Hemingway’s Chair

low, well-worn leather armchair.
There was a matching sofa at an angle to the fire but Ruth preferred to sit on
the floor. All the floors in the cottage were uneven and, apart from the
kitchen, cheaply carpeted. Her knees were drawn up tight to her chin and the
firelight accentuated her angular, pointed features.
    Martin
had become daily more obsessed with the thought of owning the fishing chair.
Every other evening since Ruth had first shown him the photograph he had rung
her to make sure that it did exist, that she knew where it was and that it
would not be sold to anyone else. His waking hours had become filled with
visions of riding it high over the ocean swell, creaking and twisting this way
and that, strapped in as if for execution, grappling to wrench some mighty
aquatic adversary from the balmy waters of the Pacific Ocean.
    Meanwhile
he agonised over the finances. On eleven and a half thousand pounds a year,
with his mother to help and their mortgage to pay, there was not a lot left
over. He had already begun to put some by, but he reckoned it would be six
months at the very least before he might have enough.
    It
was in the hope of heading off some of the constant phone calls that Ruth had
invited him round. At the start of the evening Martin had been the painfully
shy, polite and tongue-tied young man she first met, but she had poured liberal
Scotches and talked about Hemingway rather than real life and the combination
had opened him up.
    One
of them, she couldn’t now remember which it had been, had suggested making up a
sort of Hemingway Trivial Pursuit. Several Scotches later the idea had
given way to a fiercely fought version of Mastermind in which they took
turns to ask the questions. Ruth was having to work hard to keep up.
    ‘You
want to go on?’ Martin asked her.
    Ruth
sighed doubtfully. ‘Sure,’ she said.
    Martin
laid his head back against the faintly discoloured top of the armchair, frowned
in concentration, and began again. ‘Hemingway’s favourite bar in Havana?’
    ‘Florida?’
    ‘Wrong.
Floridita. Name of the cabin cruiser he bought in 1936?’
    ‘Pilar.’
    ‘Horsepower?’
    Ruth
shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’
    ‘One
hundred and fifteen. How did he pay for it?’
    ‘Loan
from Pauline?’
    ‘No,
loan from Arnold Gingrich, editor of Esquire , against future
contributions.’
    Ruth
shook her head impatiently and reached for another cigarette. She shook the box
but it was empty. ‘Adriana Ivancich was the model for which story?’
    ‘ Across
the River and Into the Trees '
    ‘What
was her brother’s name?’
    ‘Older
or younger?’
    ‘Older.’
    ‘Gianfranco.’
    ‘In
1934 the Hemingways came back from Africa to Europe. On which ship and to what
port?’
    ‘The Gripsholm was the ship, yes? And the port was... Marseilles?’
    ‘Villefranche.’
    ‘Ah!’
Ruth reproved herself angrily. She got up and walked across to the alcove where
she had taken to working.
    Martin
leaned back. His head was beginning to ache. ‘Shall we stop?’ he asked.
    Ruth
searched about among her books and papers for the packet of cigarettes she knew
was there. ‘Keep going,’ she said tersely.
    Ruth
found her cigarettes, lit one and resumed her concentration.
    Martin
began again. ‘In which town did he marry Martha Gellhorn?’
    Ruth
muttered the question back to herself, then answered ‘Cheyenne, Wyoming.’
    ‘Year?’
    ‘1939?’
    ‘No,
1940.’
    ‘Shit!
Yes...’
    ‘What
sort of pistol did Lieutenant Henry carry in A Farewell to Arms ?'
    Ruth
shook her head irritably. ‘Guns. I don’t know about guns.’
    ‘Astra
7.65, short barrel.’
    She
held up her hands theatrically. ‘Okay, that’s boys’ talk. No more guns, right?’
    ‘Which
of his wives left all his manuscripts on a train?’
    ‘Hadley.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Gare
de Lyon, Paris.’
    ‘ Life magazine ran The Old Man and the Sea in its entirety. How many copies
did it sell in its first two days of publication?’
    Again
Ruth bit her lip and shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea.’
    ‘Five
and a half million,’ said Martin emphatically. He usually asked the questions
without looking at her, but this time he watched her reaction to the answer.
She didn’t appear to have one, other than looking a little cross. Martin went
on.
    ‘Which
year did Hemingway win the Nobel Prize for Literature?’
    ‘1953-’
    ‘I954-’
    Ruth
cursed herself roundly. She leaned back and closed her eyes. ‘I’ve had