Hemingway’s Chair

then?’
    Martin
sat, long legs squeezed uncomfortably beneath one of the dainty round tables of
the Theston Tea Shoppe. Geraldine sat opposite him. She was wearing a purple
chenille sweater which she had pulled hastily over her company blouse as they
had left the post office. With one hand she twirled a lock of hair — which had
grown recently and changed colour from ash blonde to light auburn, and with the
other she rotated her spoon slowly round a mug full of pale brown coffee.
    ‘Well?’
she asked again. ‘What was so important about seeing me that you had to slug
someone?’ Martin looked up. Geraldine could see his eyes were red-rimmed and
unhealthy. Too much booze or too little sleep. Maybe both. He was certainly in
bad shape.
    ‘I
hate that place,’ he began. I hated it the first time I saw it and I hated it
when I worked in it — ’
    Geraldine
nodded quickly. ‘Martin, after what just happened I’m sure the feeling’s
mutual.’
    He
lowered his head again, then peeped up at her with a quick, coy smile, it was a
good punch, though.’
    Geraldine
took a sip of the coffee. It was warm to tepid, which was how she liked it.
When she spoke she tried hard to balance exasperation with consideration.
    ‘Martin,
we would all have been pleased to see you. There was no need to come in looking
for trouble.’ She couldn’t help adding, ‘Trouble is out today, anyway, he’s
meeting the bankers.’
    Again
Martin shook his head scornfully. ‘I came for you.’
    Geraldine
narrowed her eyes. ‘Why me?’
    Martin
looked her in the eye for the first time. ‘Because of the boat,’ he said.
    Geraldine
was about to drink again, but the cup stopped halfway to her mouth. She
frowned. ‘I’m sorry, Martin,’ she said. ‘Did I miss an episode?’
    ‘The
boat I’ve seen you on. In the harbour.’
    ‘You’ve
seen me on a boat?’
    Geraldine
felt suddenly uncomfortable. Not with the boat so much as the seeing. His look
of concentration intensified. ‘Sure. I watch that harbour every day. I watch what’s
going on. I watch who’s there. I know when Devereux comes. I know when Nick
comes. I know when the boat’s in and who it brings here.’
    ‘So?’
    Martin’s
eyes met hers. She saw something in the back of them, some remnant of what had
appealed to her that night at Marshall’s. Some odd light that burned.
    Martin
continued, slowly and precisely. ‘I want, more than anything else, to go out in
that boat.’ Geraldine was aware of having to get back to work. She glanced at
her watch and made to speak. Martin cut in quickly. ‘Do you understand?’ he
asked her. ‘I want to go on that boat. I want to go fishing.’
    Geraldine
gave a half-shrug, half-laugh. ‘Martin, I don’t want to see you get in any more
trouble. Just forget all this mess. Forget all these people. Take a job
somewhere else. Honestly. There is nothing else you can do and no way I can
help you.’
    ‘I
want to go out and I want to go deep and I want to feel just what it’s like.’
The pitch of his voice rose again. ‘You understand, don’t you? I know you do.
You’re not like the rest of them, Geraldine. Are you. Are you?’
    Geraldine
watched him pityingly. He was a sad sight. A battered, bruised, beaten man. He
was not bad or wrong, he was just hopeless. But it was not her fault. She was
not particularly happy with the work she was doing, but she did it and she did
it without complaining. She also did it well enough to have been given, amongst
other things, the responsibility of liaison between Shelflife and Nordkom each
time the yacht made one of its increasingly frequent visits across the North
Sea to Theston. She had been brought up with boats and she knew exactly what
Martin meant about the excitement of being at sea, but whatever his delusions
were, she could not satisfy them.
    ‘I’m
sorry Martin, there is no way I could get you anywhere near that boat.’
    In
any case, Nordkom IV was no fishing boat. It was a state-of-the-art,
seventy-five-foot motor yacht built in Sweden for Nordkom at a cost of one and
a half million pounds. She was a beautiful ship, but she was not for recreational
purposes. The sun-lounge, the jacuzzi, and the integrated bathing platform were
rarely used. Nordkom IV was an ocean-going boardroom, able to cover the
one hundred and thirty miles from Rotterdam to the English coast in the space
of one planning meeting.
    To
let this threatening, wild-eyed derelict anywhere near the pristine