By September of 1945, with Mary away in Chicago, Hemingway invited Buck Lanham and his wife, Pete, to stay at the Finca. They arrived on the morning of the 22nd of September. Lanham had recently returned from Europe to become head of the Information and Education section of the War Department. It was the first time Hemingway had met Mrs Lanham (whose real name was Mary) and apart from being prematurely grey she resembled Mary Welsh in build, and temperament.

Hemingway made the couple very welcome, and on their first full day he took them on a tour of the island where they experienced the delights of bare knuckle fighting, cock fighting, pigeon shooting, followed by a splendid dinner at the Floridita. On the second day of their two week stay they went fishing for marlin aboard the Pilar. That evening they dined ( after many drinks at the Floridita) at one of Havana’s finest Chinese restaurants.

Lunches at the Finca were long and boozy sessions where the excellent food was washed down by good Spanish red wine. Buck would often take a nap after the exertions of lunch, leaving Pete and Ernest happily arguing about anything and everything.

Pete Lanham was a frank and outspoken woman with firm views who engaged Hemingway in heated arguments about the cruelties of bullfighting, which made Hemingway bridle alarmingly. Pete soon came to the conclusion that Hemingway was “… a temperamental misogynist…” who condemned his mother at every opportunity, accusing her of driving his father to suicide, and that his mother, and Martha, had been the only women in his life who had stood up to him, and defied him. Pete Lanham recalled that Hemingway became very scornful towards Martha when he explained how his ex-wife had demanded he return a quantity of silver given to her by her mother before she and Hemingway had married.

” Just because she had it before we were married, she wants it back. Can you imagine such a thing?”

” Well, Ernest, I feel I must agree with Martha. And why in Heaven would you want to keep silver with Martha’s monogram on it?”

Hemingway would have none of it, and soon launched into a tirade about the shortcomings of Martha as a woman and a wife. And then talked a little about Pauline.

” Pauline stole me away from Hadley. She had the wealth you see, and Hadley lacked it, and I needed it badly. And when Pauline protested against my falling in love with Martha I simply told her that those who live by the sword must die by the sword, as no doubt I would in time.”