The Penultimate Chance Saloon

by Simon Brett

  Bill had been there before a few times. The house-warming party had taken place while he was still unsuspectingly married to Andrea, and they had gawped at the gallery of showbiz stars who had graced the occasion. He thought they’d both had a really good time, but in the taxi back to Putney Andrea had gone on about all the people there being ‘false’ and ‘artificial’ and ‘not engaging with the real world’.

  But he’d never before approached Ginnie’s house feeling as he did that Saturday night. As ever, punctual to the point of being early, he had asked the cab to drop him a couple of streets away, and dawdled towards the door, reckoning ten past seven would be about right for her ‘sevenish’. Not so late as to appear casually uncaring, nor so early as to look puppyishly eager ... though that was how he felt.

  He rang the doorbell, new veneers gleaming, heart pounding with a fizzing cocktail of emotions. There was excitement close to ecstasy, and almost unbearable lust, both swept along on an undercurrent of anxiety. The last time he’d made love to a woman ... or to be more accurate, the last time he had failed to make love to a woman ... had been that final night with Leigh.

  When she opened the door, Ginnie took his breath away. She had always looked wonderful, but never like this. Her skin, still tanned from Croatia, glowed through a simple full-length dress in the finest white linen with a vaguely Arabic cut. The auburn hair, which had grown a little since the filming ended, was skilfully spiked, half Peter Pan, half street urchin. And her jewellery that night was silver; light filigree necklace and bracelets, dangling earrings as insubstantial as spiders’ webs.

  A musky, smoky perfume enveloped Bill as she leant forward to kiss him and led him into the candle-lit Aladdin’s cave behind her. Music billowed around them. Mozart almost definitely. A Clarinet Concerto perhaps.

  Their kiss had been formal, almost perfunctory, as if they both knew there was no hurry. The ending of the evening was pre-ordained, there was no urgency, they could luxuriate in heady anticipation.

  She had champagne opened and on ice. They drank easily, not to excess, and the liquor worked its age-old relaxing magic. The food she produced was perfect, very light. Little filo pastry pies of cheese and spinach, tiny courgette fritters, and dips of spicy vegetables prepared them for the beautifully glazed cold salmon with delicately buttered new potatoes and subtly piquant salad that followed.

  Whether Ginnie had assembled this feast herself or bought it in Bill did not know. Nor did he care.

  They didn’t move on to another wine. They continued to drink champagne.

  And they talked, again without pressure, inconsequentially, subjects constantly varying, as they do between two people who care for each other, and have been friends for a long time.

  Bill had been worried about the transition from dining room to bedroom, but he need not have done. He was in the hands of an expert stage manager. As soon as he had refused her offer of coffee, Ginnie disappeared into the kitchen and returned moments later with a newly-opened bottle of champagne. Elegantly scooping up their two glasses as she passed, she announced easily, ‘I think it’s time we went upstairs.’

  She pointed out a guest bathroom to him, but Bill didn’t need it.

  ‘Come through to the bedroom then. I’ll just use my bathroom.’

  ‘And what do I do the while?’

  She grinned at him. ‘You could do worse than take all your clothes off and get into bed.’

  The bedroom had not been neglected by the punctilious stage management. The walls were rich terracotta, lit by the tremor of many candles. White muslin flowed down from a central point over the big white bed, which faced large windows shielding a balcony that looked out over the Thames. An almost silent procession of Saturday night pleasure boats animated the view. From the largest, a brightly-lit party vessel, the sound of a distant jazz band filtered through into Virginia Fairbrother’s eyrie. The air was redolent of musk and rose petals.

  Bill Stratton sat on a chair and removed his shoes. Then, as instructed, he took off his clothes. He folded them neatly on the chair, and slipped under the duvet. He went to the right, the side he had always occupied during his marriage to Andrea. The pile of books on the left-hand table suggested he had made the right decision. A propitious omen, he hoped.

  As he lay there, breathing in the scent of Ginnie’s sheets, he still had difficulty in believing the journey that he had travelled since Andrea’s death.

  The door from the bathroom opened softly, and she came towards him. She was not yet naked, but wore a flimsy gown of oyster grey silk, tied loosely at the waist, showing a long v of brown flesh above her waist and yards of brown leg below.

  ‘Bill, I’m glad to see you’ve made yourself at home.’

  She slipped easily into the left-hand side of the bed. Their eyes engaged. Then gently, almost ceremoniously, they kissed.

  ‘Well, this has been a long time coming,’ murmured Ginnie.

  ‘Better late than never,’ murmured Bill.

  He reached a hand to run along the ridge of her shoulder. It was hard, almost unyielding. His hand slipped down her back over the silk to rest on the curve of her bottom. That too felt hard, toned almost to the rigidity of plastic.

  Her thin hands played down his sides, teasing, touching, ever downward. His body responded, but he felt nothing.

  There was a numbness, an awkwardness. Their bodies seemed incongruously the wrong shape, never designed to lock together, like a metal puzzle out of a Christmas cracker. Where all should be softness and melting, all was edges and dryness.

  Neither one of them voiced the thought, but they both knew it wasn’t working. Bill wasn’t impotent, but his erection felt like what the word suggested, a mechanical hydraulic piece of apparatus. A level of penetration was achieved, he even had a kind of orgasm, though Ginnie’s claim to have done the same – brilliant actress though she was – didn’t fool either of them.

  The experience was unlike anything Bill Stratton had previously encountered. It felt about as natural as a stick insect trying to make love to ... not even another stick insect, but a stick.

  Basically, it was bad sex. He and Ginnie had never been designed to be more than good friends.

  After about an hour of purposeless grinding, they both started an elaborate sequence of yawns. Goodness, Ginnie didn’t realise how tired she still was after the filming in Croatia. Goodness, Bill was still pretty wiped out from the couple of after-dinner speaking engagements he’d done that week.

  Well, they’d both got to an age when they needed their sleep, and they wouldn’t sleep so well with an unfamiliar partner and ... Ginnie did not demur when Bill said maybe he’d better be on his way. He put his clothes back on as quickly as he could, filling the silence by passing platitudinous comments about the shipping on the Thames.

  He was desperate to leave now, desperate to be in a cab on his way back to Pimlico. Ginnie was equally desperate for him to go.

  But, of course, neither of them put their desperation into words.

  Instead, they both agreed it had been wonderful. They both agreed that they should do it again, soon.

  And they both knew that they never would.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  ... and, by way of contrast,

  a man in Lewes announced that

  he’d given up sex because be

  found Morris Dancing more exciting.

  ‘A strange thing happened last night.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Carolyn. ‘What?’

  ‘I did an after-dinner speaking gig, and a guy came up afterwards and said he’d heard most of my “by way of contrast” lines before.’

  ‘So? He had a long memory. He’d heard them while you were still being a newsreader.’

  ‘No, couldn’t be that. Because most of the lines I used last night were recent ones. You know, I said I was going to get some new stuff into the routine.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Carolyn took a long draw on her cigarette, almost as if she was trying to prevent herself
from laughing. But it couldn’t be that, Bill reasoned. There was nothing in his current situation to laugh at.

  ‘Anyway, I got quite cross with this bloke. He was treating me as if I was just some second-rate stand-up comic, recycling old material.’

  ‘You are recycling old material.’

  ‘Yes, I know I am. But the material I am recycling is not just old jokes. They are all genuine news stories. I mean, what I do does have some journalistic integrity.’

  “‘Journalistic integrity”? That sounds a bit pompous coming from you, Bill.’

  ‘I know it does. But this guy really got me riled. I nearly lost my temper with him.’

  ‘Oh dear. That’s unlike you. Has something happened recently in your life to shorten your ... famously long fuse?’ As so often with Carolyn, there was an ambiguous impudence in her look, both aware and innocent of the potential innuendo.

  ‘No,’ Bill replied grumpily. Though almost a week had passed since his encounter with Ginnie, he still felt raw and embarrassed. But he wasn’t going to let on about that to Carolyn.

  He looked across at her, and now there was no doubt. Something was really amusing her. She was having great difficulty in suppressing her giggles.

  ‘What is it?’

  She sighed regretfully. ‘Oh, I suppose I’ve got to come clean.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The whole BWOC thing.’

  ‘Yes ...?’

  ‘The “by way of contrast” lines have always been of dubious origin.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘A lot of them are almost urban myths, the kind of stories that get passed around in pubs.’

  ‘All right. I’ll buy that. And therein lies a lot of their appeal.’

  ‘Yes.’ She sighed again. The telling wasn’t proving quite as easy as she had thought. ‘Look, you know Jason has done a lot of work for BWOC –’

  ‘Of course. Without him we wouldn’t have the website. He’s set up our whole computer system.’

  ‘Actually, Bill, he’s done rather more than that.’

  He stared at her, uncomprehending.

  ‘Do I have to spell it out?’

  ‘I rather think you do.’

  ‘All right.’ Carolyn took a long, fortifying pull from her cigarette. ‘Bill, you know Jason’s setting himself up as a stand-up and comedy writer ...?’

  ‘Yes, you told me.’

  ‘Since he’s been doing that, he’s also been employed by BWOC.’

  ‘I know that. We pay him a retainer to maintain the computer systems.’

  ‘No. He’s also been employed by BWOC as a writer. A comedy writer.’

  Finally, the penny dropped. ‘You mean that all the recent “by way of contrast” lines ... haven’t been culled from international news agencies ... they’ve all been invented ... by Jason?’

  Ruefully, Carolyn nodded her blonde head. ‘I’m sorry. He needed the work and...’ For the first time since Bill had met her, she looked abashed. ‘I suppose I’d better resign, hadn’t I?’

  There was a long silence while Bill worked out his reactions to the news. Part of him was angry about having been duped. But another part of him relished the warm atmosphere of the BWOC office with Carolyn inside it. The prospect of someone else taking over the role was a bleak one.

  ‘I don’t think you need to do that,’ he said eventually.

  ‘What?’ There was genuine relief in her voice, even the glistening of a tear in her eye.

  ‘All you have to do –’ Bill grinned broadly.

  ‘Is what?’

  ‘Tell your son to write better jokes.’

  ‘But, Bill, what about your “journalistic integrity”?’

  ‘Oh, sod that.’

  * * *

  ‘I knew you’d come round eventually,’ said Trevor.

  ‘Come round to what?’

  ‘The end of sex.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I’ve done that.’

  ‘Listen, from what you’ve told me – and granted, you haven’t given me a great deal of detail, but you implied a lot – you have recently had a disappointment in the bedroom department.’

  ‘Well ...’

  ‘Don’t deny it. I think it’s put you off women.’

  ‘Maybe temporarily.’

  ‘There’s no “temporarily” at our stage in life, Bill. Use it or lose it. Like old squash-players who leave the game for a couple of years and then try and come back to it. That’s when they get the coronaries. No, you could well have given up sex for good, old son.’

  Bill thought about what Trevor had said. Yes, it was entirely possible that his excruciating fumbling with Ginnie had been the last time he would ever make love. The experience had rather put him off the whole idea.

  Had it been the last time, though? And if it had, surely such a rite of passage deserved some kind of recognition? What is an appropriate celebration, he wondered, for the last time in your life that you make love? Tricky, actually. Because only people who take religious vows or approach radical surgery actually know with certainty which the last time is. For the rest of us, we always wish that we’ll get lucky just one more time ... and hopefully a good few more.

  There’s a kind of Micawberism in sex. We always hope that something will turn up.

  And one day, finally, something won’t turn up, and we’ll know that the shutter – always imagined to be ten years away in the mists of the future – has finally come down. And what will we have to look forward to then?

  Bill Stratton shook such gloomy thoughts out of his head and picked up their beer glasses. ‘We need a couple more of these. And when we’ve got them, we’ll drink a toast.’

  ‘What to?’

  ‘You had the words for it, Trevor. “The end of sex”.’

  ‘See? I told you you’d come round to the idea.’

  And, as Bill crossed to The Annexe’s gloomy bar, he felt comforted. Trevor was right. It would be a monumental relief never to think about women or sex again.

  * * *

  ‘I don’t see that it matters at all.’

  ‘But, Sal, I am kind of passing them off as genuine news stories.’

  ‘So who cares about that? You won’t be the first after-dinner speaker to have used a scriptwriter. Read the back of Private Eye – you’d be amazed the number of people offering to customise speeches for special occasions.’

  ‘No, I suppose it’s all right. I just, sort of ... feel that I’m selling myself under false pretences.’

  ‘We all do that. There are whole industries which do nothing else. Public Relations, for one.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Sal’s anxious navy-blue eyes sought his. ‘Does it really worry you, Bill?’

  He chuckled. ‘No, I can’t really say it does. I’ve always been full of shit. I’m just now full of more shit than I realised.’ He ate a mouthful of his Iskender kebab and swilled it down with a glass of the old Yakut, before saying, ‘You know, I think you were right, Sal.’

  ‘I’m right so much of the time, you’re going to have to narrow it down.’

  ‘You told me that I was angry after the break-up with Andrea, and I denied it. But her death has made me realise just how right you were.’

  ‘I won’t say, “Told you so”.’

  ‘You don’t have to. I know. I thought the bad treatment I got from Andrea justified my bad behaviour to other women. She had hurt me, so I took it out on them. I remember, you said that’s what I was doing. You’d read it in some book, called Anger: Men at Work, I think it was?’

  ‘No, it was actually in Throttling the Individual: an Analysis of Marriage.’

  ‘Whatever ...’

  ‘And the point is reinforced in a new book I’ve just read, called You Are What You Hate. You should read it some day.’

  ‘I can’t see that day ever coming.’

  ‘Hmm. It’s a pity you don’t read stuff like that, Bill.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you h
ave such a poor understanding of your own personality.’

  ‘My personality isn’t that interesting.'

  ‘Don’t you believe it. Everyone’s personality is interesting.’ ‘Maybe. So, anyway, you don’t think I should stop doing the after-dinner speaking?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. Why on earth do you ask that?’

  ‘Well, because I now know that the “by way of contrast” lines are all made up. It makes me fell, kind of ... trivial and shallow.’

  ‘Bill, your triviality and shallowness are what make you attractive.’

  ‘Ah... well, all right.’ Had Sal actually ever said before that he was attractive? He couldn’t remember.

  ‘I heard, incidentally,’ she said, rather more serious now, ‘that you’ve been seen around more with Virginia Fairbrother...’

  He blushed, as if Sal had actually witnessed the bedroom scene in Docklands. ‘Yes, she’s always been a good friend of mine.’

  ‘Hmm. No more than that? You’re not an item?’

  ‘Good God, no.’ Was it fanciful to think that Sal had seemed relieved by his answer?

  ‘So you’re not currently an item with anyone?’

  ‘No. I think I’ve probably already caused enough destruction in the world of relationships. I’m giving up women.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And what does that deflated little “Oh” mean?’

  ‘Just that ... for you to give up women, Bill ... well, it’d be an awful waste ...’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  ... and, by way of contrast,

  after an open-air Shakespeare production was

  rained off at the interval, a party of schoolchildren

  went home convinced that ‘Romeo and Juliet’ had a happy ending.

  It is to be hoped that no one goes to their grave without having had at least one experience of perfect sex.

  Perfect sex cannot be measured by any external values or criteria. It concerns only the two people involved. (Some authorities maintain that more than two people can be involved in perfect sex, but the general view is that, while extra partners may add to the physical sensation, they are unlikely to achieve the mental harmony that can exist between two participants.)