Hemingway’s Chair

executives and
multi-media experts from Holland. Once the boat was moored up, Devereux and
Marshall and assorted advisers joined them and meetings were held throughout
the day in the master stateroom. In the evenings when the executives and crew
had gone ashore to sample the local beer or the clubs of Norwich and Ipswich,
Geraldine would be required to come on board with the cleaners and bring food
supplies for the next day.
    One
evening, after the cleaners had finished, she was left alone on the yacht. It
was a warm summer evening in mid-May and the sun lingered until well after
eight o’clock. Geraldine climbed the half-dozen steps that led up to the
flybridge. A set of immaculate, barely used striped canvas chairs had been laid
out, and on the low table between them was a pair of binoculars. She picked
them up and, adjusting the focus, scanned the harbour and its approach roads.
Sure enough, there on the steeper of the two hills that led into the town, was
a tall, oddly shaped, unmistakable figure wearing a red-bobbled, royal blue
knitted hat, his wide shirt flapping in the wind. His arms were raised in a
mirror image of her own and she knew he was watching her too.
    For
the next two or three weeks, whenever the boat was in, she noticed him there.
His position barely changed. Sometimes he would appear to take out a notebook
and jot things down. Sometimes he would not have any fieldglasses with him. He
would merely be standing and watching.
    Geraldine
knew she could simply ignore Martin or even report him to Nick Marshall, but
the more time went on the more she found herself identifying with his dogged
and hopeless persistence. She began to find something admirable, even
inspiring, in his refusal to face reality. In her mind he became the
indomitable figure on the shore, the first Indian to see Columbus, the Celtic
warrior watching the last Romans leave Britain.
    One
evening he was no longer to be seen on the hill. As she drove the rubber dinghy
which was used as a support craft across to the harbour steps having completed
her day’s work, she felt oddly bereft. She made the boat fast and began to walk
up the harbour steps when she saw him standing a few feet in front of her. This
was the first time since his visit to the post office that he had made any
attempt to approach her. She drew a quick breath. ‘I was wondering where you’d
got to,’ she said.
    ‘Well?’
he said. ‘Can I come aboard then?’
    Geraldine
smiled and shook her head.
    ‘I
can’t take you aboard. You know that. If they find out — ’
    He
replied quickly and decisively. ‘They won’t find out.’
    ‘No,
Martin,’ she repeated firmly, if they come back and find you there, bang goes
my Christmas bonus.’
    He
took a step towards her. ‘They won’t. They left fifty-five minutes ago in two
cars, both taxis from Norwich. They’ll be at the Blue Beat Club in Queen Street
or Rocco’s on Cow Hill. The journey averages one hour seventeen minutes each
way. On four previous trips to Norwich they were back at 1.09, 2.12, 2.17 and
3.07.’
    ‘You’re
crazy,’ said Geraldine. There was a trace of envy in her voice. Martin, gross
and dishevelled, his hair now long and wild as an Old Testament prophet, shook
his head and stared back.
    ‘Please?’
     
    That
was the first of several times that Martin went aboard. He knew exactly when it
was safe and Geraldine, realising that this was the unorthodox company she
craved, warmed to this shambling, driven figure. She showed him around the
boat. Told him what worked how and where. But that was not enough for Martin.
He liked the wheelhouse and the charts and the promise of the sea beyond the
harbour wall. He wanted more than just to be aboard.

Thirty-nine
     
     
     
    ‘ A
new era begins today for the town of Theston in Suffolk .'
    Ruth
Kohler reached forwardand adjusted the volume control
on her radio. Only since taking the flat in Oxford had she come to know the
illicit pleasure of soaking in an English bath. She lay back to enjoy the first
cigarette of the day, wreathed in the ash-flecked bubble stacks of Elizabeth
Arden Celebration Gel.
    ‘ At
midday today, Dennis Donnelly , the new Minister for Technology, will
open the first stage of a major new European telecommunications centre financed
by the Dutch multi-media giant , Nordkom BV .'
    And
by lunchtime, said Ruth to herself, Ruth Kohler, visiting Professor of English,
would be returning to Theston having completed major new work on