Free Mrs. Hemingway by Naomi Wood

occupying yourself with?”
    The table turns to look at her. “Oh, you know. Reading. Writing endless telegrams to my absent husband. Looking after Bumby, mostly.”
    â€œShe is a doting mother,” Ernest says, looking at her proudly, but then his eyes flit upward toward the house as if he has been, in a moment, transfixed.
    Fife walks from the house smoking a cigarette. A vest plunges from her shoulders. Her skirt is made of black feathers, layer upon layer from the waist, and it resembles the closed wings of a swan. Their spines click against each other as she moves, her feet making no sound, as if she really did advance like a bird of prey under the lounge’s electric lamps. When Hadley turns back she notices her husband is entranced, as if only he has had the wherewithal to spot this goose no one else has thought to shoot.
    â€œDarling dress, isn’t it?” Sara asks, with a plump wink for Hadley who feels dumbfounded, ambushed. What can an old serge frock do next to this bird’s plumage? Scott offers her a cigarette as if in consolation. She tries to recompose her features. It’s just a dress. Only a dress. And Ernest has always hated women who care too much for their appearance.
    Fife sits down with a broad smile. “Hello, chaps,” she says. Her marcelled hair looks immovable. She must have spent all afternoon getting ready after the abandoned game of bridge. “Have I missed anything?”
    Tears feel like they will breach Hadley’s eyes with nothing more than a blink. How can no one else see how schlocky and cheap is this show of feathers and skin?
    Hadley tries to join in on the conversation at the table: Sara still seems to be berating Scott but now it’s for his profligacy rather than his drinking. “Surely you’re rich by now, darling?”
    â€œNot as rich as you. I don’t think any of us can get to that dizzying height.”
    â€œI heard your last book’s advance was so big you’ve had to drink vats of champagne just to get rid of it.” Sara plays with the length of her pearls and puts them for a moment in her mouth. “Dearest, I’m only teasing you. Besides, it’s old Hemingstein who’s going to have to worry about this soon.” Sara drapes her arms around Ernest’s neck and kisses him on the cheek. Storm clouds gather on Scott’s face. He’d rather be teased than ignored.
    â€œDo you think so, Sara?” asks Ernest like an ingénue.
    â€œYou’ll have girls walking around Paris talking like Brett Ashley in no time.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œTalking? Isn’t talking simply
bilge
? Doesn’t Brett say that? Did you steal that from me?”
    â€œCertainly not.”
    â€œ
The Sun
is going to make you a star, Ernest.”
    â€œOf course it is,” Hadley says, looking over at her husband. “It’s the best thing he’s ever done. And he’s worked so hard at it.”
    No one speaks. Ah yes, she has forgotten that success should come effortlessly or not at all. It’s always got to be playtime. Cocktail hour. As if life were always a mooning adolescence or always blindingly fun. Hard work was for other people. “I mean that it will be the great success we’ve been waiting for.” There, Hadley thinks, half-saved.
    Fife’s feathers lift and fall in the breeze.
    â€œWonderful title,” Sara says.
    â€œThe Bible gives and gives, as my mother would say.”
    â€œAnd what
does
the Bible give, may I ask, aside from the obvious?” A man has come up the gravel path from the direction of the sea. He comes with a basket of fruit and a bottle of perspiring wine, like a figure from a Greek myth. “Spiritual nourishment, the standard homilies, rolling papers for cigarettes?”
    The man looks to be in his late twenties, with short brown hair and a neat little mustache that does its bit to hide a large