“So how are things with Mr. Matthew?” asks Harold. “I haven’t seen much of you for the last couple of weeks.” Matthew is almost certain that he had an interminable conversation with Harold only a couple of days ago, but perhaps it was in fact weeks ago. “Have you been up to anything interesting?” Matthew can hear in his tone the expectation that Matthew will say no, just as he used to hear it in Vic’s.
“No!” shouts the boy at the next table. Our quartet glances over there.
“Well, he’s right,” says Matthew. “No, nothing much.”
“Been skiing?”
“No. No, not yet. I’ll go in February. We’ll go in February, I hope.” Matthew puts his hand on Belinda’s. “I always go skiing in February. It’s a tradition.”
Always is an exaggeration, but for six seasons he has been going skiing in February. For five of those, he went with Liz. The winter after she left, he went alone to the same town in New Hampshire, where he stayed at the same inn, skied the same trails. He felt brave and independent making the reservation, and he was exhilarated driving up. He entertained fantasies of romantic encounters on the slopes, flirtations around the fire, but he didn’t meet anyone. During the four days he spent there, before he gave up and left, he didn’t see even one woman who seemed to him definitely alone, unambiguously alone enough for him to offer her a drink or to try to strike up a conversation. In fact, there were many, but Matthew didn’t see them. The truth is that he was looking for Liz. For days before he had left for the inn, he had entertained the possibility that she might have had the same idea he had, and he had allowed himself to grow apprehensive that he might run into her on the slopes. It was she with whom he imagined a chance encounter, good-hearted teasing, a fireside flirtation, love under a comforter, but he never saw a sign of her. Recently he has been trying to get Belinda to go skiing with him, and he has found that the idea of their going to the same resort that he and Liz used to go to has great erotic potential. Belinda has been willing to go, as a favor to Matthew, because he seems to want it so much, even though she’s a much better skier and prefers more difficult slopes than the one near the inn Matthew has in mind, but she’s wary of leaving Leila at home alone. The thought has crossed Matthew’s mind that he might suggest that Leila come with them. They could rent one of the time-share condominiums next to the lodge. Now there’s an idea with erotic potential. What a cute little family they’d make!
“Seen any good movies?” asks Harold. This is almost a taunt.
“No,” confesses Matthew.
“Plays?” asks Harold.
“Not lately.” Matthew grins and shrugs.
Harold grips Matthew’s shoulder, as if he were comforting him. “Say, Matthew,” he says, “you don’t get out much, do you?”
“It seems that way,” Matthew says.
“Read any good books?”
“Well — ”
“Magazines, cereal boxes?” This is approaching cruelty, and Matthew’s becoming annoyed.
What do I do with my time? he asks himself. Every month, when the cable television guide comes in, he reads through the descriptions of movies and makes a list of the ones he wants to tape, noting the channel, the dates, and the times when they will be shown. Most evenings he has his drinks, eats his dinner, watches one of the movies he has taped, programs the VCR to tape another, goes to bed, and falls asleep reading a magazine from the stack that accumulates on his bedside table. In the morning, while he’s drinking his coffee and listening to the news or that classical music program, he checks to see that the movie was recorded successfully and, if it was, labels a three-by-five card with the title. By writing the titles along the ends and sticking the card sideways into the videocassette case, so that the name of the film projects above the case, he can get the titles of four films on one card before he has to discard it and use a new one. This hardly seems the stuff of interesting conversation.
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