Hemingway’s Chair

raised, scouring the reed-beds. She was over six feet
tall and from a distance, in her deer-stalker, Barbour jacket and matching
thigh-length waders, she could easily be taken for a small tree.
    Though
she could wait for hours on a jacksnipe or a water rail she had no patience for
humans and this particular morning her restlessness was almost tangible as
Martin explained slowly and laboriously to Harold Meredith the intricacies of
the Pension Income Bonds, something which he had to do on more or less a weekly
basis. Mr Meredith nodded earnestly as he listened.
    ‘So
would you like a leaflet?’ Martin asked him.
    ‘Oh,
yes please,’ he returned, eyes lighting up.
    Martin
leant down to the cupboard and, flicking it open with his right foot, withdrew
a small pile of them. He detached one and handed it to Mr Meredith. ‘Here you
are. Pensioners’ Income Bond Booklet, Series 2.’
    ‘D’you
want it back?’
    ‘No,
you hang on to it, Mr Meredith.’
    ‘How
much is it?’
    ‘Oh,
for God’s sake...’ came quite audibly from behind him.
    ‘Morning,
Mrs Harvey-Wardrell.’ Martin offered a placatory smile.
    She
didn’t seem placated.
    ‘I’m
in a dreadful hurry.’
    ‘Yes,
I’ll be with you right away. That should answer all your questions, Mr
Meredith.’
    ‘How
much is it, Martin?’
    ‘Completely
free. Compliments of the Post Office.’
    Mr
Meredith’s eyes swam with emotion. ‘I can remember when you could send a letter
to Hong Kong for a penny halfpenny,’ he said somewhat at random.
    Mrs
Harvey-Wardrell exhaled threateningly. In paisley silk headscarf, thick-ribbed
turtleneck sweater, body-warmer, tweed skirt, lisle stockings and lace-up
brogues, she was looking about as feminine as Martin had ever seen her.
    ‘I
could have walked to Hong Kong by now,’ she snapped and, using her
substantial weight advantage, began to edge Mr Meredith along the counter.
Harold Meredith knew this tactic and had his own way of dealing with it.
    ‘Thank
you, Martin,’ he said, deliberately slowly. He gathered up his various
documents, picked up his tweed cap, unhooked his walking stick from the edge of
the counter and moved unhurriedly across the post office to the public writing
desk. Here he set out his papers, then tried to engage Jane Cardwell, the
doctor’s wife, in conversation. Having failed to do so, he reread the latest
brochures on Parcel Force rates, live animal export regulations and forwarding
mail to a private address.
    Mrs
Harvey-Wardrell began briskly. ‘What I need,’ she announced in ringing tones,
as if addressing an open-air rally, ‘is two postal orders. One for Sebastian
who’s just got into Eton with one of the highest Common Entrance marks they’ve
ever had at Waterdene and the other for dear Charlie who’s nowhere near as
bright but I can’t leave him out. Have you anything appropriate, Martin?’
    ‘Postal
orders are all the same.’
    ‘No.
I don’t mean postal orders, I mean those sort of gift voucher things.’
    ‘Well,
we’ve got these.’ He withdrew two cards, swiftly and expertly, from his sliding
drawer.
    ‘Those
are ghastly,’ said Mrs Harvey-Wardrell. ‘Well, that’s all we have at the
moment.’
    ‘They
had dozens of them in Cambridge. All sorts of designs.’ She looked down
disparagingly at the two examples Martin had laid out on the counter. ‘I can’t
send a boy wrestling with the problems of adolescence a bunch of pansies.’
    ‘Geraniums,
I think,’ volunteered Martin.
    ‘And
what’s this one?’
    Martin
examined the card. He wasn’t too sure himself.
    ‘I
think it’s a ship in trouble.’
    ‘Artist
in trouble, I should say. Who chooses these things?’
    ‘Well,
Mr Padgett does the ordering.’
    Mrs
Harvey-Wardrell lowered her voice to a whisper, which rang around the post
office. ‘How is he today?’
    ‘Much
the same.’
    She
leant across the counter. There was something damp and musty on her breath,
like the smell of an abandoned house.
    ‘The
sooner there’s some young blood in here the better, Martin. I’ll take two ships
in trouble.’
     
    Everyone
was waiting for Ernie Padgett’s retirement. He had been Postmaster of Theston
for twenty-three years and Assistant Postmaster for twenty years before that.
‘Padge’, as he was universally known, had long been at the centre of Theston
life, twice Mayor and, like his friend Frank Rudge, on and off the council for
as long as anyone could remember. Half a dozen years ago, Padge and