Hemingway’s Chair

couple
when, without much warning, he came over to her and knelt beside her and smiled
and ran his fingers across her face. Then he kissed her, directly on the lips,
but with his own lips Pressed firmly together. She had opened her mouth to tat
him in but he seemed uncertain how to proceed.
    Nothing
daunted, she had pulled herself up to allow room for his arms to go around her
but in so doing caught him off balance and he fell to one side, knocking her
drink with his hand and spilling vodka across her handbag.
    Martin
had been mortified and the next day at work the incident wasn’t mentioned.
Elaine was sad because she would have been perfectly happy for Martin to make
love to her, but there seemed no way to say it without sounding cheap and for a
while things had been distinctly awkward between them.
    A
few months after that, at the end of a long summer day of too much sunshine and
beer, they’d ended up back again beneath the bullfighter and this time Martin?
had been attentive and loving, but her pleasure had only increased his pleasure
and it was all over before he ’ had his clothes off and he’d gone out of the
room, , leaving her gazing up into the flashing dark eyes of El Cordobes, and
the hot, cruel promise of the Spanish sun. She had driven home soon afterwards.
    So
their affair remained on the runway, grounded by fog. Elaine let things take
their course. She knew he was still attracted to her and sooner or later it
would work out. But last night he had left Padge’s leaving party without a word
and this morning when she’d put a sympathetic hand on his arm, he’d pulled away
from her.
     
    ‘Can
I come in?’ she asked from the other side of the door.
    Martin
looked quickly around. There was no time to change anything, but he put away
the vodka bottle before answering.
    Elaine
looked in cautiously.
    Martin,
so erect and trim at work, seemed to be sagging under the weight of a monstrous
grey and red check shirt, which bulged into his trousers. His face was flushed,
and he stood awkwardly in front of his old typewriter as if trying to conceal
something.
    ‘Were
you writing?’
    Martin
shrugged. ‘Nothing much.’
    There
was a glass beside the typewriter. The sight of it brought back uncomfortable
memories. Indeed the whole room seemed oppressive.
    ‘D’you
want to go for a drive?’ Elaine asked him, as nonchalantly as she could.
    ‘A
drive?’ he repeated.
    ‘The
rain’s stopped. Looks like a nice evening.’
     
    She
drove them north along the coast, in her old and fast-corroding Fiat Uno. The
heavy rain had emptied the usual beauty spots and when they parked up at the
Point, midway between Theston and Hopton, they were entirely alone. They sat in
the car in silence.
    The
slate grey clouds had drifted out to sea leaving a jagged, messy,
storm-streaked sky. Elaine watched it for a while until she felt it impossible
not to say something.
    ‘I
had to get you on your own. Just to know what you were thinking.’
    Martin
was glad he’d taken vodka, rather than scotch or tequila. There was no trace on
the breath.
    Elaine
didn’t hurry him. She knew he’d been drinking. Probably vodka as there was no
trace on his breath.
    ‘Why
didn’t you let me talk to you?’ she asked.
    Martin
stared at the sea. He reached forward and flicked open the glove compartment.
There were some very old Opal Fruits in there. So old that Elaine didn’t offer
him one. Eventually Martin spoke, gruffly and reluctantly. ‘Nothing to say. I
should have got the job. I didn’t get the job. It’s not the end of the world.’
    ‘It’s
a rotten thing for them to do.’
    ‘It’s
happening,’ he said, it’s part of a process, you see. We’ve got to move with
the new technology. All of us, not just me.’
    ‘But
this man Marshall. They say he’s good.’
    ‘He’s
probably bloody good. As an undertaker.’
    ‘Meaning
what?’
    ‘Oh,
come on, Elaine, you know what they’re doing all over the country. Licensing
off post offices, closing post offices, getting out of expensive premises.
Slimming down for privatisation. All that talk about new eras. They’re selling
out. The days are over when the post office had to have the best place in town.
Look at Atcham, they’ve got an insurance company in the old post office
building and the post office franchised out to a sports shop.’
    Martin
snapped the door of the glove compartment open and shut as he spoke. ‘Perhaps
we’d better start thinking where we'd like to