OVER THE NEXT few days, Eddie and Cosmo Bartonette worked feverishly to finish the decoration of the Hemingway Bar. Eddie was surprised by the energy of the celebrated interior decorator: he had imagined that Cosmo would direct operations but do little physical labour himself. The contrary proved to be true, with Cosmo lifting and shifting furniture and other items with as much gusto—and effect—as the crew of cheerful mesomorphs hired by Eddie.
The transformation of the empty room was largely completed by the end of the third day. The walls had been painted dark green—a choice of colour about which Eddie had been unenthusiastic at the beginning but now fully accepted—and they had been hung with the fishing trophies that Cosmo had sent over from London. A large stuffed marlin, its colours accentuated by varnish, now dominated the space behind the bar, and here and there on the other walls there were tuna, barracuda and one or two unidentifiable fish, all mounted on trophy boards, on which the details of their capture—probably apocryphal—had been inscribed in black lettering.
Then there were numerous framed photographs that were to occupy almost all the remaining wall space.
“I feel very proud of these,” said Cosmo, as he began to unpack the pictures from their crates. “Look at this one, Ed. This is absolutely gen, apart from the signature, which I did and I’m frankly rather proud of. It’s Hemingway standing outside Sloppy Joe’s bar, his local, you know—quel nom! And that’s Scott Fitzgerald, or his friend, Bill Bird. Who knows? So I signed Fitzgerald’s name—because who on earth knows how Bill Bird signed his name? Pas moi.
“And this one here—what a frame, Ed! See? That’s Hemingway—you can tell by now, of course, I don’t need to explain to you. But that’s him in Africa, on safari. The elephant’s dead, by the way—its eyes are open but our bearded friend has dispatched him, I’m afraid. He dispatched rather a lot of things, I regret to say, but let’s not go there. I expect the people who come to this bar will not be exactly sensitive.”
And so it continued until, at the end of the third day, Cosmo sank into a copious leather armchair—one which he had designated as Papa’s Chair.
“Well!” he exclaimed. “Here I sink. Papa himself—that’s what old Hem was called, Ed—Papa himself could have sat here and ended the day with a whisky. I’ve worked far harder today than he ever did—old fraud. Oops, not the thing to say in the Hemingway Bar, but I feel I deserve a little bit of truth after working like a Trojan all day. Did the Trojans work, Ed? You bet yours they did! Whoever they were!”
“Yeah,” said Eddie. “They worked all right. Always working.”
“Quite so. But listen, Eddie boy, would you be kind enough to fix old Cosmo a large G and T? None of your smelly old rum, if you don’t mind. Gordon’s and Shh-you-know-who, and not too much of the latter. Ta terrifically.”
They sat at the open window, sipping their drinks, the glasses cold and moist against their hands.
Cosmo looked thoughtful. “You know something?” he suddenly asked.
“Maybe,” said Ed. “Depends what.”
“You know, I don’t think I like this Hemingway character.”
Eddie shrugged. “He seemed all right to me.”
“He was fighting against something, you know,” Cosmo went on. “There he was trying so terribly hard to be tough. All the time. Woke up in the morning and presumably had to remind himself to be tough. And they aren’t, you know, Eddie. Men like that aren’t really tough.”
Eddie shrugged again. “Depends. Some are.”
Cosmo shook his head. “No, I don’t think they are. And I’m saying that because … Well, I may as well let you into a little secret: what you see with me isn’t really what you get.”
Eddie glanced at Cosmo over the rim of his glass. He was not sure where this conversation was leading and felt slightly uncomfortable.
“No, don’t worry,” said Cosmo. “I’m not going to embarrass you. Let me tell you right now, Ed, I’m straight. There, I’ve said it. I’m straight. I’ve got a partner in London—a woman. We’ve been together for eleven years.”
Eddie could not conceal his surprise, and Cosmo smiled at the reaction.
“Yes, I knew that would make you raise an eyebrow. You see, in order to get on in the interior design business, you have to camp it up a bit. Which is what I’ve been doing all along. I do it so well that it’s become second nature.”
“Oh,” said Eddie.
“When I started in the business,” Cosmo continued, “I was just myself, and it didn’t work. I was treated with condescension because people thought, how could somebody as straight and boring as this have a good eye? That’s what they thought—you could just see it. And so I decided it would be better for business if I acted up a bit, and that’s what I did. Business went through the roof. I was a really good actor.”
Eddie smiled. “You certainly fooled me.”
“There you have it,” said Cosmo. “The pretence works.”
Eddie smiled. “So what now?”
“I drop it with you,” said Cosmo. “I finish the job here and go back to London. And start to camp it up again.”
“Not easy,” said Eddie.
“No, you’re wrong. Very easy.” Cosmo sighed. “You know something else, Ed?”
“Yes?”
There was a moment’s hesitation. Then Cosmo said, “Do you think we could go fishing?”
Eddie stood up and looked out of the window. The evening sun was on the water—a shimmer of red. “I’d love to. There’s Captain Banks—he does stuff for us in the marina. He’s got a boat. He’ll take us out tomorrow, if you like. He says that there are marlin running …”
“Great,” said Cosmo. “I love fishing.”
Eddie looked out at the sea again. He loved fishing too, but he was thinking of something else. He realised that he had rather enjoyed the past few days of interior decorating.