Hemingway’s Chair

Martin felt disgruntled enough to confront Nick Marshall
at close of business.
    Marshall
was defensive. He pulled out the aerial of his mobile phone, then pushed it in
again, with what would have passed, in a lesser man, for nervousness. ‘The
improvement programme is a lot more complicated than we thought, Martin.
There’s a problem with the roof.’
    ‘The roof ? I thought we were just putting up a few new partitions.’
    ‘Well,
that’s what I thought, but they’ve found a serious weakness. With the beams.’
Nick Marshall felt the onset of the twitch and Martin saw it too. Marshall
clenched his jaw and looked purposeful, but the right side of his mouth still
fluttered. ‘This is an old building, Mart.’
    ‘1934?’
    ‘Well,
that’s old. That’s nearly sixty years old. Padgett should have reported all
these problems a long time ago.’
    ‘So,
how much longer do we have to put up with this?’
    ‘I’ve
got Crispin to do a full report on the state of the place.’
    ‘Crispin?’
    ‘The
builder,’ added Marshall, quickly.
    ‘Ah,
yes.’ Martin remembered where he’d heard the name now. Elaine had called him a
crook.
    ‘If
it’s as bad as it sounds we may have to move to a TSA.’
    ‘What’s
that?’
    Nick
Marshall drew his lips right back, as if someone had very suddenly inserted
something into his bottom. ‘Temporary Secure Alternative.’
    ‘Like
what?’
    ‘Well,’
his jaw was still clenched, as if in considerable pain. ‘There’s space at the
back of Randall’s.’
    He
walked away from Martin, along the counter, checking drawers, locks, computer
keyboards. Martin followed him. ‘Randall’s?’ he asked incredulously. ‘The
sweetshop?’
    ‘And
newsagent,’ Marshall added, with a touch of asperity. ‘There’s a back area
which they use for storage. I’ve had a look and that could be up and running in
a couple of weeks.’
    ‘Are
you serious?’
    Marshall
peered closely at the latest edition of Counter News, if you’d like to
remain here while the roof caves in, Martin, maybe you could explain the reason
to our customers.’
    ‘So
we’re ending up in a sweetshop after all.’
    ‘It’ll
only be a month or two, assuming there’s no real problem here.’
    Martin
felt weak and suddenly quite short of breath. He wished, for once, that
Marshall would turn and look at him.
    ‘How
is it going to work?’ Martin asked.
    Marshall
tapped his finger on the copy of Counter News. ‘That’s interesting. They
want us to use PF 58 forms for compensation claims against Parcelforce, but
they don’t send us any. Have you seen them, Mart?’
    Martin’s
hands were hot. He rubbed them quickly on the side of his trousers. ‘How is it
going to work?’ he repeated. ‘This temporary accommodation?’
    Marshall
cleared his throat. ‘It’ll be fine.’
    ‘How
do you turn the back room of a sweetshop into a post office? Temporarily?’
    The
side of Marshall’s mouth jerked as if being raked by machine-gun fire. ‘We use
a company called Elldor.’
    ‘Who
are they?’
    ‘Don’t
you read your Counter News ? They’re a private company formed to do post
office conversions.’
    ‘What
about the post office engineers?’ asked Martin.
    ‘They are the post office engineers.’
    ‘You
mean they’ll set up a post office and take it all down again?’
    ‘If
they have to.’ Marshall unlocked one of the tills, tidied a piece of paper off
the counter into it and pushed it shut again.
    ‘They will have to,’ said Martin.
    Marshall
nodded. ‘Then they will,’ he said quietly. He moved towards the door, anxious
to keep his back to Martin. ‘I certainly think the customers deserve better
than this,’ he said, raising his hand to avoid a cluster of wires hanging down
from the ceiling.
    ‘I
think the customers need their post office back,’ said Martin angrily. ‘I think
most of them are getting a little bit fed up with all this. A move and then
another move. It’s not good for business.’
    Marshall
turned from the door. He smiled. It was a controlled smile, wide enough both to
prevent his mouth from moving involuntarily and to reveal his long, regular,
largely unfilled, ever-so-slightly pointed alabaster-white teeth. He took a
step towards Martin. ‘You know, the trouble with you, Martin, is you’re a
short-term man. Maybe you should start to take the longer view.’
    ‘I
think of my customers, that’s all, Nick.’
    ‘I’m
thinking of you, Martin.’ He revealed his teeth