Hemingway's Chair

by Michael Palin

  Martin felt his face burning as heads turned to seek him out. He fiddled with the tablecloth. Padge went on. ‘It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to be your Postmaster and I wish my successor all the very best.’

  The applause seemed to go on and on. Eventually Martin looked up, tentatively, like a soldier after a bombardment, and he caught the eye of the grey-haired man from Head Office who was clapping as enthusiastically as the rest and smiling in his direction.

  ‘Brenda and I will still look forward to seeing you at the post office, only this time we’ll be in the queue with the rest of you. Thank you very much!’

  After the applause had died down the man who had caught Martin’s eye stepped forward. He was of average height and the pinstripe on his well cut suit seemed to suggest a man more at home with executive decisions than retirement parties. He was about Martin’s age, mid thirties, but with hair swept back and already greying, he looked older. Martin noted with concern that he had a lazy left eye which didn’t appear to focus on anyone. In Martin’s delicately anxious state this cast some doubt on the accuracy of the warm smile he’d received earlier. Perhaps it had not been meant for him at all. The man cleared his throat and began.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, before we all get on with this wonderful dinner I would like to say a few words on behalf of Post Office Counter Services Limited, and how proud we are to have been Ernie Padgett’s employers for so long.’

  Martin snorted sarcastically – Padge would have joined the Post Office almost before the man was born. ‘My name is Maurice Vickers and I’m the Development Officer for the South-East Region, and I’m sure many of you will be familiar with John Devereux, the Area Co-ordinator.’

  Devereux was an older man, built like a tank, with thinning dark hair and crafty little eyes. Not a man to be familiar with, thought Martin, as polite applause trickled away. Hard and uncommunicative in Martin’s experience, given the inspections he was wont to spring, unannounced, on the staff at North Square.

  ‘We would like to add our own thanks to those already expressed today,’ Maurice Vickers continued. ‘Ernest has been a tower of strength here in Theston, and we would like to present him with a token of our appreciation. It’s not a gold watch, because that’s not the way we do things nowadays, and who wants to watch time pass anyway?’

  He motioned to the youngest of his party. He was in his late twenties, blond, lean, agile, well kept. Maureen Rawlings thought him the most beautiful man she’d seen in Theston for a long time. A box was handed over and Vickers continued talking as he removed the top and pulled aside protective tissue paper.

  ‘This is a solid silver replica of our brand new Post Office Counter Services logo, designed in Peterborough, custom moulded in Sweden, and I’m delighted today to be able to present it to you, Ernest Padgett, in recognition of forty-eight years’ unbroken service for Theston and the Post Office.’

  Devereux and the boy applauded enthusiastically. Ernie Padgett gazed uncertainly at the heavy object, an interesting, if ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to fashion a symbol of power, energy and momentum from the letters POCS.

  ‘Melt it down, Padge!’ shouted a voice from the off-licence crowd, for once totally in tune with the feeling of the meeting. A roar of laughter filled the hall. Vickers gave a show of a smile. There wasn’t much else he could do. Martin felt a touch sorry for him. Eventually they calmed down and Vickers adopted a serious manner.

  ‘Now many of you, I know, are worried about the future. You’re worried about whether your post office will still have a role to play in a changing world…’

  Martin moistened his lips. His mouth was very dry.

  ‘Well, I can assure you, the new-look Post Office will certainly not be turning its back on Theston. In fact I can tell you all today that we have plans for Theston, big plans. Plans to create a brighter, faster, more efficient operation, giving all our customers the best in modern communications as we approach the millennium.’

  ‘Half these people won’t live to see the millennium,’ Mrs Harvey-Wardrell observed piercingly from the back.

  ‘Quite simply we want our customers in Theston to have the best.’

  Martin felt a giddy surge of elation arise, unbidden.

  ‘And to show we mean what we say, we are transferring to Theston one of our ablest young men, Nick Marshall.’ He indicated the young Adonis beside him. Martin experienced total collapse of the stomach. The words seemed to drift away from him, as if he were watching the whole thing from an enormous distance.

  ‘As your new Manager he will oversee the task of setting up and administering the new office, working closely of course with…’ and here he consulted his notes for the first time, ‘the present Assistant Manager, Martin Sproale, to provide continuity during these exciting times. Believe me, Theston will truly have its part to play in the fast developing future of our network. Thank you.’

  Four

  The next day was a Saturday and the post office closed at one o’clock. Martin needed not to feel sorry for himself, and after locking up he opted out of the usual lunchtime drink and cycled six miles inland to Arnold Julian’s second-hand bookshop in the town of Atcham. Since the announcement he had endured a hell of sympathy, all of it well intentioned, and most of it doing little more than smooth the rough edges of his resentment. Protestations of eternal loyalty had flowed across the post office counter, whilst all that had flowed from area headquarters was a series of faxed instructions advising him of the arrangements for Mr Marshall’s arrival on October the first. There was really nothing he could do other than accept the tide of commiseration and prepare for what he was quite certain would be the worst. It was like winning the pools on the day of your execution.

  From a distance the familiar two-storey façade of the bookshop looked attractive as ever. The creeper on the walls had turned a blazing scarlet, and a thin plume of smoke spread from one of the chimneys. On closer inspection the premises were less welcoming. The sun-blistered green door was firmly shut. The separate handwritten cards stuck all over the window read like an epic of inhospitality:

  Closed

  Do Not Lean Bicycles Against the Window

  No Free Papers

  Stiff Door

  Opening Hours: Thursday, Friday, Saturday only

  Closed on certain Thursdays

  Those daunted by such admonitions would not know that the door was almost always unlocked, and that all it required to open it was a shove. A thin bell sounded as it jerked open and, once inside, intrepid customers would invariably find themselves alone for quite some time, surrounded by tall and silent stacks and a slight smell of mould. Two table lamps and a weak bulb on the ceiling augmented what natural light was able to fight its way through windows overgrown with creeper. Arnold Julian would appear minutes later as if from nowhere, a tall, dark, wraith-like presence, whose age could have been anything from fifty-five to a hundred and three. He moved softly and in the gloom it was not always easy to tell what he was wearing besides the habitual black sweater that hung long and low on him like a shroud. Mr Julian never felt the need to initiate a conversation. More often than not he would stand silently by, as if daring the customer to stay in the shop.

  The layout was equally unfriendly. Books were not to be found in alphabetical order, and although there had once been a rough attempt to display them by subject matter, it was no longer effective and copies of Lorna Doone and The Battle for Stalingrad clustered side by side with cookery books in the ‘Modern Plays’ section.

  All this was quite deliberate. It was Arnold Julian’s way of screening out poseurs, pseuds and other frivolous dilettantes. Once it had been proved to his satisfaction that he was dealing with a genuine enthusiast all things became possible.

  Arnold Julian used to put a selection of his less esoteric books on racks outside the shop, and it was here, years ago when he was beginning to build up his Hemingway collection, that Martin had found a stained and dog-eared copy of The Green Hills of
Africa which he was able to identify as being one of Scribner’s cut-price wartime editions, rare in England. Mr Julian had been so impressed that he had taken Martin to the back of the shop and ferreted out three more titles from the same series.

  This morning Mr Julian was apologetic. Nothing much on the book front but a couple of curiosities had come his way: a copy of the Toronto Daily Star for 27th January 1923, containing Hemingway’s account of his interview with Mussolini, and the autumn 1933 edition of Esquire magazine containing Hemingway’s piece ‘Marlin off the Morro’. Martin was excited. ‘Written while he was staying at the Ambos Mundos Hotel.’

  Arnold Julian’s long, elegant fingers turned the pages carefully. ‘That would appear to be the case.’

  Martin nodded. ‘His first article for Esquire, in the first issue of the magazine.’

  Julian gazed gravely at the cover. ‘Esquire,’ he murmured slowly, as if it was the first time he’d ever said the word. ‘Oh well, I suppose he needed the money.’

  ‘He hooked a 750-pounder off Morro Castle. Held it for one and a half hours across eight miles of sea, but it got away. They say it was the inspiration for The Old Man and the Sea.’ Martin tapped the paper and shook his head admiringly. ‘That’s quite a rarity.’

  ‘It’s not cheap, sadly.’

  ‘Twenty-five?’ asked Martin.

  ‘Seventy, I’m afraid. And that’s only what I paid for it.’

  Martin flushed. The bookseller nodded sympathetically and smoothed down a corner of the magazine. He enjoyed the young man’s passion and he knew the limitations of a post office salary.

  ‘I have to look hard for surprises for you. And there aren’t any bargains at that level.’ He reached up with his left hand and eased a protruding early Victorian edition of Tristram Shandy back into place.

  ‘And the Star…?’

  ‘Fifty.’

  Martin whistled.

  Arnold Julian spoke softly without looking at Martin. ‘The two of them for a hundred?’

  ‘Well … I’ll see what I can do. I’ll have to think of a way. I’d hoped to have a bit more money to spare, but it looks as if I shall have to wait. Will you hang on to them?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  Martin nodded his thanks and made quite quickly for the door, to cover his disappointment.

  ‘There is another collector interested.’

  Martin stopped, hand on the latch. ‘There’s someone else?’

  ‘Enquiries have been made. I doubled the price and they went away.’

  ‘What was he after?’

  ‘She. A lady. American. Anything Hemingway.’

  ‘American?’

  Julian nodded. ‘Unmistakably.’

  ‘Was she going to come back?’

  ‘It was implied.’

  ‘Right. Well. Thank you.’

  There wasn’t much more he could say. He’d never had a rival, not in this part of the world. Not for Hemingway. Dealers crossed the country for Hardy and Wordsworth and George Orwell and even A. A. Milne, but not the Master. Trust the Americans. As he pedalled home clouds swept in from nowhere and it was raining well before he reached the house.

  * * *

  Papa called them his ‘black ass’ moods. Deep depressions into which he sank at many times in his life. Martin empathised as best he could but the sad truth was that even on the worst days at the post office, even when he had pensioners queuing out into the street, or even the time he had discovered that the books were two hundred and fifty-three pounds short on balance day, he had never felt a glimmer of ‘that gigantic bloody emptiness’ that Hemingway had once described in a letter to his fellow writer John Dos Passos. But on this particular Saturday, as the rain blew against his window and the clouds sank lower and greyer over the fields, he was ruefully surprised to find that a feeling of ‘black ass’-ness was not far off.

  It didn’t seem at all fair when he thought about it. His life was unspectacular, he knew that, but he was careful and thorough and conscientious and demanded little of others. Now, suddenly, this was judged not to be enough. He loved Theston post office and he loved Hemingway and now it seemed he had a rival for both of them.

  Martin pulled open the door of the old wardrobe that had once stood in his parents’ room. He selected one of his two thick American sports shirts, bought direct mail from L. L. Bean of Maine two summers ago. He pulled it on over his vest. It was big and woollen with tortoise-shell buttons and studs at the pocket tops. He tucked as much of it as he could into the top of his trousers, then walked across to the cabinet with the red cross on the front and took out a half-bottle of vodka and, from a cupboard below, a glass and some tonic water. Moving his chair across to the field-table, acquired from a sale of 1950s African safari equipment, he sat down at the Corona Portable Number 3 to write about what he felt. These were the best moments, these moments at the typewriter. With a blank sheet of foolscap and a glass of something strong he knew he was just the way the Master had been, so often.

  Martin’s hands hovered over the dark, round-headed keys, but his mind was paralysed. Outside he heard the soft croaking call of brent-geese heading for the estuary. He glanced at his watch. Four forty-five. At any moment his mother would call up and tell him tea was ready. As far as his mother was concerned, the day was made up of a series of closely observed times. Breakfast time, lunchtime, teatime, time for a biscuit, time for a bath, time for bed. Perhaps it came from having been a teacher. Or having been married to a postman.

  Martin made a superhuman effort to concentrate, closing his eyes and thinking himself on to the hot, breezy porch of the Finca Vigia, Hemingway’s home in Cuba, or the grand sitting room of a suite in the Palace Hotel, Madrid, or in a corner of Harry’s Bar at the Gritti in Venice, but nothing came into his mind besides the rain on the windows of a warm, sweaty bedroom in Suffolk. He drank some vodka and felt better. Then he concentrated on the typewriter once more and set his mind to recording just how things were with him, clear and spare. The way a writer should.

  But now there were voices downstairs, blurred and distracting. He drained the vodka and readjusted the paper in the typewriter and tried again. Nothing happened. There was a fundamental problem. He didn’t feel bad any more, because the more he considered how bad he felt, the closer he felt to Papa. The closer he felt, the better he felt, and the less there was to write. He tried once more, but this time he was interrupted by a tentative knock on the door, followed by an equally tentative voice, calling his name.

  ‘Martin? Martin … are you there?’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Elaine.’

  * * *

  There had been a time, after she and Martin had become more than just fellow postal officers, that Elaine visited Marsh Cottage regularly. Often she would do no more than sit in the kitchen and drink a coffee with Martin and Kathleen. But sometimes when his mother had settled down to watch television in the front room they would have the kitchen to themselves. Martin would rummage around and produce an ageing bottle of sweet sherry and they’d drink, a little formally at first, and start talking at the same time and then apologising and talking again in odd dislocated phrases until Kathleen came in to make herself a nightcap and it was time for Elaine to go.

  It had really begun about eighteen months ago. Jack Blyth, the estate agent’s son, had passed his law exams and decided that Elaine Rudge, adoring as she was, wasn’t enough to keep him in a place like Theston. He was offered a job at his uncle’s law firm in Chester and took the first train out. After a year with one man, Elaine found herself once again looking around. On dull days at the post office she had always felt Martin’s presence, but she now began to experience quite a strong physical attraction when he reached across her for a date stamp or a game licence. She was pretty sure he’d never been with a woman. Some of her girlfriends used to giggle about him, as if being thirty-five and still living with his mother could only mean one thing, but Elaine felt there was more to him than that. As
soon as she began to show him she was interested she caught him taking sidelong glances at her and accidentally on purpose brushing the tips of her fingers when she handed over her bags of change. He took to reading her their horoscopes in the morning paper. One day he came in with an astrology book which said that people born under their two stars, Capricorn and Libra, were completely incompatible and he’d gone very pink and that had been the first time they had really laughed together.

  Nothing happened between them until the evening she was first invited up into his room. It was Easter Monday and they’d spent the day walking the coast path almost as far as Hopton. He’d always maintained that his room was far too much of a mess to take a lady anywhere near but, as they neared Marsh Cottage on the way back, he’d admitted that the real reason was more complicated and that she’d probably laugh at him if he told her. She didn’t laugh when she saw the room. She was just relieved he wasn’t a train-spotter or a serial killer. What struck her most was that it was the room of a different man from the one she knew. Not someone shy and quiet and hesitant but a man of worldliness and display. He must have had well over a hundred books, many in beautiful hardback editions. Elsewhere there was a harpoon, a stack of jazz records, a typewriter, ashtrays from Parisian cafés, boxing gloves, African masks. On one wall was a huge scarlet and gold bull fight poster. On another was the biggest photograph she’d ever seen of anybody. She had asked him why anyone would want to live in a room with such a sad picture.

  Martin had been shy at first, stumblingly trying to explain, but then, to her ever-increasing surprise, he’d brought out a bottle of vodka and poured them both a drink. That calmed him down. He told her who the man was and what he felt about him. She’d never heard Martin talk like that before. They drank more vodka and she slipped off her shoes and curled up on the low sofa, beneath the brooding gaze and swirling cape of the bullfighter, and Martin insisted they drink a toast to every one of the man’s novels – all ten of them. This had seemed a pleasantly silly thing to do, but they’d only got through a couple when, without much warning, he came over to her and knelt beside her and smiled and ran his fingers across her face. Then he kissed her, directly on the lips, but with his own lips pressed firmly together. She had opened her mouth to let him in but he seemed uncertain how to proceed.