Christmas 1994 is one of my favourite Christmases ever. Not because it was an especially happy one, but because it’s become a memorable one.
From the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, one of my employments was as a restaurant critic, publishing in various community newspapers and magazines across the Metro Vancouver region. In 1994, one of my editors suggested I write a column on the best shepherd’s pie in town, which allowed me to travel to the Expo Saskatchewan Pavilion restaurant in West Vancouver, as well as a number of other establishments across the Lower Mainland, including a restaurant in my Kitsilano neighbourhood, which served a warming and delicious shepherd’s pie dinner for only $4.95 — at the time, this was the best deal in town for shepherd’s pie.
This was a deli-style restaurant. Martha, the young woman behind the counter, was a UBC student, I was to learn, in her final year at the University of British Columbia who, as she took my order, and then delivered my shepherd’s pie dinner, proceeded to flirt with me like mad. Long story short, I asked her out, we began dating, and all seemed right with the world. This was the early autumn of 1994. I learned that she grew up in Nova Scotia, but had decided to attend UBC, as she had often travelled to British Columbia with her parents when she was growing up.
As Christmas approached, we made arrangements to spend Christmas Day together. I would make Christmas dinner, while she would supply the baking. On Christmas Eve, I picked her up from work and drove towards her home on East 18th Avenue and Ontario Street, just off Main Street.
As I was driving, I mentioned to her that my friends Michael Klassen and Stacey Fruin were having a Christmas Eve party at their home on Columbia Street near 18th, just a few short blocks from her home, and asked Martha if we might make an appearance at Michael and Stacey’s home to wish them a happy Christmas. “I’d rather not,” Martha said, although we did end up attending the party, if only briefly.
We stayed only 15 minutes at Michael and Stacey’s, Martha was social and seemed to enjoy herself, but remembering her “I’d rather not” and the agreement we made that we’d attend the party for only a few minutes, after 15 minutes we wished Michael and Stacey a merry Christmas, and we were off. As we were walking towards the car, Martha turned to me to say that she needed some fresh air, and would walk the three blocks to her home, stating, “I’d better get started on the baking when I get home, as well.” As we parted, I told her I’d call her at 8 a.m. Christmas Day.
We hugged and kissed good-bye, I made sure that she was safe walking down East 18th Avenue, and headed back home to my Kitsilano neighbourhood, snuggling up in bed with a good book, and a cup of herbal tea on the night stand to sip on. By midnight, I was fast asleep.
At 6 a.m. the phone rang; it was Martha, who told me the following …
“I’m in Hope. I’ve decided to spend Christmas Day with my university friend who lives in Penticton. My bus is about to leave. I’ve got to go.”
At this point, as I was rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I was now fitfully awake, and a little awestruck at this unexpected turn of events.
Several months in, the relationship with Martha was a romantic and loving one. Although she maintained her shared residence in Mount Pleasant, more often than not she slept at my place, just a couple of blocks down the street from where she worked, and relatively close to UBC.
At 6:30 a.m. my children called to wish me a merry Christmas, and told me how much they were looking forward to seeing me on Boxing Day.
At 7 a.m. I got up, showered and made myself some breakfast, taking a few more calls from friends wishing me a merry Christmas, after which I went for a walk throughout and across my Kitsilano neighbourhood.
This was a bitterly and bitingly cold Christmas Day, with a smattering of snow on the ground, but mostly a great deal of frost. The skies were azure blue and clear with nary a cloud to be found, the sun was out, the streets deserted. The headphones over my ears effectively acted as earmuffs, as I listened to some of my favourite music on my bulky Sony Walkman.
When I arrived back home, I began making preparations for dinner, and at 1 p.m. decided that I wanted to make my way down to Locarno Beach, along Spanish Banks, and then head out for a drive around the west side of my most beloved city. At the beach, the grass and then the sand was crunchy beneath my feet, my gloves serving to keep my hands warm, my scarf keeping my face safe from the biting cold off the waters of the Inlet.
Back in the car, with the heater on, I warmed up, took my coat, scarf and gloves off, headed towards UBC, and then down southwest Marine Drive, adjacent to the Musqueam lands as I headed towards Granville Street.
Rickie Lee Jones’ EP The Girl at Her Volcano was the soundtrack for the drive. As I was passing by the multi-million dollar homes on the south side of Marine Drive, Rickie Lee’s song Rainbow Sleeves began to play on the speakers in the car, and I started to cry, the first time I’d cried — other than at the movies, in a darkened theatre — in 16 years, since Cathy and I had begun the first tentative steps toward our separation over Christmas 1977, continuing my lamentation during the entire time the song played.
You used to dream yourself away each night
To places that you’ve never been
On wings made of wishes that you whispered to yourself
Back when every night the moon and you would sweep away
To places that you knew you would never get the blues
Now whiskey gives you wings to carry each one of your dreams
And the moon does not belong to you
But I believe that your heart keeps young dreams
Well, I’ve been told to keep from ever growing old
And a heart that has been broken will be stronger when it mends
Don’t let the blues stop your singing
Darling, you only got a broken wing
Hey, you just hang on to my rainbow
Hang on to my rainbow
Hang on to my rainbow sleeves
Martha spent the whole of the holiday season in the Okanagan visiting with her friend. Upon her return home, once again employed at the delicatessen I ran across her in early January, and asked if she wanted to accompany me to a review I was going to write on Floata Restaurant, in Chinatown. “Can I bring along a friend?” she asked. “Sure, that’d be fine,” I responded.
On the first Thursday of January, on the 5th, I picked her and her friend up, along with my friend, J.B. Shayne, and we attended at the Floata Restaurant on Keefer, and proceeded to enjoy a feast. When dinner was over, Martha asked me to drive her and her friend home, not commenting on the restaurant or the food, or in any way indicating to me that she’d enjoyed herself, most of her time in the restaurant spent engaged in conversation with the friend she’d brought along to our dinner together.
After dropping the two off at their homes, J.B. and I proceeded back to his home on Arbutus Street, stopping in at Siegel’s Bagels for a hamantaschen, one of our favourite late night treats. While sitting at the table, J.B. turned to me and made the following remarks and observations …
“Tonight, we went out to a great restaurant for dinner, and I want to say how grateful I am that you invited me along. Your girlfriend — if I could call her that, although the term hardly seems to apply, given what I observed this evening, and what you’ve told me occurred on Christmas Day — utterly ignored you throughout our dinner together, neither she nor her friend thanked you for the sumptuous feast to which you treated them, was engaged in conversation with her friend the entire time we were at the restaurant, and on the way back to her home, and when she got out of the car, neither she nor her friend bothered to thank you.
Martha seems not to care for you, her conduct verging on — from what I observed, as — unkind at best, and even more, cruel, given what I know about her. Now, I realize that she is a beautiful young woman, and from what I gather quite bright, but for heaven’s sake, apart from her youth and her beauty, for the life of me, I cannot understand what you see in her, and why you are wasting your time with someone so seemingly callous in her treatment of you. Raymond, you could do so much better.”
Later, when I returned to the deli, I learned two things: 1) Martha had quit her job, and 2) the review I’d written had driven a sizable number of new customers to restaurant, causing the owners to more than double its price for the shepherd’s pie, undoing whatever good had come their way by charging a lower amount for the dinner, that had once given good value.
I never saw Martha again.
And, from that Christmas Day in 1994, outside of an occasional teary session inside a darkened cinema during an especially moving scene, I’ve not cried since. My heart is stronger. I have remained open to love, and love with all my heart, but become more protective of my own heart, more aware of the actual, rather than imagined or romantic, tenor of my various relationships, not just with women, but with all those who are in my life.
