Hemingway’s Chair

in the eye. He felt nothing but contempt
for him now. ‘It’ll do,’ he said. ‘Until we move back.’
    Marshall
switched off his terminal. ‘We won’t be moving back, Mart.’
    Martin
paused in the act of picking out another batch of counterfoils. He took a deep
breath. ‘I wondered when you’d get around to telling me that.’
    ‘Mart,’
said Marshall, ‘this is not in my hands. The old post office building was
unsafe.’
    ‘Who
told you that?’
    ‘It
was in Crispin’s report.’
    ‘And
you believed it.’
    ‘What
are you trying to say?’ Marshall sprang athletically from his chair, hoping
this panther-like movement might distract from the less graceful activity at
the right-hand corner of his mouth. ‘The cost of refurbishing that office was
going to be astronomical. All the efficiency improvements and the modernisation
that the people of Theston have a right to would have been jeopardised.’
    ‘What
about the Post Office?’ Martin protested, doesn’t it have a duty to maintain
its properties?’
    ‘Mart,
that building is going to cost half a million to get in shape.’ He checked Mary
Perrick’s terminal and clicked that off. ‘The Post Office doesn’t have that
sort of money any more.’
    ‘Well
who does?’ asked Martin, helplessly.
    ‘Well,
there might be a potential buyer. Shelflife is talking to someone.’
    Martin
looked round at Marshall in disbelief. ‘Who?’
    ‘Nordkom.’
    Martin
nodded slowly. Nick Marshall met his gradually comprehending stare as brazenly
as he could. If only his bloody mouth would stay still.
    ‘The
consortium that employs your company?’ Marshall interrupted. 'Our company, Martin. Don’t forget that.’
    ‘That’s
very convenient, isn’t it,’ Martin said.
    ‘Very
convenient,’ Marshall agreed.
    ‘Except
for the people of Theston.’
    Nick
Marshall moved away. His voice turned hard and practical. ‘Martin, I appreciate
your concern for selling stamps and chatting up old-age pensioners, but in a
few years almost everything that happens in a post office will be handled
automatically. There will be no need for people to come in here every other day
and wait in a queue for twenty minutes until the person in front’s stopped
talking, just to have their docket stamped. People won’t need to do all that.’
    ‘They
can sit at home instead, I suppose. Buy socks from the television.’
    ‘Martin,
if that’s what bothers you, why don’t you go and run a social club?’
    ‘Because
I run a post office!’
    Marshall
had never heard Martin shout before. His pink, cherubic face was not suited to
anger.
    ‘Look,’
Martin’s voice rose. ‘I want to know what’s going on!’ He stood jabbing a
finger at Marshall’s crisp white shirt-front. You told me you wanted to make
North Square the best post office in the county. ‘You told me we’d never end up
in the back of a shop. Now you tell me this miserable rent-a-post-office is the
best you can do. Well, if that’s the price to pay for your bloody project I
don’t want to be involved.’ Marshall watched and waited and slowly pulled in
the line. ‘But you are involved, Martin. You’re a consultant.’
    Marshall
watched him. Martin was red in the face and breathing hard.
    ‘We’ve
invested in you, remember?’
    Marshall
flicked the combination on the safe, and turned, his hand on the light switch.
‘Now we’d like some sort of return.’
    The
lights went off leaving Martin in darkness.
     
    To
cycle home, in a good sunset on a crisp clear evening at the beginning of
spring, had long been one of the pleasures of Martin’s life, but that evening
he saw no joy in the majestic sweep of colour spreading far and wide across the
sky.
    The
money. If only he hadn’t taken the money. Never take anything you haven’t
earned his father always said, and Martin had been impatient with him. His
father had been known to refuse tips at Christmas.
    Now
he could see that, as in many things for which he was ridiculed, his father had
been right. The money was the root of all Martin’s problems. It was the cause
of his powerlessness. It was his enemy’s strongest weapon. If only he had not
picked up the money that night. If only. If only.
    As
he free-wheeled down beneath the railway bridge and then worked hard to get
speed up Abbot’s Hill, there seemed only one solution. He must give the money
back. It would not be the end of the world. He could buy the chair another day.
There would be other chairs,