Hemingway’s Chair

head.
    ‘I
don’t know how to deal with it. I’ve never been tested before.’
    For
the first time, Ruth felt she would have liked to put an arm around him. To be
Grace and Hadley and Pauline and Mary and Marty all rolled into one. She poured
a whisky and handed it across to him. it’s not too late, Martin.’
    He
shook his head. ‘I think I’ve missed my chance.’
    ‘If
you don’t mind my saying so, that’s Martin talk.’ Martin nodded and showed a
trace of a smile. ‘That’s not a phrase your man would have used,’ she went on.
‘He would have said get amongst those bastards. Give them what they gave you.’
    ‘It’s
easy in books,’ said Martin.
    Ruth
persisted. ‘You have one great advantage. They won’t expect you to do
anything.’
    Martin
gave a half-laugh, half-shrug. ‘How does that help me?’
    Ruth
threw her cigarette into the fire and stood up. Then she took off her waistcoat
and shifted the small pine dining table to one side of the room.
    ‘You
ever done martial arts?’ she asked.
    Martin
frowned. ‘You mean karate?’
    ‘That
kinda thing.’
    Martin
laughed soundlessly and shook his head. ‘Well, it’s big in the States.
Especially for unmarried women living in New Jersey.’ She selected a spot in
the centre of the room. ‘Now, what they teach you is to let your assailant make
the first move and to use their movement to your advantage.’
    She
beckoned to him. ‘Get up.’
    ‘What?’
    She
took a stance, feet planted firmly astride. ‘Get up!’
    Martin
did so, reluctantly. She moved round to face him. ‘Now Martin, I know you’re a
pacifist but imagine I just called your mother a whore.’
    Martin
laughed and shook his head. ‘What are you doing?’
    Ruth’s
eyes blazed. ‘Come on now. I just called your mother a whore, for Christ’s
sake.’
    ‘Look
Ruth, I don’t want to do this.’
    ‘Okay.
Ernest Hemingway was a lying pansy who couldn’t write for shit.’
    Martin
shook his head but he didn’t smile.
    Ruth
taunted him again. ‘He was a fat, sad, drunken old slob who couldn’t even write
a line for the Kennedy inauguration when they asked him to.’ Martin said
nothing.
    ‘But
he’d never have let anyone walk over him the way you let Nick Marshall walk
over you. He’d despise you.’
    He
lunged at her. Ruth waited till he was almost on her. ‘See. You let him come.
Throw all he’s got at you then she grabbed his arm, side-stepped and twisted
his wrist, ‘take him off balance and zap! He’s on the floor with your knee in
his neck.’
    Which
was indeed where Martin was, head squashed hard into the rug which smelt of
dust and damp and talcum powder. Ruth was on top of him, her shin across the
back of his neck, pinning him down.
    Ruth
congratulated herself. ‘Hey! That was pretty good.’
    ‘Eurghh!’
said Martin.
    ‘You
okay?’
    Martin
grunted again and Ruth released him and stood up.
    Martin
rubbed his neck and Ruth put out a hand. He took it and she pulled him up on to
his feet. He reached unsteadily for the back of a chair.
    ‘Just
remind me again why you did that?’ he asked Her.
    Ruth
reached for a cigarette. ‘One, because I don’t get enough exercise, and two, to
demonstrate that a little guy can cause a lot of trouble if he knows how to
move. Did you eat something?’
    ‘I’m
not hungry.’
    ‘You
will be.’ She went into the kitchen in a businesslike way and called back to
Martin. ‘I bought some wine. Let’s be civilised and plan your revenge over
dinner.’
    When
the time came for him to leave they had drunk two bottles of red wine as well
as a Scotch or two, and thoroughly reviled everyone concerned with the demise
of Theston post office.
    Martin
quoted, verbatim, whole passages on the techniques of partisan warfare from For
Whom the Bell Tolls. Between them it was agreed that, like its hero, Robert
Jordan, Martin should take on the enemy from behind the lines.
    His
first task, they decided, had to be to select and brief someone who felt the
way he did and who had a high profile in the town. Once such a figurehead was
in place a campaign could be organised around them. The evening ended with an
ambitious attempt to load Hemingway’s chair on to the back of Martin’s bicycle.
This was an abject failure. They staggered back to the house with it, helpless
with laughter. The chair remained leaning drunkenly across Ruth’s sofa.
    Ruth
couldn’t sleep that night. This wasn’t unusual for her, but this time it wasn’t
words,