Hemingway’s Chair

end of the room. In order to reply, Martin had to get up once again, and
move closer to the kitchen. He hovered in the middle of the room.
    ‘I
don’t save rain forests, if that’s what you mean. But I care about the shops,
yes.’
    She
gave him a faint smile, halfway between amusement and approval. ‘Good for you.’
    She
was about to say something else when Marshall bounded back into the room.
‘Sorry about that. Business call. Sit down, Mart, please.’ Martin, who had only
just stood up, sat down again.
    ‘Did
you read the article?’
    Martin
nodded equivocally, interesting.’
    ‘Yep.’
    Geraldine
began opening packets and crunching wrappings and clattering around in
cupboards. Nick Marshall peeled off the jacket of his sage-green flannel suit,
loosened his tie and settled himself into a wing-back armchair beneath a solid,
unimaginative print of two First World War frigates becalmed on an unlikely
pea-green sea. He was not drinking, Martin noticed. Marshall checked his watch.
He glanced to the kitchen. Then he rubbed his hands together and interlocked
his fingers, stretching the palms of his hands away from him.
    ‘Mart,
you remember asking me once about how I could afford hotel meals on a postal
manager’s salary?’ Martin didn’t remember asking any such thing, but he
recognised the familiar formula and he knew that it was an introduction to
whatever it was that Marshall was about to tell him.
    ‘Well,
I think the time has come for me to give you an explanation.’
    Martin
tried to look duly grateful. Marshall indicated the magazine. ‘That’s what it’s
all about.’
    Martin
looked down again at the pages as if enlightenment might lie there. None was
forthcoming. Meanwhile Nick Marshall cradled his hands behind his head, leaned
back against the wall and launched into his explanation.
    ‘I’m
what they used to call a computer whiz-kid. Unfortunately I never knew I had
the skills until I went to work for the Post Office. I never knew I had any skills, which is why I went to work for the Post Office. No offence intended,
but you know what I mean.’ He suddenly straightened up and leaned forward.
‘While I was at Luton they were installing the first counter computers and
asking for our reactions. I’d become fascinated by the buggers and I got myself
on a night-school course to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could and
when they came round from Head Office I not only gave them my reaction, I gave
them a programme which was one hell of a lot better than the one we were
working on.’ He stopped and from the way he flashed a look across at him Martin
had the uncomfortable feeling that he expected him to understand what he was
talking about.
    ‘Well,
I was thanked and patted on the head and they took my improvements and I never
heard another word about it. Eighteen months later they announce their new
Contour Plus system into which, surprise, surprise, half my work was
incorporated. They were installing these all over the country and it would have
cost them a lot of money to admit that one of their own clerks had had a hand
in designing them. So they ignored me, and I protested and they threatened me
with the sack. Well, by that time I’d moved on a bit and I’d become fascinated
by DIANE.’
    Martin
grasped eagerly at this morsel of human interest. ‘Diane?’
    ‘Direct
Information Access Network, Europe. I was working on a system that would be
able to coordinate every daily post office transaction anywhere within the EC,
virtually simultaneously. Unfortunately this required very powerful equipment.
The Post Office had the equipment, but they’d already screwed me so I had to
decide whether to stay inside and develop it with them or sell the information
on.’ He suddenly broke off. ‘Gerry!’ he called towards the kitchen. ‘Did Matt
call?’
    Geraldine
called back. ‘Twice. He’ll be in later.’
    He
switched seamlessly back to Martin. ‘Thankfully there were some buggers in the
Post Office who could see the advantages. Some of these people were very high
up and they knew about my system and they were impressed. But they knew that
the longer the legislation took the greater the uncertainty over the funding.
So rather than hang around they would take a calculated risk and go into
development with a European partner. That way they could hit the ground running
when privatisation came along.’
    ‘Wouldn’t
it have been easier just to leave the Post Office?’ Martin