She went into the kitchen and pushed the door half-closed behind her. For once she didn’t want to talk Hemingway. She poured herself a drink first and sipped it unhurriedly, staring out at the sodden countryside, letting the slow warmth revive her.
When she came out of the kitchen, Martin was no longer there. In his place was a hunched, wary figure wearing a white tennis cap, grey sweatshirt and a light brown cotton jacket with a pattern of tiny check. He wore plain white Bermuda-length cotton shorts. His calves were bare and he sat, leaning forward, as if waiting. Ruth approached cautiously. The figure in the chair was concentrating on something in the middle distance. His face wore an ironic, self-mocking smile. She held out a glass of whisky.
‘You want a drink?’
For a moment nothing moved, but when the figure slowly lifted his head, Ruth experienced once again the uncanny sensation of being with a stranger she knew well.
‘I guess I look ridiculous,’ came a voice that was slow and heavy and yet in which the smile remained. She said nothing.
‘I don’t look like a decent fellow should look, huh?’
He took the whisky from her and drank it back in one. Then he held the glass out again and watched her refill it.
He drank again, more slowly. This one was neat and he gasped at the after-taste. Then all of a sudden he looked up and breathed deep and beamed around him.
‘Well, I look like this because this is the way I like to look most of the time. I look like this because, come tomorrow, I shall be in Havana and I shall be drinking cold beers with Mrs Mason on the deck of HMS Anita.’
Ruth caught all the allusions. In 1933 Ernest left Pauline behind in Key West and took a two-month fishing holiday in Havana. He met up with the beautiful, wilful, twenty-three-year-old Jane Mason, whose husband was working and couldn’t go with her, and they fished together off a boat called Anita, which belonged to Joe Russell, one of Hemingway’s Key West cronies. It was an episode of his life she and most Hemingway scholars had always wanted to know more about. A rare extramarital affair, known to have taken place, but still steeped in mystery.
Ruth poured herself another drink and sat down opposite him, one side of her face caught by the lamplight. ‘Why are you going away so soon?’
‘Because I worked goddamn hard at that book and I need to get it out of my system.’
‘I worked hard to get this house ready for you,’ she said quietly. ‘You know how much money I spent?’
His face clouded. ‘That’s the only way you see these things. Through the end of a bank balance. So your father bought this house. Great. So you put in nice furniture, big curtains. Paint everything. Great. I do no more fucking writing because I have to sit around choosing curtains when I could be out on a boat chasing marlin with my real friends.’
‘You call those bums you hang out with your friends?’
‘They’re simple guys. They drink and they gamble and they live off the sea. But I love them. Okay?’
‘You love them more than me?’
‘Maybe I do. Maybe they don’t keep wanting to hang on to me and tidy me up and put me on display.’
‘I just want to have you here in the house with me. I don’t care if you wear nothing but a pair of sneakers and a leopard- skin loincloth, I’d rather I looked after you than Mrs Mason. I’m your wife, dammit. What happened? What did I do wrong?’
‘You did too much. You tried too hard.’
‘You loved me once. You loved me so much and I loved you and we went everywhere together and we made each other very happy.’
‘If you say so.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘I do know, for Chrissake, I do know.’
‘You knew for a day. You knew for a week. Then someone more interesting comes along and I have to go along with that. I have to wait while you make your plans and then I do what you want me to do. Isn’t that right?’
‘No … no … It’s not right.’
‘You do what you want to do and I’m just supposed to fit in, right?
‘No, no!’
‘I’m the wife who has to stay home till the master returns.’
‘No.’
‘My writing is not worth shit.’
‘No.’
‘All you want is a body to be there when it suits you.’
‘No!’
Ruth saw the sweat break out on his brow, but she couldn’t stop now.
‘Well, I’ll tell you. You ain’t as hot as you think you are.’
‘Quit, will you?’ His head swung angrily.
‘Don’t want to hear the truth, huh?’
‘I said quit.’
‘I tell you I could walk out that door right now and find a dozen guys who’d give me a better time!’
‘I said quit!’
A cut glass ashtray flew towards Ruth’s head. She ducked and heard it smash against the wall and fall in pieces to the floor behind her.
She straightened up.
Martin stood staring helplessly. ‘Are you all right?’
She nodded.
He looked down at his hand, moving it slowly up towards him, as if sensing it for the first time. His voice, when it came, was small and bewildered. ‘I’m sorry, Ruth. I’m sorry.’
‘You okay?’
Ruth stayed where she was, eyeing him warily. She found herself taking breath in short, sharp gulps.
Martin shook his head, as if trying to clear it from a daze.
‘I don’t know what came over me.’
‘It was my fault,’ she said. ‘This is a crazy thing to do.’
‘I forgot,’ he said. ‘I thought you were – I thought you were someone else.’
‘Someone besides Pauline?’
‘Yes.’
‘Want to tell me?’
Martin said nothing. Then he drew a hand across his eyes and looked down at the chair.
‘I’m sorry. It’s this thing,’ he said, trying to wriggle free without toppling the chair. ‘I must get up. I must get out of it.’
The wind was up again outside Everend Farm Cottage, but it was not hostile. It blew hard and slackened and the next time it blew less hard. The room was growing dark. Ruth took a brush and began to sweep up the pieces. It was a way of stopping herself shaking.
Martin climbed out of the chair. ‘I better go.’
‘You’re going nowhere. Just sit right down again. I’ll fix you some coffee.’
* * *
The coffee was strong and he felt it must be doing him some good. Ruth had a mug too and she brought it over and knelt down by the fire and she lit a cigarette from the fire and they both watched the new logs hiss and slowly start to take the flame.
‘I’ve never done anything like that before. Honestly. Never.’
‘I believe you,’ said Ruth.
‘Something inside. Can’t explain. Something very strong.’
‘Listen. If you wanted to hurt me that bad it’s something that needs dealing with.’
‘I didn’t want to hurt you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Sure,’ said Ruth. ‘But I wasn’t being me. I was being Pauline and you were being Ernest. Then you stopped being Ernest and as far as you were concerned I stopped being Pauline and became someone else. Oscars all round I think. But let’s not do it again.’
A burning log rolled towards them out of the fire. Ruth reached for a poker and pushed it back.
‘I think I was in love with her,’ said Martin, matter-of-factly. ‘But I didn’t know how to say it properly. So I did nothing. Now she’s betrayed me. Sleeping with the enemy.’
The log spat back at Ruth, causing her to pull back. Her back came up against his legs. ‘Goddamit. There’s a sniper in there!’
Martin gave a short half-laugh. ‘It’s not your night.’
‘I’ll say. It’s the English countryside firing back. Well I’m going to stay out of range.’
She relaxed back against Martin’s legs. There was a pause, then Martin spoke, slowly. ‘You’re t
he authority,’ he said. ‘What would Hemingway have done?’
‘I’m no authority. Not yet anyway.’
‘Well, from what you’ve found out so far, Professor of Hemingway Women, what would he have done if he was me?’
Ruth considered the question.
‘Well, once things began to go wrong between him and a woman, it was usually a sign he’d found another one he liked more.’
‘Well, that’s no help.’
‘No other women in your life, then?’
‘Absolutely not!’
Ruth drew her knees up under her chin and arched her back away from him. ‘Well in that case,’ she said with feeling, ‘I think he would have been very disappointed in you.’
Martin smiled ruefully and stayed silent.
* * *
Ruth cleared away the coffee things and offered to fix some food, but Martin didn’t seem interested in food. So she opened a bottle of wine and came back in front of the fire and they drank it together and she settled back in her favourite foetal position, knees drawn up, back resting gently, but firmly, against Martin’s knees as he sat in the armchair, staring into the fire.
‘Do you mind?’ asked Martin, after a while.
‘Do I mind what?’
‘Do you mind that I’m, well, that I’m like this. I never used to tell anyone what I did. It was all private, between him and me.’
‘I feel honoured, Martin,’ she said, feeling free not to mean it.
‘I was so excited about the chair. I wanted it so much because it would bring me closer to him and this is what happens.’
Ruth leaned back and drew on her cigarette. Martin watched as she blew the smoke towards the fire. It merged with the wood smoke and was snatched away towards the chimney.
‘It doesn’t affect you – to be Pauline?’ Martin said to her after a while.
Ruth shook her head and blew out a trail of smoke. ‘I can’t be Pauline. I can read all her books and her letters and everything about her but I can’t do what you do.’
‘Why is that, d’you think?’
She paused, then tipped her head back. ‘Because I think I’m nearer Mrs Mason.’
‘But she was –’
Ruth grinned. ‘The scarlet woman. Fast and loose and drank a lot and was a little mad to say the least.’
Martin looked at his glass. It was empty. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with someone like that.’
Ruth smiled. ‘Well imagine,’ she said. ‘You Papa. Me Jane.’
She threw her cigarette into the fire and pushed herself back against his knees. ‘Open sesame!’ she said, wriggling against them.
Martin offered no resistance. He slipped forward off the chair and on to the floor. She leant close up against his chest. He could feel the warm breadth of her back.
‘It’s always good to see you,’ she said and she took his arms and wrapped them close around her. ‘I like to see you.’
She clasped her knees and began to rock gently from side to side. ‘You maybe should take holidays more often.’ She could feel his hands open cautiously around her breasts, which were free and loose under her blouse. ‘I’m always ready for you.’
They sat like that for a while, then he said, ‘Me too, daughter.’
She felt the warmth of his face as it touched her cheek and the surprising softness of his lips against her shoulder. ‘Me too.’
‘Where shall we go tonight?’ she asked. ‘The Floridita? Chory’s?’
‘Too many Americans at Floridita.’
‘It still does the best daiquiris in town.’ She nuzzled her head back against him. He buried his face in her thick, dark hair. It smelt of aloes and the sea.
‘We could go on to El Pacifico,’ she whispered. ‘Dance on the roof.’
‘I prefer the girls at Chory’s. You remember the one with the big lazy eye?’
She laughed. ‘The one you called the wrestler?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Some girl.’
His mouth was now passing up and down across the back of her neck. She knew what was happening and she was pleased. She tipped her head forward, away from him, then leant it all the way back till it rested on his shoulder.
She spoke softly. ‘We could go down to the Nacional for an absinthe and behave badly along the front.’
His hands slipped lower and she felt him lift her cotton blouse and she felt the warmth of the fire on her unprotected stomach and the soft play of his hands across her breasts.
‘If it’s a new moon,’ she said, ‘we could take the boat out and make love on the bay. I’ve always wanted to make love on the bay.’
His hands ran down wide and strong across her stomach. They had started shy but now their touch was assured. She eased her long legs apart as they ran on easily down.
‘Old Gutiérrez wouldn’t like that,’ he said and she felt his breath on her neck as he spoke. ‘They’re bad, bad boys those sailors, but they’re good Catholics and they’d rather see Papa fishing than fornicating.’
She laughed lightly and slipped herself free of her loose black trousers and with a quick lean forward pulled clear of her blouse.
‘On the other hand,’ she said, turning in towards him, ‘we could try the church on the corner.’ She reached for his belt. ‘You ever made love in a church, Papa?’
‘Hell no,’ he grunted. ‘Too cold.’
When they were both naked she lay along him and she could feel how much he wanted her. She felt his long soft fingers tracing the curve of her spine and the small of her back, as his lips moved slowly from her breasts down the narrow line of her stomach.
‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘Let’s just stay here in the hotel.’
Thirty
There was a long and desolate stretch of beach south of Theston where the houses petered out and sand dunes covered in hard spiky grass ran twenty miles down the coast before they reached the next village. To get to it Martin had to skirt the walls of the harbour and pick his way carefully along the green and slippery causeway that led to the old pier. The smell of saltwater and seaweed was thick and cloying, and he remembered the days when there had been other smells here, of tar and fish and petrol. His father had often brought him down to watch the fishermen. They had stood, hand in hand, and watched the boats winched up the slipway on sturdy chains, green and shaggy with hanging fronds of sea grass. When he was old enough to come to the harbour on his own, he was told never to go further than this and never to set foot on the old, abandoned pier. Of course they all did and there were often boys, anxious to impress, who had picked their way through the rusting barbed wire and over the fence and out along the girders. Martin had always watched, never dared. One day he was watching when a boy called Fraser went out at low tide and reached the very end of the two-hundred-yard pier and held up one of the warning lights as a trophy and waved it in triumph. But he waited too long and the tide came in faster than he could make his way back and he lost his footing and they all saw him fall. After that there was much talk of dismantling the pier but, in the end, the approach was fenced off and left, and over the years nothing happened, except that the wooden fence posts were replaced with concrete ones and the barbed wire with razor wire.
This was now festooned, like the rim of the beach itself, with impaled litter and polystyrene cups thrown overboard from passing freighters. Martin walked carefully past it, across the shingle and up towards the low brick shelter which Frank Rudge had erected for the army’s exercises and which they had never used. There was still the occasional, abrupt reminder of war when the Jaguars and Tornadoes from RAF Dentishall raced low down the coast and out to sea. But for most of the year there was little sound but the soft plump and swish of breaking waves and the hoarse rattle they made on the pebbles as they drained back to the sea.
Martin had sometimes come here with Elaine. It was a place where they could walk and not be disturbed.
Now he had come here alone, after work, for the same reason.
<
br /> The previous night with Ruth had left him confused. He had never felt such powerful physical attraction, nor had he ever felt quite as fulfilled or as wonderfully, radiantly, pleasurably happy. He had to keep reminding himself of this because, as soon as he left the cottage, in the last, solid darkness that comes just before dawn, the delight and pleasure had disappeared as swiftly as the darkness itself.
With the daylight came guilt, embarrassment and apology. His mother said nothing, which only made things worse. He wanted to tell her all that had happened, but couldn’t. At work he wanted to hide what had happened from Elaine, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t. He walked along the beach now, pulling his coat collar close around his neck as a cool breeze suddenly gusted off the steel-grey sea and he wondered what on earth he should do next.
Sex with Ruth had been exciting. He had never been as close and intimate with anyone before. He had never let anyone do what she did for him before. What happened now? He reached a small headland and pulled himself up onto a shingle bank and sat and watched the sea and felt, not closer to anyone, but further away than ever before.
* * *
He didn’t see Elaine straight away. First he saw Scruff, nose down, earnestly following some trail through the grass where the top of the beach met the sand dunes. The dog stopped and his tail began to work and he barked in recognition. Martin stood. He wanted to move but there was nowhere to go. A moment later he heard Elaine calling the dog. She stopped suddenly as she saw him. Her hair caught the breeze and her face looked cold and pinched in the raw sea air.
They faced each other without speaking. Then Elaine pulled out a pink handkerchief and dabbed away the drip she could feel forming on the end of her nose.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Martin.
‘Taking the dog for a walk,’ Elaine said, which was true, but she’d deliberately chosen to walk here so she wouldn’t have to meet anyone.
‘It’s going to rain,’ she said, nodding out to sea. ‘D’you want a lift back?’
Martin shook his head. ‘I’ve got the bicycle,’ he said.
‘Why don’t you buy a car? It’s about time.’
‘Haven’t got the money.’
Hemingway's Chair Page 20
