Read Hemingway’s Chair for Free Online

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 I 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 cafes, 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 tat
him in but he seemed uncertain how to proceed.
    Nothing
daunted, she had pulled herself up to allow room for his arms to go around her
but in so doing caught him off balance and he fell to one side, knocking her
drink with his hand and spilling vodka across her handbag.
    Martin
had been mortified and the next day at work the incident wasn’t mentioned.
Elaine was sad because she would have been perfectly happy for Martin to make
love to her, but there seemed no way to say it without sounding cheap and for a
while things had been distinctly awkward between them.
    A
few months after that, at the end of a long summer day of too much sunshine and
beer, they’d ended up back again beneath the bullfighter and this time Martin?
had been attentive and loving, but her pleasure had only increased his pleasure
and it was all over before he ’ had his clothes off and he’d gone out of the
room, , leaving her gazing up into the flashing dark eyes of El Cordobes, and
the hot, cruel promise of the Spanish sun. She had driven home soon afterwards.
    So
their affair remained on the runway, grounded by fog. Elaine let things take
their course. She knew he was still attracted to her and sooner or later it
would work out. But last night he had left Padge’s leaving party without a word
and this morning when she’d put a sympathetic hand on his arm, he’d pulled away
from her.
     
    ‘Can
I come in?’ she asked from the other side of the door.
    Martin
looked quickly around. There was no time to change anything, but he put away
the vodka bottle before answering.
    Elaine
looked in cautiously.
    Martin,
so erect and trim at work, seemed to be sagging under the weight of a monstrous
grey and red check shirt, which bulged into his trousers. His