Hemingway’s Chair

photograph taken in some sort of store-room or
workshop. Various pieces of furniture stood about. ‘What am I meant to be
looking at?’
    Ruth
pointed to the centre of the photograph. ‘There, against the wall.’
    His
eye was drawn to a sturdy, wooden armchair built like a garden seat. The base
was slatted onto a chunky wooden frame, at each side of which were three
vertical supports topped with a wide arm-rest. The chair-back was a plain,
slightly-angled arrangement of two verticals and four curved cross-pieces.
Leather straps and a broad footrest were attached to it. But the remarkable
feature of the chair was that it had only one leg. And that was in the centre.
It appeared to be of metal, the shape and thickness of a scaffolding bar, and
it protruded some two feet from the base of the chair. Leaning awkwardly
against the wall, it looked pathetic, a little like Tiny Tim’s crutches at the
Cratchits’ Christmas party.
    Ruth
indicated the photograph. ‘Interested?’
    Martin
was more aware of a fast-filling post office. ‘Look, maybe I should have a look
another time.’
    Ruth
ignored this and reached into the envelope again, pausing as she did so, like a
magician at a children’s party. ‘Here it is again.’
    This
time she produced a larger picture. It was in colour, taken from a magazine,
and in the foreground was the same single-legged chair. This time, however, the
leg was bolted firmly on to the deck of a ship, which was listing in a high sea
of towering navy blue waves and smudgy white foam. An unmistakable figure —
broad-shouldered, wearing a white tennis cap, a brown cotton jacket and holding
a fishing rod — was sitting in it with his back to the camera. ‘Hemingway,’
breathed Martin.
    Ruth
nodded and smiled with a touch of pride. She held the black and white
photograph alongside it, then turned it over. ‘Now you’ll understand what
you’re looking at,’ she said.
    On
the back of the black and white photograph was a gummed label, which bore a
description in the big, bold, slightly ornate lettering of an elderly
typewriter. ‘Fishing chair,’ he read, ‘as used by Ernest Hemingway, Cabo
Blanco, Peru, April 1956, whilst shooting action footage for the feature film
of The Old Man and the Sea.'
    Martin
stared at the photographs again. He felt oddly nervous. ‘Where is this chair?’
he asked Ruth.
    ‘It’s
in London.’
    Martin
looked from Ruth back to the photograph. He moistened his lips.
    ‘It’s
yours if you want it,’ she said.
    ‘Mine?’
he asked, huskily.
    ‘There
is a catch. You’ll need seven hundred and fifty pounds.’
    Martin
felt his heart thumping. He glanced quickly around. At the counter three of the
four positions were open and occupied. At one, Nick Marshall was enmeshed with
a frail elderly lady and a lot of stamps. At another, Geraldine was patiently
explaining some knotty point about Benefits to an unhappy young man whom Martin
vaguely recognised from the garage, and next to her Mary Perrick, holding a
fistful of notes and frequently dabbing her finger in the wet sponge, was
laboriously counting out a savings withdrawal. The fourth bore a ‘Position
Closed’ sign. The queues had lengthened now and heads turned quite openly
towards him. He knew from experience that no matter how friendly customers
might appear none of them ever saw a ‘Position Closed’ sign as anything other
than a deliberate act of defiance on the part of the workforce.
    Martin
looked back again at the photograph. At Hemingway and his broad back against
the chair and his huge bare foot revealed on a makeshift rest.
    ‘We’re
too busy now. Can I talk to you later?’
    ‘Look,’
Ruth slipped the photographs back in the envelope and handed it to him. ‘Take
it, check it out and let me know. I think it’s pretty neat, don’t you? It would
certainly go with the typewriter.’
    Martin
shook his head gloomily, it’s not the sort of thing I can afford.’
    ‘Nor
me,’ she said. ‘But true fans find a way.’
    She
smiled, waved and was gone.
    As
he turned to go back behind the counter Martin noticed that Elaine had taken
down the ‘Closed’ sign at his position and was already serving a line of
grateful customers. He checked the Newmark electric wall clock, ascertained
that he still had fifteen minutes of his lunch break left, unlocked the door
and went back into the staff room. He lifted the flap of the envelope, brushed
the crumbs from his sandwiches off the table, laid the