unison, “Not Betty, LIZ!”

  “What?” Jack says, bewildered.

  “Betty wants to be called Liz,” Bea explains.

  “Nobody told me,” says Jack. “Why didn’t anybody tell me?”

  Liz and I step forward and Bea presents us with our prizes: red polo shirts with the words Champion Tosser printed in bold Gothic capitals across the back. It’s a shirt you wouldn’t want to wear in England.

  The festivities are over. The gang heads upstairs for their coats. I feel I have to speak with Liz before she leaves, even though I’m not at all sure whether I want to see anyone socially. To go out somewhere with a woman, I mean—just the two of us. But I’d left her question hanging. Is it going to be another year before we see each other again? That requires an answer. I attempted one, but she didn’t hear it. At the same time, I don’t want to turn this into a big deal. She was maybe just being friendly. She’s drunk. She’s probably forgotten she even said it. I follow her upstairs anyway. At the door of the bedroom where others are picking up their coats, I tap Liz on the shoulder.

  “Do you want to go to a … a movie or something sometime?” I say.

  She smiles, even chuckles, as if that’s the craziest suggestion she’s heard in a while.

  “See?” She laughs. “My social life is getting better already!” She keeps laughing. Finally, she takes a deep breath and says, “Listen, I’m going to my daughter’s for a few weeks. Why don’t you call me when I get back?�
��

  “Maybe February first?”

  “Sure. I’m in the book.”

  She goes into the bedroom for her coat. It isn’t until she’s left that I realize I don’t know what last name she’s using these days.

  >

  Seeing Eye-to-Eye

  You’re going on a day-ate, you’re going on a day-ate!”

  It’s Bea Branwell on the phone, taunting me in a childlike, singsongy voice.

  “Hello, Bea. What—”

  “News travels fast, Jenkins. Liz e-mailed me. She has a date with you on Tuesday night.”

  “Well, I don’t think you can call it a date. In fact, people don’t date anymore, do they? We’re just going to see a movie—Juno, with that young Canadian woman everybody’s talking about.”

  “Ellen Page, yes. Jenkins, a date is a date. And I’m glad you’re going out. It’s time you did. And Betty—well, Liz—is a hoot. You’ll have fun. Let me know how it goes—if you don’t, Liz will.”

  The call bothers me. I hope this isn’t going to be a gossip item. Jenkins is taking Liz Oliver out on a date. (Yes, I did find out what surname she’s going by—her maiden name.) I realize how uncomfortable I am with the concept of dating. I think it’s a term that, like courting, is passé, partly because the practice has fallen into disfavour. In recent years, date rape and the drugs associated with it have cast a bad light on dating. Internet dating seems to lead more often to women being victimized by perverts than to nice wholesome relationships. And they tell me kids don’t go out on formal dates—they meet in casual groups. But another more personal reason for my discomfort is my status as a widower. How long is bereavement supposed to last? Will a date officially end it? Barb died less than two years ago, but I don’t think it’s indiscreet of me to go to a movie with a woman. Yet can I look Barb’s portrait in the eye, knowing I’m going out on a date? Is there going to be a time when I have to assign her portrait to a drawer? It sits in a place of honour in the dining room and, now that I’m going to a movie with Liz, I feel sheepish every time I pass it on my way to the front door.