Hemingway’s Chair

day. Cheers!’
    He
smiled appreciatively and raised his glass. Martin did too, wondering, as he
did so, where Marshall had seen them from and, more to the point, what he had
seen.
    Nick
Marshall set down his glass and looked squarely at Martin. ‘Are you happy with
the way things are?’
    Martin
shifted uncomfortably. He made a noise which he hoped would suggest he was
thinking hard. ‘At the post office.’ Marshall went on.
    ‘At
the post office?’
    ‘Where
you work,’ Marshall added helpfully. ‘Are there any things you’d like to
change?’
    Martin
experienced intimations of panic. He couldn’t at that moment think of how to
reply to the question. Or indeed why he’d been asked it in the first place. He
recovered a little and opted for caution. ‘Well, I think possibly we’re a
little traditional.’ Marshall looked pleased. He pulled his chair closer,
leaning forward expectantly, one arm upright on the table, elbow bent at a
right angle. With his head thrust forward, Martin thought he resembled one of
the gargoyles on Theston church. ‘Martin,’ he asked, ‘why did you join the Post
Office?’
    The
truth was that Martin had joined because he felt he owed it to his mother to
stay in the area after his father died. And there had been no other jobs.
‘Because it had a future,’ he said, hoping it would sound convincing.
    To
his relief Marshall nodded enthusiastically. ‘Exactly! You joined because you
could see the potential. You didn’t join to sit selling stamps in the back of
someone else’s shop.’
    Martin
was happy to hear this. ‘It’s happening a lot round here. Franchising,’ he
said.
    ‘Well,
it’s going to be different at Theston. This is where the Post Office is going
to show what it can do.’
    ‘I’m
glad to hear that, Mr Marshall,’ said Martin. ‘Nick,’ replied Nick Marshall,
expansively. ‘I’m glad to hear that, Nick,’ repeated Martin.
    ‘I
mean, what are we talking about here?’ enthused Nick Marshall. ‘The Post Office
is part of national life. Part of our national identity. It’s our legacy and
I’m damned if I’ll sit back and see it kicked around like the railways, the
coalmines and shipbuilding.’
    Martin
had rarely, if ever, felt excited about his work. It wasn’t one of those
emotions you associated with working at a post office. But now he could
actually feel his heart beating a tiny touch faster. Like everyone at the
Theston office, and as far as he could tell everyone else in the union too, he
had sat there like a rabbit in car headlights as the split-up of the Post
Office had gone on. The telephone service hived off. Royal Mail split from
Parcels, then Royal Mail and Parcels split from Counter Services, and they’d
all meekly accepted it. Franchises and rural closures had followed and they’d meekly
accepted them too. They’d lived off everyone else’s bad news, shutting their
eyes to the fact that it could one day be theirs as well. Martin took a long
mouthful of beer and set down his glass. ‘A man can be destroyed but never
defeated,’ he declared.
    Nick
Marshall looked mystified.
    ‘Ernest
Hemingway,’ explained Martin. ‘The Old Man and the Sea .'
    Marshall's
eyes narrowed, then lit up. ‘Ah! Humphrey Bogart?’
    Martin
shook his head. ‘Spencer Tracy.’
    ‘That’s
the one. It was on television. About a month ago. That line wasn’t in it.’
    Martin
bought himself another pint. Marshall refused on the grounds that he was
driving, but Martin concluded that he didn’t much like beer, and he’d taken the
trouble to come all the way out to Braddenham to put Martin at his ease.
    They
drove back along the narrow lanes. At one point a pheasant clattered,
panic-stricken and screeching, from the hedgerow ahead of them. Marshall put
his foot down but the bird flapped out of danger and away over into the field.
    ‘Damn!’
said Marshall. ‘Missed a good supper.’
    It
was almost half past seven when they pulled up in North Square. Nick Marshall
switched off his headlights, but kept the engine running.
    He
turned to Martin who sat awkwardly in the front seat, his anorak trapped in the
door. Nick flexed his slim, powerful shoulders. ‘I’ve enjoyed our talk. There’s
a lot of similarities between us, you know. We’re keen, we’re young still. We
want to get things done.’
    Martin
plucked helplessly at the hem of his coat.
    Marshall
nodded across at the brick and stone bulk of the post office, turned back and
confronted