Hemingway’s Chair

he touched her face
and sometimes took her hand.
    Elaine
watched him conduct some private battle with himself. He thrust his lower lip
forward and drew in the muscles tight around his eyes.
    ‘You’re
quite pensive.’
    ‘I
was thinking about the future,’ he said.
    ‘Well,
no wonder you were pensive. Which bit?’ asked Elaine.
    ‘Which
bit?’
    ‘Of
the future.’
    ‘Oh...’He
smiled bleakly. ‘The nearest bit.’
    ‘Am
I in it?’
    She
knew this would irritate him and she was right. He took a studied sip at his
beer and set the glass down before answering her.
    ‘As
a matter of fact, no. Just me and a large public company.’
    ‘Beginning
with P?’
    ‘How
did you guess?’
    ‘There
aren’t many left to choose from,’ she said.
    Martin
smiled ruefully.
    ‘Are
you not getting on well together, you and the Post Office?’ she asked him.
    Martin’s
frown deepened. A shadow of a breeze came from somewhere and ruffled his fine,
soft, red hair. ‘I don’t know. That’s the damn thing. I don’t know. Padge
is going in a fortnight and no one’s written to me or got in touch with me. I
mean, you’d think they’d have said something.'
    ‘Well,
you know what they’re like at Head Office. They’ve got lots on.’
    ‘Too
much to bother with us?’ Martin was indignant. ‘We work in a Crown office. Who
runs it matters.’ There was real anger in his voice, and it quite aroused
Elaine.
    ‘You’ll
get it. I know,’ she said.
    ‘You know, but what do they know? I know my job. There’s nothing I don’t know
about running a post office. But oh no, that’s not enough any more. Now it’s
all management training stuff. I hated that seminar in Ipswich. Role-plays.
Making business plans. Couldn’t think of a word to say.’
    To
Elaine there was little more exciting than an angry man confessing a weakness.
She grasped the remains of her pina colada decisively. ‘Look, let’s finish our
drink, go back via Omar’s, get two cod and chips and take them down the
harbour. It’s a lovely ' night.’
    She
watched Martin for a moment. The hairs in his nose needed clipping.
    ‘Kiss
me,’ she said.
    Martin
glanced quickly round the garden.
    ‘Not
here.’
    ‘No,
here.’ She pointed to the soft white skin at the bottom of her neck. ‘Here.’
    She
thrust her chin high and pushed herself towards him.
    ‘I
still think they should have confirmed it. They would in any other business.’
He leaned across and put his lips lightly on the side of her neck. It smelt
soapy.
    Elaine
sighed. ‘Be nice if you could do that without having to look round first.’
    ‘I’ve
got to be conscious of my public role. Specially when I’m Manager.’
    ‘It
would be nice to have a drink from our own bar in our own living room without
having to come out here every Thursday.’
    Martin
nodded to himself. ‘I think I’ll contact the union. Check the legal position.’
    Elaine
reached in her handbag and brought out a bottle of cologne.
    ‘I’m
thirty next year, Martin.’
    ‘There
must be prior requirement of notification,’ he said.
    ‘You
know what I mean.’ She dabbed the scent below her ears and around her neck.
‘Don’t you, Martin?’
    Martin
looked up warily. ‘You wouldn’t want to be married to an Assistant Manager.’
    ‘No,
you’re right.’ She leaned across and kissed his cheek. ‘But I wouldn’t mind
being married to a Manager.’

Two
     
     
     
    By
the time Martin got home that night he felt slightly ill. Fish was not Omar’s
speciality and it was always tainted with a hint of shish kebab. He parked his
bike in the shed, let himself into the house, shut the door on the smouldering
remains of a sunset and made his way up the stairs. His mother appeared in the
hallway, accompanied by the sound of television.
    ‘Is
that you?’ she called.
    ‘No,
it’s the Duke of Kent.’
    She
seemed satisfied and went back into the living room. Kathleen Sproale was
approaching sixty. She had a long, sad face, greying hair and deep-set brown
eyes. She had been a domestic science teacher at the local girls’ school, but
when her husband had died, suddenly, nineteen years ago, she had retreated from
the world. Now she stayed mainly at the cottage, earning a little from
curtain-making and sewing the odd wedding dress.
    Martin
pushed open the door to his room. Once upon a time he’d thought of locking it
but his mother was the only other person who ever went into it and she didn’t
seem to mind. Elaine had