This is for an assignment in crearive writing. The topic: Write a short story where Margot Macomber and Robert Wilson, from "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (Hemmingway) meet a year after the events in "Short".
Please let me know if you spot anything that could use revision, or if anything Wilson says sounds too American.
" A bit more sherry, if you will."
"Yes sir."
"Oh, and some scones too, if you'd be so kind."
'Yes sir." The boy replied, hurrying off back to the kitchens of the small London café where Robert Wilson sat through a particularly humid afternoon. It is almost worse than Africa, blasted city, he thought crossly, can't get much worse than London in summer.
But of course it could, and it seemed to go much worse as a group of women entered the formerly peaceful café. Robert's eyes popped slightly, his mouth opening just a crack in a look of abject horror. Hundreds of cities, seven continents, and three-hundred and sixty five days to be in this particular café and she walks into this one on the same day as himself, as strong and boisterous as ever.
She sat down next to him at the long table, still laughing politely at a joke the woman in red had just told before she noticed him. He was trying, with great difficulty, not to smirk as her face went ashen and her lovely dark eyes widened significantly, giving her a look of one who'd been shot and only just realized it.
"Hello Margot." He said.
Margot's friends immediately turned their way as the American woman tried feebly to find her voice again.
"Mr. Wilson…it has been a long time." She said meekly. Wilson let his smirk out; the lively woman of only a few moments before was gone, replaced by the self-widowed, panicky little girl of the African plains.
They looked at each other for a moment. Margot was recovering herself in the blessed silence, thankfully avoiding the need for him to speak more pleasantries. He hated pleasantries even outside of his job even more than he disliked women on safari.
"Oh, who is this, Margot?" Spoke one of the younger women, her curly red hair bobbing up and down as she spoke. She was quite obviously ignorant of the tension radiating from the gap between the middle-aged American and the British hunter.
"Forgive me, Gretchen. This is Mr. Robert Wilson, a safari man." Wilson nodded his head to young Miss Gretchen, who beamed at him. The other women, however, seemed to know the significance of Margot's suddenly strained tone and the word 'safari'.
They looked at each other, decidedly uncomfortable.
Robert sighed and saved them the agony, politely inquiring as to Margot's reasons for being in London during such an unfavorable season, hoping to get her companions to ignore their conversation. Margot told him, catching the look in his eye, of her new flat and her retirement, the last big endorsement, and of her acceptance into British society.
She wasn't really talking to him, just talking, watching out of the corner of her eye as her friends returned to whatever frivolous topic had previously captured their attention before Wilson had spoken.
Then he fixed her with a stare, and all her pretty words died on her lips. She fell back into silence, a look of expectant ache in her eyes.
"The inquest was finished months ago." he said.
A small sob escaped her mouth, her eyes squeezing shut. He continued on pleasantly, telling her all about the photos and the testimonies that had been given after she'd requested to be absent from the proceedings. She'd claimed she couldn't listen to it after having witnessed such a traumatizing event first hand.
"That's well enough then?" She asked after he'd finished.
"Yes. I told you I'd take care of it. Accident, after all."
"After all." She repeated, lowering her gaze to where her hands sat, recalling the month she spent after they returned to Nairobi shuttered up in her hotel room, the weeks leading up to the inquest, and the finality of the funeral and will. Wilson could see the vein in her neck bulging at the more distressing memories.
He wanted to hate her still, to hold the shame he still felt over her head, but he found his buried ire draining faster than his recently refilled glass of sherry. Right pathetic, that one, he said to himself, taking another calculated sip.
Wilson called for an empty glass and the rest of the sherry, filling it to the brim with the blood red liquid, and pushed it in front of Margot. She looked at him with hallowed eyes before picking up the glass and nodding.
He couldn't stretch out her misery like this. Not that she might not have deserved it, but he realized, quite suddenly, that he couldn't hate her.
It was so hard to hate something so pitiable, like hating a bee for stinging you. After all, you knew it was going to die in a couple of hours.