Hemingway’s Chair

did and there were
often boys, anxious to impress, who had picked their way through the rusting
barbed wire and over the fence and out along the girders. Martin had always
watched, never dared. One day he was watching when a boy called Fraser went out
at low tide and reached the very end of the two-hundred-yard pier and held up
one of the warning lights as a trophy and waved it in triumph. But he waited too
long and the tide came in faster than he could make his way back and he lost
his footing and they all saw him fall. After that there was much talk of
dismantling the pier but, in the end, the approach was fenced off and left, and
over the years nothing happened, except that the wooden fence posts were
replaced with concrete ones and the barbed wire with razor wire.
    This
was now festooned, like the rim of the beach itself, with impaled litter and
polystyrene cups thrown overboard from passing freighters. Martin walked
carefully past it, across the shingle and up towards the low brick shelter
which Frank Rudge had erected for the army’s exercises and which they had never
used. There was still the occasional, abrupt reminder of war when the Jaguars
and Tornadoes from RAF Dentishall raced low down the coast and out to sea. But
for most of the year there was little sound but the soft plump and swish of
breaking waves and the hoarse rattle they made on the pebbles as they drained
back to the sea.
    Martin
had sometimes come here with Elaine. It was a place where they could walk and
not be disturbed.
    Now
he had come here alone, after work, for the same reason.
    The
previous night with Ruth had left him confused. He had never felt such powerful
physical attraction, nor had he ever felt quite as fulfilled or as wonderfully,
radiantly, pleasurably happy. He had to keep reminding himself of this because,
as soon as he left the cottage, in the last, solid darkness that comes just
before dawn, the delight and pleasure had disappeared as swiftly as the
darkness itself.
    With
the daylight came guilt, embarrassment and apology. His mother said nothing,
which only made things worse. He wanted to tell her all that had happened, but
couldn’t. At work he wanted to hide what had happened from Elaine, but he was
pretty sure he hadn’t. He walked along the beach now, pulling his coat collar
close around his neck as a cool breeze suddenly gusted off the steel-grey sea
and he wondered what on earth he should do next.
    Sex
with Ruth had been exciting. He had never been as close and intimate with
anyone before. He had never let anyone do what she did for him before. What
happened now? He reached a small headland and pulled himself up onto a shingle
bank and sat and watched the sea and felt, not closer to anyone, but further
away than ever before.
     
    He
didn’t see Elaine straight away. First he saw Scruff, nose down, earnestly
following some trail through the grass where the top of the beach met the sand
dunes. The dog stopped and his tail began to work and he barked in recognition.
Martin stood. He wanted to move but there was nowhere to go. A moment later he
heard Elaine calling the dog. She stopped suddenly as she saw him. Her hair
caught the breeze and her face looked cold and pinched in the raw sea air.
    They
faced each other without speaking. Then Elaine pulled out a pink handkerchief
and dabbed away the drip she could feel forming on the end of her nose.
    ‘What
are you doing here?’ she asked.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ said Martin.
    ‘Taking
the dog for a walk,’ Elaine said, which was true, but she’d deliberately chosen
to walk here so she wouldn’t have to meet anyone.
    ‘It’s
going to rain,’ she said, nodding out to sea. ‘D’you want a lift back?’
    Martin
shook his head. ‘I’ve got the bicycle,’ he said.
    ‘Why
don’t you buy a car? It’s about time.’
    ‘Haven’t
got the money.’
    She
looked at him a moment. ‘Not what I’ve heard.’
    ‘What
have you heard?’ Martin asked. Scruff was jumping up, reaching for the top of
Martin’s legs, and Martin tickled the top of his head.
    ‘I’ve
heard Nick was quite generous,’ said Elaine. ‘Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you,’
said Martin, and he suddenly pushed the dog away. ‘Get off me, Scruff!’
    ‘What
did you do with it?’ she asked.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Your
thousand pounds?’
    Martin
stooped and threw a pebble low towards the sea. Scruff hurtled after it. if you
must know I bought a chair.’
    ‘A
chair! For a thousand