The Penultimate Chance Saloon

by Simon Brett

  ‘Okay.’

  Carolyn watched him as, puffing determinedly on his cigarette, he walked off down the road towards the tube station.

  Chapter Twenty

  ... and, by way of contrast,

  a pot-holer who was rescued from a cave

  after eight days said he survived –

  rather appropriately – on a diet of pot noodles.

  His late ex-wife had condemned Bill Stratton as shallow, but even shallow people have depths. And during the weeks after Andreas funeral he plumbed those depths. He was probably not spiritually equipped to have a Dark Night of the Soul in the full St John of the Cross version, but his soul did go through a distinctly greyish period.

  Bill thought about his whole life, and how he’d spent it, and he wasn’t over-impressed with himself. As well as shallow, he felt hollow. He even disparaged the personal anguish that he felt. He was suffering, but a more sensitive person would be suffering more. Dewi Roberts, he felt certain, was achieving a much more noble and admirable depth of suffering.

  The trouble, Bill Stratton now realised, was that he had always kept his emotions at a distance. As a newsreader, he had been a conduit for disasters which had left him personally untouched and unmoved. He had looked suitably grave as he announced bomb outrages, famines, earthquakes and the deaths of international icons. But the very act of speaking them out loud had somehow inured him to their impact.

  It wasn’t only in his professional career that he had been a conduit. As an after-dinner speaker, he was a conduit for old ‘by way of contrast’ lines. And at times he suspected that he was no more than a conduit for his personal emotions too. They went straight through him; they didn’t touch the sides.

  Andrea’s death had shaken him to his foundations, but in his slough of self-hatred, he didn’t feel his grieving was adequate. All he felt was a constant, dull unhappiness. He went through the motions of life, he delivered ‘by way of contrast’ lines in after-dinner speeches on automatic pilot. But whatever opportunities presented themselves, he felt no urge to make contact with any women.

  That was the part of his life that Andrea’s death had made him feel worst about. While he’d felt no guilt at all during his flurry of pickups and sexual encounters, every one of them now felt like a cavalier betrayal of Andrea, or of something. In retrospect he was appalled by his callow chat-up routines borrowed from the BWOC archive, by the love-making itself, by the smug hypocrisy of his conscience- salving Interflora gifts with their cocky little cards of thanks. What had become of the real Bill Stratton during that time? What had he been doing, for God’s sake? Was there a real Bill Stratton?

  He determined that that was the end, so far as women were concerned. He wasn’t to be trusted with them. All he was capable of was bringing them unhappiness. He had never felt lower.

  Sal no doubt would have told him, after a reading of Referred Pain: How We Take It Out on Those We Love or something similar, that the reason he felt so bad was because he had never allowed himself time to grieve for his divorce. That now he was not just mourning Andrea’s death, he was mourning the death of their marriage too. Sal might also, after reading something like Blanket Coverage: How We Cosy Up for Comfort in Relationships, have pointed out to him that Andrea had been his sheet anchor. Because he hadn’t grown away from her emotionally, he had not had a problem with passionless promiscuity. For the same reason, he had preferred anonymous one- night stands to encounters in which his feelings were in danger of being engaged.

  But Sal didn’t have the opportunity to tell Bill any of that, because he didn’t see her. During those weeks he didn’t see anyone he didn’t have to.

  * * *

  Sadly, one of the people he did have to see was the senior Australian cotton bud at the cosmetic dental clinic. She had conceded that, if he had some major structural work on the bombsite at the back of his mouth, she would be willing to put porcelain veneers on his teeth at the front. The work would take a lot of visits and the cost would be astronomical.

  Bill didn’t exactly decide to go along with her proposal, he was in too diminished a state to make decisions, but the effort of saying no seemed even more stressful than agreeing. So he found himself caught up in a long process of measuring and drilling and chipping and grinding and being told what a pity it was he hadn’t looked after his teeth. All with the purpose of undoing the ravages of time. Except that the work wasn’t really undoing them; it was hiding them.

  Veneers. He was all too aware of their symbolism in relation to his life.

  * * *

  Bill Stratton felt really old now, felt every one of his sixty-odd years. He was on the final lap. There was not a lot more to look forward to. Even though he had embarked on a hideously expensive course of cosmetic dentistry, in other ways he let himself go. The visits to the gym stopped completely, shaving was reduced to two or three times a week, and he started drinking more than he had before. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  Hangovers made him ache all over in the mornings, reinforcing the sensation that his body was literally crumbling around him. The booze made him pee a lot too, prompting thoughts that he might have prostate cancer. This produced no panic; part of him almost welcomed the idea. And he drank more to speed the process of self-destruction.

  More than once he was almost too drunk to do an after-dinner speaking gig. Only the relentless familiarity of the material kept him going. He knew that his words were slurring. Something new for the organisers to snigger at in their post-mortems with Sal.

  When she rang him and left messages – he had the phone permanently in answering machine mode these days – he didn’t return her calls. She could e-mail him the basic information about bookings and venues. He didn’t go to the BWOC office either, and didn’t call back on the two occasions when Carolyn made contact. He didn’t even respond to Ginnie when she called. And he certainly didn’t ring Trevor back. Drinking in The Annexe with a fellow depressive was far too cushy a solution. Bill Stratton wanted to indulge his misery on his own.

  * * *

  He became obsessed by how old he was, and the British press’s fanaticism about putting everyone’s age after their name fed his obsession. Everything worth achieving, he could see from his newspaper, was being achieved by people younger than him. And the rare over-sixties who did anything worthwhile only brought home to Bill his own comparative inadequacy. He found himself trying to assess the age of everyone he saw, and he had another very ugly moment on the tube.

  He was travelling back to Pimlico after a lunchtime speaking engagement. He’d had too much to drink, but just about got away with it. He’d even felt quite bouncy and on top of things at the lunch. But the minute he was on his own on the tube, depression descended like a safety curtain in a theatre. Fancy being the oldest man on the tube, he mused. And then thought, no, I don’t fancy being the oldest man on the tube. He looked around the compartment. There was a baldish man slightly to his left. But baldness happens to people in their early twenties. The man was trying to dress younger than his age, but what was that age? Difficult to judge, but regretfully Bill had to concede it was probably under fifty. With increasing paranoia, he took another scan around the compartment. It didn’t look good. He was stuck in a metal cylinder with a lot of people, all of whom were younger than he was. Come on, please, his mind screamed, please, someone older than me get on at the next stop. I don’t care who it is ... any old dosser will do ... so long as he’s older than me ... so long as I’m not left as the oldest man on the tube!

  His face, imperfectly reflected in the window opposite, now looked like a skull.

  * * *

  One of the advantages of being shallow is that plumbing your depths doesn’t take as long as it would with someone less shallow. And, after some six weeks of misery and doubt, Bill Stratton did start to feel better.

  The restoration of his self-esteem did not happen overnight. The process was slow, but once started, his improvement accelerated. The first thin
g he did was to cut down his drinking. That was not as hard as it would have been for a more addictive personality. At the centre of Bill Stratton there had always been a core of self that hated losing control, and he recognised that his recent alcoholic excesses had arisen more from maudlin wallowing in self-abasement than from chemical compulsion. Then he resumed his visits to the gym. At first the work-outs were very hard, but gradually the regimen felt easier. He was basically in pretty good condition for a man in his early sixties.

  Slowly he emerged from the pall that Andrea’s death had cast over him. Soon, he thought, he would get in touch with people again. Women, even. He would no longer be looking for sex, or even love, but he could get back to having friendships with women. Yes, that was the answer. Soon he’d get back to being himself. Bill Stratton. Even enjoying being himself. He had no illusions about the qualities of his personality. But he knew he wasn’t quite as bad as he’d thought himself over the previous six weeks.

  One tragic death, you see, is not enough to break a lifetime’s habits of triviality. After Andrea died, Bill Stratton was not transformed. He did not see the light and immediately leave for Africa to do good works. But, to give him his due, he did set up a ten pounds a month standing order to Cancer Research.

  Chapter twenty-one

  ... and, by way of contrast,

  a Gosport man who crawled home

  after a heavy session in the pub only

  realised the following morning that

  he’d left his wheelchair there.

  Kingsley Amis,’ said Trevor, ‘Kingsley Amis reckoned women were mad. It’s in one of his later books, can’t remember which one ... well, it’s in most of his later books probably ... and a lot of the early ones. He reckoned they actually have a medical condition that makes them incapable of reasonable thought.’

  ‘He always was a bit of a misogynist.’

  ‘Oh yes, I agree, Bill, he was, but, you know, the more dealings I have with women, the more I reckon he may have had a point.’

  ‘But I thought you didn’t have any dealings with women nowadays.’

  ‘Not voluntarily, no. But it’s amazing how they still manage to infiltrate my life.’

  ‘The ex-wives?’

  ‘Them. And the daughters too. They just will not allow me any peace. God, I thought life’d be simpler when I got to my age.’

  ‘You didn’t exactly go out of your way to make it simpler, did

  ‘How do you mean?’ Trevor sounded aggrieved.

  ‘All the marriages, all the girlfriends.’

  ‘Ah, yes, but I know why that was now.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ve got an addictive personality.’

  ‘Right.’ Had Trevor taken a leaf out of Sal’s book, and started reading self-help manuals?

  ‘Yes. You see, if I start something, I go on with it, even if all the evidence shows it’s not doing me any good.’

  Bill pointed to Trevor’s pint. ‘That’s certainly true.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about the booze. I’m talking about women.’ ‘You’re going to have to explain that.’

  ‘Look, the situation is ... I’m actually allergic to women.’ Allergic?’

  ‘Yes, they don’t do me any good. I actually have a physical reaction when I’m with them.’

  ‘So do all of us, if we get lucky.’

  ‘Bill, will you please not trivialise this.’ That was rich, coming from Trevor. An addictive personality is drawn to things that do them harm. I should never have messed with women at all.’

  ‘Your ex-wives would agree with you there.’

  ‘But I had no control. My addictive personality kept dragging me towards them. Even though a part of me knew I wasn’t doing myself any good. The impulse was stronger than I was, you see.’ He spread his hands wide in a gesture of innocence. ‘So I can’t be blamed for anything that happened. It wasn’t my fault.’

  As a justification for Trevor’s behaviour – or that of any other man – that took some beating. But Bill, being a man, couldn’t help being a little bit attracted to the theory.

  ‘Where did you come across this idea?’

  ‘It was in the Daily Mail', Trevor replied piously, ‘so it must be true.’

  ‘Hmm. So you reckon, if you’d never got involved with any women at all, your life would have been better?’

  ‘Obviously. I would have been much more successful in my career. I would have made a lot more money – and kept a lot more of what I did make. No, it’s women who ruined everything for me.’ At this bleak conclusion, Trevor took a deeply satisfied swig.

  ‘So from now on you’re just going to concentrate on that – your new addiction?’

  ‘It’s not new. I always drank.’

  ‘Yes, but in the old days you used occasionally to do something other than drink.’

  ‘Hmm. And now I don’t have to.’ Trevor smiled complacently. ‘Not all bad, is it?’

  ‘So didn’t the Daily Mail reckon that your drinking was also a reflection of your obsessive personality?’

  ‘Oh yes, probably. But it does me much more good.’ He looked fondly at his glass. ‘I mean, I’ve always got much more logic out of a pint than I ever have out of a woman.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Anyway, let’s raise our glasses, Bill...’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘To you having seen the light as well.’

  ‘Which light are you referring to?’

  ‘The light that spells out in big neon letters: “WOMEN DON’T DO YOU NO GOOD.’”

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Well, come on. That’s what you said.’

  ‘I said that I wasn’t intending to have any more emotional relationships with women.’

  ‘Exactly. As I say, you’ve seen the light. Now you can be properly enrolled as the second full-time member of “The Annexe Misogynists’ Club”.’

  ‘What would that involve?’ Bill asked cautiously.

  ‘Just doing more of what we do now. Meeting up here for as many drinks as we feel like, and stopping every now and then to raise our glasses to the lucky escape we’ve had from the perfidy of womankind.’

  Bill saw exactly what Trevor had in mind, and the idea was not without appeal. Two old codgers tucked in the corner of a bar, complicit in their masculinity, safely sealed away from the emotional storms of inter-gender relationships. Such a life could get boring at times, but alcohol can be quite as effective as procrastination in the role of ‘thief of time’. The Annexe would make a very effective fortress against the real world.

  And for Trevor, how attractive that scenario would be. No more lonely drinking. An ever-present friend to share his moans, to stir the depths of his depressions. And to join in his castigations of the gender that had caused so much devastation in his life.

  Yes, Bill could see the attraction.

  But it did have one big drawback.

  At some level, very deep down, even now, Bill did like women.

  * * *

  When he staggered back to Pimlico, at the end of a very long session with Trevor, there was a message from Virginia Fairbrother. The series had come to an end. She was hanging up her wimple, and would shortly be back in London.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  ... and, by way of contrast,

  scientists testing the theory

  that the best place to hide is

  nearest the light have concluded

  that it doesn’t work for moths.

  The restaurant this time wasn’t trendy, just an Italian in Pimlico that Bill used fairly regularly. There was no likelihood of seeing anyone famous there. He hadn’t even thought it posh enough as a venue to take Leigh to. But Ginnie had said she wanted something really simple. After months of eating en masse with all the Sister Saga cast and crew, she craved quiet.

  Even her costume was more subdued. A well-cut but anonymous black trouser suit, a silver-grey scarf. She didn’t want to make an entrance, she didn’t want to be ‘Virginia Fa
irbrother the famous actress’. She just wanted to have a quiet meal with an old friend.

  Bill knew he wasn’t looking his best. Though he had started back on his gym routine, he hadn’t yet lost all the weight he’d accumulated during the post-funeral slump. His teeth also looked odd. The grinding process had been done, but the proper porcelain veneers had yet to be attached. As a result his teeth were wearing temporary plastic covers, of which he felt very self-conscious.

  He mentioned the way he looked before Ginnie had a chance to. Get that over with.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said huskily. ‘I look dreadful too.’ From where Bill was sitting this was patently untrue. She looked absolutely gorgeous. ‘Quite honestly, I’m still wiped out by all that filming. They’re cutting so many corners in television these days that the schedule’s ridiculous. We were often doing twelve- and fourteen-hour days, and still, of course, no proper rehearsal time.’

  ‘But you had the odd break.’

  ‘Very few.’

  ‘You went to Krk.’

  ‘Oh yes. Managed to fit that in.’

  ‘With Dickie Burns.’ Though he had given up all thoughts of relationships with women, Bill could still feel jealousy. ‘So how was it?’

  ‘Not marvellous. Rained most of the time.’

  ‘Still, it must have been nice for you to be with Dickie.’

  Ginnie’s mobile face produced a grimace which gave Bill enormous encouragement. ‘He’s a bit of a bore, to be quite honest. And he’s not dealing with age as well as you and I are.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Bit of the old mutton-dressed-as-lamb syndrome, poor Dickie. Because he always was the matinee idol type, he thinks he’s still got this fatal attraction for women. But I’m afraid whatever he used to have in the way of looks has gone ... as have other of his woman-attracting qualities ...’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Even Viagra doesn’t do it for him.’