Hemingway’s Chair

coastguard’s binoculars were the only ones powerful enough to
identify the figure in Cape-green sun-visor and baggy tropical shorts who
emerged from the wheelhouse to raise a clenched fist to the shore. But a moment
later everyone, on instant video links in a dozen major financial centres on
the continent of Europe and beyond, saw the flashing white hull make contact
with the solid clinker-built fishing boat Lady Mary , and rear up and out
of the water, high and spinning like a child’s top before it landed and
exploded in a bright yellow star burst.
    By
the time the Air-Sea Rescue helicopter flew over the area two lifeboats were
already on the scene. Wreckage of the Nordkom IV was scattered over a
wide area. The fisherman from the Lady Mary , by the name of Derek
Adland, had been found, still alive, in the water. When he was brought ashore
he could remember little. He repeated, over and over again, that the boat had
come straight towards him, that it had made no attempt to take avoiding action.
He could only conclude that whoever was at the wheel was out to kill him.
    The
coastguard said nothing at the time. He knew Martin Sproale and he knew
Kathleen, and he knew that there had been no one at the wheel when the boats
collided. The steering must have been locked on, for the only occupant of Nordkom
IV was in the stern, looking the other way, sitting in a fishing chair.
     
    A
few days later Ruth was sitting at her laptop at Everend Farm Cottage when she
heard a knock on the door. It was a hot July morning and she had opened all the
windows. The smell of high summer drifted in. A wheaty, dusty, pungent smell.
She had typed a last chapter-heading two coffees ago. She hated conclusions.
They sat there like sirens, luring the scholar onto the rocks of pomposity and
complacency. Now let’s have the solution, they seemed to say. Now tell us what
it’s all about so we won’t have to read the whole book.
    This
was the time Mrs Wellbeing usually called, interrupting her with some offering
or other — ducks’ eggs perhaps, which Ruth didn’t like, or strawberries, which
she did. She rested her cigarette on the side of her new ashtray and went to
the door. It wasn’t Mrs Wellbeing. It was the postman and he had a letter for
her which bore a London postmark. She thanked the postman, exchanged a word or
two about the weather and pushed the door to. Inside the envelope were two
folded pages of notepaper. They were old and dry and bore the faded heading, ‘Ambos
Mundos Hotel, Havana, Cuba'-.
     
    Dear Ruth,
    Have
been waiting ten years to use this notepaper. I hope you’re impressed. I’m
sorry you never got to ride in Pilar. It was one hell of a thing knowing
you and sharing all those good, crazy times. I don’t feel bad about anything
that happened. That’s just the way things do happen. If what I want to do is
done then it will have been a great battle won, and though I know you will
always think me out of my mind to do this for a post office, you, of all
people, know it was more than just for that. I wasn’t in it alone. Gerry taught
me all about the boat and was crazy too. I’ve given her this letter and she’ll
get it to you come hell or high water.
    You
taught me a lot, Ruthie, and when I reach Scandinavia or whatever land I first
hit north-northeast of Theston (if I can stop the boat!) I will write to you
and invite you to tea.
    Now
get that bottle of Scotch out of your kitchen cupboard and let’s drink to the
man who made it all possible.
    Dreaming
of lions,
    Love
ever,
    Santiago
Sproale.
     
    Later
Ruth drank the whisky and set again to the task of typing the first lines of
her last chapter.
    The
letters chattered up. Silver on blue:
     
    The final
event of Hemingway’s life is the one many now consider the most predictable.
Such a glib judgement should never prevent the scholar from wanting to enquire
why a man, still widely popular, still respected by many close friends, loved
and cared for by the woman who had seen him through so much, should have
decided to take his own life on the brilliant summer’s morning of July the
second, 1961.