Hemingway’s Chair

heavy-bottomed bar glass. He looked up. ‘No
going to bed tonight, Papa.’ He raised his glass to the big, sad, grainy figure
in the photo on the wall. The half-closed left eye regarded him appraisingly.
The big wide open right eye watched and said nothing.
    Martin
wetted the back of his hand and spread salt on it. Then he drank the tequila in
one and, as soon as he felt the burn, licked the salt, then took a piece of the
lime and chewed on it. He felt grateful for the kick of the salt and sharp stab
of the lime as it killed the hard unpalatable taste of the alcohol. Martin
grimaced then looked up again at Hemingway.
    He
felt a sudden swelling of pride. ‘I broke the law last night, Papa.’ He grinned
modestly. ‘I broke the law. Not an easy breaking of the law either.’ His head
warmed with the tequila. ‘A fucking difficult breaking of the law. I climbed up
scaffolding fifty feet high in an overcoat to break the law. I climbed up
scaffolding fifty feet high in an overcoat in a force eight gale to break
the law! You may laugh, but I could have fucking killed myself!’
    Martin
began to laugh uncontrollably. ‘I could have fucking killed myself, Hem.’
    Slowly
he recovered. He finished the tequila and took another.
    ‘Look
at us. Just look at us, Hem. Why do we do such fucking stupid things? Why do we
have to go looking for trouble?’ He jabbed his hand at the photograph. ‘It’s
all your fault. I didn’t go looking for it. I was happy. I had a job with
prospects. I had — ’ his voice tailed off, ‘all sorts of things.’
    Martin
stood suddenly and awkwardly. He kicked the table leg as he moved out past it
and the helmet hit the floor with a thud and rolled away. He froze. His mother
woke at the slightest sound. She’d probably have been lying awake listening to
the wind anyway. She always lay awake when the weather was bad. He held his
breath and was relaxing it when he heard a door open and a voice sound across
the landing. ‘Are you all right, Martin?’
    Martin
collapsed into a chair. He tittered to himself. ‘Yes, I’m all right, Mother.
I’m dressed as Ernest Hemingway, I’ve had two neat tequilas and I’ve just
knocked an American army helmet off the fucking table.’
    ‘Martin?
Are you sure you’re all right?’ she called again.
    This
time he shouted. ‘Yes, I’m all right.’ He got up and went to the door.
‘Something rolled off the
    bed!’
    There
was a pause, then he heard her door shut. He stood motionless for a while, arm
out against the door. Then he shook his head and turned back into the room. He
took another shot of tequila and swung round to the photograph. ‘Mothers!’ He
looked up and shook his head. ‘You hated yours, didn’t you, Hem? You hated her
because she drove your father to suicide. Isn’t that what it was all about?
That bitch Grace. Mm?’ He paused. His head began to spin. He steadied himself
on the mantelpiece and took a long, deep breath. ‘I’m sorry. These are very
personal questions, but I... I need to know a little more about you. I feel
there are things you’ve been keeping from me. Like failure. I want to know what
to do about failure, Papa. Because you failed, didn’t you? In the end,
you failed. You failed in style. You blew your brains out on your own front
porch. Double-barrelled English shotgun pressed so hard against your face you
blew away most of your head. Early morning. The time you loved. The time you
wrote best. The time you wrote about so fucking beautifully.’
    Martin
felt a sudden, irresistible wave of self-pity which hit him like the crash of
the gale against the windows. Though there were no tears he could shed at the
moment, Martin knew he had hit bottom.
    His
eyes met Papa’s. ‘We’re so alike, aren’t we? So alike.’ He spread his arms out,
slowly, feeling the length of the mantelpiece. Then he raised his head and
stared into the unblinking, enigmatic eyes above him. ‘I used to think that you
were everything I wasn’t and I was everything you weren’t. But the great thing
is He stopped. The room swung viciously. ‘The great thing is we are one and the
same, Papa. Failures.’

Thirty-five
     
     
     
    Martin
bowed his head and his fingers lightly clasped each endof
the mantelshelf. For a while the only sound he could hear was the wild coming
and going urgency of the wind, which flapped and slapped at the windows and
sang in the chimney. His eyes closed and the alcohol warmed his blood and
beguiled his