Hemingway's Chair

by Michael Palin

  The telephone rang. It was still new enough for the sound to take her by surprise. As she got up she noticed how suddenly darkness had come. She felt carefully beneath the shade of the rickety table lamp and found the switch. With the other hand she lifted the phone.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Is that Miss Kohler?’ It was a man’s voice.

  ‘Ruth Kohler, yes.’

  There was a pause. Not a heavy breather, prayed Ruth. Not already.

  ‘It’s Martin Sproale.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Martin, from the post office.’

  ‘Oh, Martin. Yes.’ With one hand she pulled the phone to her, with the other she extracted the last cigarette from a pack of Camel Lights. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been working. My mind is still in 1928.’

  ‘A Farewell to Arms.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Father’s suicide.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘Did you know that he changed the ending of the book after his father’s death?’

  Ruth transferred the phone to her shoulder and reached for a box of matches. ‘Well, that’s pretty well known. Hemingway claims he rewrote the last page thirty-nine times.’

  ‘Catherine and the boy were not going to die. Their death was his way of coming to terms with his father’s suicide.’

  ‘Well, it depends which way you look at it, Martin. I think the women around him at that time were exerting a much stronger influence on his writing than the men.’

  There was a silence at the other end of the line. She struck a match, lit her cigarette and waited. When the voice came again it sounded a little thicker.

  ‘I’m ringing about the chair.’

  Ruth laughed and apologised. ‘I’m sorry about all that. Bursting into the post office like an hysteric.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  ‘It just struck me as funny, you know, and I knew you’d appreciate it.’

  ‘Funny?’

  ‘Well, to sell a thing like that for over a thousand dollars.’

  Martin’s voice corrected her. ‘Seven hundred and fifty pounds.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s funny. I think it’s unbelievable. To have the chance to sit in a chair he sat in, leaned on, fished from, every day for two months.’

  Ruth pulled hard on her cigarette. ‘Well, for a thousand bucks I’d want himself sitting in it.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Just a bad joke.’

  ‘I know you hate him,’ he said.

  ‘Martin, his life is my work, but I happen to think that there are a lot of other people in his life just as interesting as he was.’

  ‘Yes. Well, that’s up to you. I think he was … he was like the ocean liner.’ The way he said the word ‘ocean’ confirmed Ruth’s suspicion that her caller had taken a drink or two.

  ‘Yes?’ she said cautiously.

  ‘He was the ocean liner and they were the little tugboats that buzzed around him.’

  Ruth laughed a little nervously. ‘Never underestimate tugboats. They guide the liner into port.’

  At the other end she could hear a sip and a swallow. This was all getting too serious.

  ‘You sound as if you’re finishing off the grappa,’ she said, brightly.

  ‘The grappa? No, that’s your drink. I’m saving that for you.’

  She laughed.

  ‘Save it for both of us,’ she said.

  ‘I’m saving for the chair. That’s what I’m saving for. I may only work at the bloody post office but I’m going to have it. You see. Excuse my language.’

  ‘Be my guest. I come from New Jersey.’

  ‘Will you please ask your friends, or your contacts to hang on to it. Okay? Will they do that? Will they give me some time?’

  ‘If you’re serious.’

  ‘I’m deadly serious. I want that chair.’

  Ruth narrowed her eyes as the smoke stung them. She could see a light moving outside. Mr Wellbeing worked until after dark these days when the fields were wet and heavy.

  ‘In that case I’ll tell them I have a buyer.’

  ‘Tell them that. Tell them I need a week or two, though.’

  ‘D’you have the money?’

  Martin almost shouted down the phone. ‘I’ll get the money.’

  ‘Okay, fine.’

  There was a pause. She waited.

  ‘Tell them I want it.’ There was an urgency near to desperation in his voice now. ‘It may take time, but please don’t let it go.’

  ‘I get the message,’ said Ruth, stretching down and reaching out for the letter from the Morton-Smiths.

  A beam of light swung across the room, followed almost immediately by the sound of Mr Wellbeing’s tractor changing down a gear as it turned up the track towards the farm.

  ‘Let me know if I can be of any more help then,’ she said in a winding down sort of way.

  ‘I will.’

  There was a pause. The tractor rumbled past on its way up to the farm.

  After a moment Martin’s voice came again, and this time she detected the sound of a smile. ‘Adiós, hija.’ His Spanish wasn’t bad.

  ‘Adiós, Papa.’

  She hung up and smoked thoughtfully for a while. The sound of the tractor receded. Soon she heard it turn and she heard the jarring scrape of metal as the trailer was reversed into the barn, then a shudder as the engine finally died.

  When everything was quiet again she could feel her heart beating. She should really finish her letter home, fix something to eat and then read for at least a couple of hours. There was plenty to do, but at this precise moment she could do nothing. She felt unsettled. She was here at Everend Farm Cottage for the sole purpose of completing a book. A book that was important to her. A book that would establish her credentials as a serious scholar and maybe even make her a little money. She needed her time to be left clear and uncluttered. Now, almost without her noticing, she had allowed a stranger into her life and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he would not easily be persuaded to leave.

  Seventeen

  Elaine had inherited a fighting streak from her father. Frank Rudge was an obstinate man and he’d never been far from a fight. He was born down the coast at Alford, third son in a family of fishermen. His father, John Rudge, had never had much of an opinion of his youngest son. He thought him soft and unambitious. When Rudge Senior retired he handed over the business and the half-dozen boats it involved to Frank’s two elder brothers.

  Displaying an unexpected abundance of the family talent for stubbornness and tenacity, Frank moved north to Theston, took a job with the local harbour-master, married a Theston girl and set about finding a foothold in the tightly controlled fishery business of his newly adopted home. Theston fishing was in the hands of two or three families who didn’t take kindly to newcomers. But, with the help of some inside information from the coast guards, Frank outmanoeuvred them by winning a contract from the Ministry of Defence to maintain an area of beach south of the harbour for amphibious vehicle training. Three years later the army pulled out but Frank had made enough money to build a processing and refrigeration depot which the local fishing families reluctantly agreed to use. For a while he was one of the most successful businessmen in Theston. He was elected councillor in 1965, the year Elaine was born, and Mayor three years later.

  Then, in the late seventies, the depot folded. Frank Rudge claimed that deep sea factory fishing had so depleted the lucrative herring catches that he had no option but to close. The speed with which he pulled out and the suffering caused to local fishermen fed rumours that there was more to the story, but nothing was ever proved. Rudge moved swiftly to invest what money he had left in a troubled local haulage business, saving a dozen jobs in the town and making him once again the local hero. A disastrous move from haulage into property in partnership with Ernie Padgett was Rudge’s next attempt to prove his father’s original judgement of him wro
ng. It cost him half a million pounds when the market collapsed a year later. After that he settled for a small greengrocery business, a small terraced house in the middle of town, a small heart attack and a small but growing role in local politics. In the last five years he had twice been elected Mayor, and he was currently the industrious and influential Chairman of the Planning Committee.

  Whatever the rumours, Frank Rudge claimed never to have had any favours from anyone and it was in this spirit that Elaine had remained firmly unimpressed by Nick Marshall’s invitation to a drink after work. However, Frank Rudge was also insatiably curious, and in that spirit she had accepted.

  They met, at Marshall’s suggestion, in the bar of the Market Hotel. In January, after Christmas and before the spring visitors arrived, it was still quiet. They sat opposite each other at a marble-topped round table beside an open fire.

  ‘I know women don’t like pubs,’ Nick had said as he came back from the bar with two large orange juices and a packet of crisps. ‘I thought you’d prefer it here.’

  ‘I like pubs,’ said Elaine, determined not to make things easy for him.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes. If you want to find out what’s going on in Theston you have to go to the pub.’

  Nick could see her trying. Trying very hard. She was tense, tight, sharp, and he knew that while she remained that way he had the advantage.

  ‘Not to the Town Council then?’ he asked as innocently as he could.

  Elaine glanced up at him. ‘They go to the pub as well,’ she said.

  Marshall smiled. ‘You ever thought of following in Dad’s footsteps?’ he asked her, casually.

  ‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘Often.’

  They both drank. Elaine set her glass down first. ‘D’you go to pubs?’ she asked.

  Marshall shook his head. ‘Not if I can avoid it.’

  ‘What do you do for a night out?’

  ‘I don’t feel the need for them,’ he said, reaching for the bag of crisps.

  ‘What does Geraldine think about that?’

  His clear blue eyes flicked up to hers. Nick had never really looked at Elaine, not for long anyway. Her nose was big and her face oddly old-fashioned, like in those Second World War pictures of wives waving their husbands goodbye. But when she was on the attack her jawline hardened and her nostrils widened and her eyes sparkled attractively.

  ‘What’s Geraldine got to do with it?’

  ‘Well, you’re the one to answer that. You know her better than I do.’

  Elaine took a crisp and pushed the bag towards him. He caught the smell of scent on her neck. A little too much. He smiled, shook his head and pushed the packet back.

  ‘What’s wrong, Elaine?’ he asked, leaning forward, back held straight, lips slightly parted revealing almost faultless teeth.

  Elaine sat back, paused, then spoke, chin thrust forward.

  ‘Well, as you ask, quite a lot. I didn’t like the way John Parr and Arthur Gillis were sacked. I think that part-timers are a cheap, easy option for the post office. They confuse the customers and they slow down business. And I personally resent being told nothing and asked nothing about a complete change to the office I’ve worked in for six years.’

  ‘And Martin’s not seeing you any more.’

  Elaine felt herself redden. It was as much with shock as anything. She fought it angrily. ‘I was talking about post office business.’

  ‘So was I.’

  She took a long draught of the orange juice. It tasted sweet and sickly.

  ‘You asked me about Geraldine. I asked you about Martin,’ said Marshall quietly. Then he moved in. With one controlled, continuous movement, he leaned forward, palms flat on the table, neck extended effortlessly forward until the strong, straight line of his nose and the smooth curve of his fine chin fixed her like gun-sights.

  ‘I’m not a fool, Elaine. I was aware right from the word go that you and Martin regarded that post office as your own private little empire. You saw a nice little earner for Rudge and Sproale, protectors of the past, guardians of the ancient rights of the customer. Well, it’s not easy for an outsider coming into a family business, you know.’

  Elaine made to speak, but Marshall held up his hand.

  ‘Unfortunately I’m not the sort to sit and file my nails waiting for the next customer. I saw another future for Theston. I saw a wider picture than wedding bells and baby socks and cosy Christmas dinners.’

  Elaine’s jaw set. She could hardly bear to look at him, but he wouldn’t let her look away.

  ‘I saw the business that paid for all these little dreams slipping quietly back into the Stone Age. I saw it waving goodbye to E-Mail and fibre-optics and video telephones. I saw Telecom and Mercury and anyone else with money and nous knocking Postman Pat off his bicycle and making off with his jolly old sack of letters.’

  Nick Marshall kept his eyes on Elaine. She began to feel like she used to at school when the headmaster had her in. She had to remind herself that this man was younger than she was. Then Nick Marshall suddenly smiled.

  ‘You’re aggressive, Elaine. I like that. I am too. But don’t fight me. Fight them. Fight everyone out there who wants to keep the Post Office small and cosy and cuddly.’ His face came, almost imperceptibly, closer to hers. ‘The business is changing. The only way to preserve what we’ve got, Elaine, is to go forward. And by the way, Geraldine and I don’t live together.’

  He suddenly stood up. ‘Shall we go?’

  Elaine looked around. She was too shaken to move. When she found her voice it sounded thin and unconvincing. ‘Go where?’ she asked.

  Nick Marshall leaned down and took her elbow. ‘For dinner. I’ve booked us a table in the restaurant.’

  * * *

  Elaine had no gloves or scarf with her as she left the Market Hotel that night, but she was only two streets away from home and warmth. She walked briskly along the High Street then slowed and stopped. She turned down towards the sea, then changed her mind and walked back in the direction of the church. The skies had cleared during the evening and a cold north wind gripped the town tight. With Elaine it had been the reverse. She had gone into the evening cool and clear and she had come out of it hot and confused. She stopped outside Mountjoy’s Fashions and stared in at the vacant faces of the mannequins. Down one side of the lighted display was an enfilade of plaster bosoms. Some were black and some were white. At least half a dozen were quite badly chipped. The brassieres they carried were all different but the busts were the same. That’s wrong for a start, she thought. No two busts are the same. She looked at them more closely and tried to imagine what it was men saw in busts, what it was that made them want to stare and touch and fondle. Jack Blyth had once told her that she had perfect breasts, and when she asked him how he was so sure he told her it was because he’d seen a great many.

  Suddenly she missed Martin. She missed his moodiness. She missed his uncertainty and his indecision and the pain in his expression as he tried to work out what was for the best. She realised that whatever they had or hadn’t done together, she felt she knew him better than any man she’d ever met.

  She walked on a few steps until she could see the church clock. It stood out clear and sharp tonight. It was fifteen minutes to ten.

  Without any more debate she walked home, took a scarf and a pair of gloves from the basket inside the hall, took her car keys down from the hook and, shouting as nonchalantly as possible that she was going for a drive, she left the house again and climbed into her car.

  She had been repelled by Nick Marshall. Repelled by his mocking, self-regarding arrogance. His presumption that she would want to do whatever he suggested made her breathless with indignation. She switched on the car radio. A lonely man was phoning in. She switched it off. There was frost about and she had to keep clearing a space on the inside of the windscreen in order to see the road ahead. She was excited at the thought of taking Martin by surprise. She would tell him as much as she could of the evenin
g. It would be easy to tell him what Marshall had said about them and their relationship. It would be easy to tell him about Marshall’s health obsession and how he had asked for the sauce to be removed from the salmon and the potatoes to be boiled without salt, and it would be easy to tell him how angry he’d been with the new waiter when he poured the wine, but it would be less easy to talk about the rest. Because it wasn’t really what he had said, so much as how he’d said it, and how he’d looked at her when he was saying it.

  She hit the brake pedal hard as the road shook and a massive truck cannoned past her heading south. The heavy lorries that used to have to crawl through Theston stopping for schoolchildren were happier now they had the bypass. They thundered down it with relish, avenging thirty years of delays.

  She pulled across into the turning lane then over the road, up a short landscaped rise and down along past the ragged silhouettes of gorse and hawthorn until after a mile or so she could see, with some relief, the lights of Marsh Cottage.

  As she got out of the car the intense cold took her breath away. The wind was hard and grating out here. Straight from Siberia they were saying in the post office that day. The winds they talked about always came from places like that. Siberia, the North Pole, the Sahara. They never seemed to start in Middlesbrough or Falmouth or Preston. As she approached the house she could see the flickering blue glow of a television on the curtains. When she rang the doorbell, there was a long pause, and she was about to ring again when she heard Kathleen call out from the other side of the door.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘It’s Elaine!’

  A key turned and the door opened. ‘Elaine? What a lovely surprise.’

  ‘I’m sorry it’s so late.’

  ‘Come in, girl. You’ll be freezing.’

  Kathleen Sproale switched a light on and fussed her into the sitting room. Martin wasn’t in there. On the television there was some unhappiness. Rows of gaunt, expressionless faces, gathered at a border crossing. In the bay window was Kathleen’s work-table, from which hung a length of curtain, and a folded square of lining. ‘I was doing some stitching,’ she said. ‘But I can’t see so well at this time of night. Wait while I switch that off.’