The Penultimate Chance Saloon

by Simon Brett

  As a result, the two ‘m’s – menstruation and menopause – had remained unmentioned in the Stratton household. In common with most children, to the young Bill the idea of his parents having an active sex life was distastefully unimaginable. When he was sixteen, at the time of maximum hormonal confusion, the idea of people of thirty having an active sex life was unimaginable (almost as unimaginable then as the idea of he himself ever getting to the point of having a sex life).

  But Bill Stratton’s adolescent gleanings of incomplete information had left him with the firm conviction that the menopause definitely closed the lid down on all that stuff. If grown-ups hadn’t had the decency to stop having sex before, at least the menopause would put a permanent end to their little games. Post-menopausal women would become little old ladies, like his grandmothers.

  Better information gathered through his life should have dissipated this illusion. The media – particularly the Daily Mail – were increasingly loaded with over-frank testimonials from mature women about their continuing and flowering sexuality – but Bill was never quite convinced. The primitive beliefs of his childhood had left their imprint on his thinking. His image of the menopause remained as a big, dark, heavy shutter.

  As a result, when Andrea told him the menopause had caused her to lose interest in sex, he was disappointed, but not surprised. And, to his mind rather nobly, he did not force his attentions on her. His libido was not as rampant as it had been, and, wistfully, he tried to reconcile himself to the fact that that part of his life might be over.

  He was therefore not a little upset when Andrea told him the real reason she had stopped having sex with him was nothing to do with her time of life. That, rather than diminishing it, the menopause had increased her enjoyment of sex.

  Sex with someone else.

  He was called Dewi, which to Bill seemed only to add insult to injury. If he was going to have a love rival, at least he could have been granted one with a less silly name.

  But he had to admit that her new man’s profile was perfect for Andrea. A doctor throughout his career, Dewi Roberts had resisted the attractions of even the minimum of private work and devoted all of his professional life to the NHS. He had also volunteered much of his spare time for committee work, and had travelled extensively taking medical help to the world’s impoverished peoples. Dewi was so worthy he made Bill want to puke.

  Nor could this paragon be criticised for the seduction and abduction of Andrea. Dewi was not betraying anyone, his wife having died of emphysema five years before their meeting, leaving him with three children, all of whom were at university studying worthy subjects. He was devoted to his offspring, and, though he and Andrea were mutually in love, had insisted for a long time that it would ‘be better’ if they stopped seeing each other. Dewi didn’t want to have the break-up of her marriage on his conscience.

  It was then, Andrea related to Bill with perhaps excessive glee, that she had told Dewi her relationship with her husband was ‘a sham’ and ‘a marriage only in name’. Now she had met the right person, all she wanted to do was to divorce Bill and ‘make up for lost time’. She also wanted to ‘get to know’ Dewi’s children and ‘build up a relationship with the next generation that had been denied to her throughout her unfulfilled marriage’.

  Andrea’s logic and determination were difficult to argue with, and Bill didn’t try that hard. When she was that clear about what she wanted to do, he knew from experience that there was little point in trying to dissuade her.

  So, unwillingly but with as much good grace as he could muster, he bit the bullet and agreed to the divorce. Andrea said that was ‘the best present he had ever given her’, a phrase that did not fill him with delight. And she wasted no time in walking back from the altar as the new Mrs Roberts.

  So there Bill Stratton was, very nearly sixty, and no longer married. And, despite having had a continuous supply for nearly forty years, he had very little experience of sex. One premarital fumble with someone else, and then wall-to-wall Andrea. He knew that men tended to be more numerical than women about such things, but he couldn’t help counting. At the end of his marriage, Bill Stratton’s score of women made love to was ... two. Well, no, thinking back to that premarital fumble, to be accurate it was one and a half Actually, to be generous, it was one and a half.

  And he had no idea whether, at the end of his life, that would be ‘Latest Score’ or ‘Result’. But he’d be interested to find out.

  During the period of the break-up and divorce Bill Stratton had felt many emotions, most of them new, and most of them unpleasant. The one he hadn’t felt at any time, though, was guilt.

  Chapter Two

  ... and, by way of contrast,

  a Mr Ablethorpe of North Yorkshire

  has named his dog 'Mrs Ablethorpe’,

  saying, ‘It’s been a darned sight more

  comfort to me that my wife ever was.’

  Married friends of a marriage have to be very even-handed. Conversations between couples in cars leaving after evenings spent with the marriage may be more honest, but in its presence the illusion has to be maintained that both members of each couple like each other equally When a marriage falls apart, that convention also breaks down. That’s when you really find out who your friends are.

  You also lose a lot of friends. Couples herd together in their detached pens like sheep, disproportionately paranoid at the idea of lone wolves prowling. A woman who, in the company of her husband at a dinner party, was cancelled out and anonymous, becomes, having shed the marital encumbrance, a potent threat to the integrity of coupledom. After one token invitation to show sympathy, she is quickly excised from the couples’ dinner party list.

  A recently unshackled man fares better. He gets invited out more, though not so much by the couples he used to visit with his former wife. Invitations arrive from people he didn’t think he knew.

  An unattached man in an urban area is like an expanding ladder or a petrol-driven garden strimmer – sooner or later everyone’s going to want to borrow it.

  In the fall-out of Bill and Andrea Stratton’s marriage, the division of friends was predictable, working out pretty much on career lines. Those with medical connections gravitated automatically to the new Mr and Mrs Roberts. As a conversationalist, Dewi could add so much more than Bill’s sympathetic nodding. He could actually contribute his own experiences of the National Health Service’s shortcomings, and whinge along with the best of them.

  As for Bill, he found himself still in touch with most of his media connections. This suited him well. Gossip of journalism and show business seemed incontestably more interesting than maundering on about the Trust status of hospitals, and he was genuinely amazed when, in one of her tirades building up to the split, Andrea had announced how bored she had been at endless evenings of D-List celebrity trivia’. Could she really be serious?

  So Bill still had his professional circuit of friends. His social life with them involved less dinner parties, more meeting at public events, launches, awards ceremonies and so on. Conversations with such people rarely rose above amiable banter, which suited Bill extremely well. And he had a few closer friendships with a variety of individuals, whom he would meet intermittently for lunch. Andrea’s social life – and, by extension, his while they were still married – had been more to do with seeing the same small circle of friends time and time again.

  Bill’s was also less couple-oriented ... particularly because the coupling and uncoupling amongst his media associates was more frequent than it had been with Andrea’s NHS friends. Bill’s divorce made little impression on his group of casual acquaintances. Few of them had been aware that he’d ever been married.

  The one person with whom he was surprised to find himself still in touch was Ginnie Fairbrother. Although she worked in the theatre, he had always thought of Ginnie as Andrea’s friend. That went back a long way. The two girls had known each other at boarding school and, even through the wide divergence of their c
areers, had stayed in touch. Andrea had gone to nursing college, Ginnie to drama school.

  When Bill had become a permanent part of Andrea’s life, Ginnie had become an intermittent ingredient in his. She would disappear for long periods, months away touring, filming or enjoying increasingly high-profile love affairs, but she’d always come back to share her experiences over the pine kitchen table of the Stratton’s Putney home.

  Bill was very happy with this arrangement, which guaranteed him the continuing company of an undoubtedly attractive woman. Had he not been married, Virginia Fairbrother would have been way out of his league. But the coincidence of her having his wife as a childhood friend gave Bill Stratton unembarrassed access to this exotic creature. Their relationship had always encompassed a level of flirtatiousness, which Andrea, knowing how entirely safe she was, mildly encouraged.

  Ginnie had also proved useful to Bill on a professional level. There were occasionally receptions or award ceremonies which Andrea couldn’t make, because she had some pressing hospital commitment (though, knowing what he did after the break-up, Bill wondered whether some of these had been fictitious). And if Ginnie also happened to be free, she would often accompany him to these events. They enjoyed each others company, they could share giggles at the display of egos around them, and generally have a good relaxed time.

  Given Virginia Fairbrother’s blossoming fame and Bill Stratton’s own mild celebrity', their presence together sometimes prompted the tabloids to speculations of steamy romance. Neither of them minded the insinuations – they did their images no harm – but both thought the fact that they were made was hilarious.

  Despite their empathy, Bill had still always thought of Ginnie as Andrea’s friend. He was therefore surprised when, as the tsunami of the divorce was receding, on one of the first nights he spent in his new flat, he received a telephone call from Virginia Fairbrother.

  ‘I’ve no idea where you are,’ said the voice-over which had sold everything from anti-ageing cream to annuities, ‘but I thought there was a strong chance you’d still have the same mobile number.’

  ‘As you see, you were right. Really good to hear you, Ginnie.’

  ‘So how’re you enjoying your resurrection as a single man?’

  ‘Quite honestly, I haven’t had time to think about it. There’s been so much practical stuff to do. Selling the big house, getting this place ...’

  ‘Which is where?’

  ‘Pimlico. Two-bedroomed, according to the estate agent, but the whole lot would fit into the kitchen in Putney.’

  ‘Still, very sensible to move closer to the centre.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Good.’

  The conversation was becalmed for a moment. Bill knew they had soon to get on to the subject of Andrea – not to mention Dewi – but he was in no hurry. He wanted to prolong the glow engendered by Ginnie ringing him.

  But it was she who broke the impasse. ‘I think we should meet for dinner, Bill.’

  He thought that was an excellent idea.

  * * *

  Inevitably, it was a new place. Someone like Virginia Fairbrother was a barometer of aspiring London restaurants. She knew where to be seen, and knew how important her being seen in the same place twice might be to the venture’s success. Although she’d never been there before, the well-muscled greeter recognised her, took her to the appointed table and made no demurral when she asked for somewhere less central.

  The decor was all cream plastic and stainless steel tubing – laboratory chic. The asymmetrical white crockery and thin cutlery maintained the image of kidney bowls and scalpels.

  ‘I wouldn’t give this one very long,’ said Ginnie, as she settled into a screened plastic booth, which might have been designed for the production of specimens.

  ‘No,’ Bill agreed, half expecting privacy curtains to be wheeled across the opening. ‘Still, I suppose its survival will depend on what the food’s like.’

  Ginnie shook her head firmly. ‘With a couple of totally brilliant exceptions, most London food is of a good enough average standard these days. No, what matters to a place like this is what it looks like, and ...’ she cast her discriminating eye around the room ‘... who comes.’

  She gave a little wave to a former soap star who’d unwillingly died of cancer three months previously, and a footballer whose career as a pundit had been curtailed by his total inability to stop himself from swearing onscreen.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t think it’ll be long,’ she confirmed.

  ‘Well, you’re here, Ginnie. That must give the place a lift.’

  She reached across the table and gave his hand an appreciative rub. ‘Sweet of you to say so, darling, but I don’t think I’m quite the level they need. Afraid my wrinkles are starting to join together and shape up into a sell-by date.’

  Bill Stratton went to great lengths to assure Virginia Fairbrother how inaccurate her self-assessment was, and he meant it. When Andrea had first introduced him to her, Ginnie had been tall and thin, with striking red hair. She was still tall and thin, with striking red hair, though presumably – Bill wasn’t really up on such female secrets – the redness was now expertly assisted. That evening it was worn in relaxed curls, pulled back off her face with that artlessness which can only be achieved through extremely expensive artifice. The face itself, always sharp-featured, had not relaxed into fat; rather the years had tightened and burnished it like a much-polished bronze. Her skin glowed from a recent week’s filming in the Mediterranean, and Virginia Fairbrother was far too skilled an operator for there to be any indication where the make-up stopped and the tan started.

  And yes, there were wrinkles, a fine tracery of lines which tightened and proliferated when she grimaced or smiled (and, being an actress, she grimaced and smiled a lot). But Bill Stratton’s eyes found nothing ugly in the wrinkles; they defied blandness and infused character into the famous face.

  Of course, Ginnie knew how to dress too. The hair and tan were set off by chunky matt brass jewellery: earrings, a choker and an incomplete circle on her thin wrist. The dress, shin-length to show enough tanned leg, was in some ruched cotton material the colour of dried blood.

  Virginia Fairbrother looked stunning. But then she’d devoted her entire life to looking stunning.

  They ordered gin and tonics and consulted the menu. At least the medical theme wasn’t carried through there: no entries for Dialysis of Devilled Kidney or Roast Hip Replacement of Lamb. Ginnie – and Bill, following her example – made their selections quickly and gave the order to a waiter with an unfeasibly small bottom.

  ‘No,’ said Ginnie, looking round the ward, ‘I don’t think this place’ll last long.’ She raised her glass. ‘Cheers.’ They clinked. ‘So ... how does it feel, Bill?’

  ‘How does what feel?’

  ‘Being single. Being free. Having the world as your oyster.’

  He let out a sardonic laugh. ‘Ginnie, I’m pushing sixty.’

  ‘So what?’ She leant close, engulfing him in a perfume far too expensive to have a name. ‘Breathe this in the hearing of a tabloid journalist and I will personally castrate you, but ... I’m pushing sixty too.’

  He was taken aback. ‘Pushing sixty-two?’

  Virginia Fairbrother’s mouth tightened into a little ring of disapproval. ‘No. Pushing sixty as well. “Too” in the sense of “as well”.’

  ‘Ah. Right.’

  ‘Come on, I can’t pretend with you. You know I was Andrea’s contemporary at school.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Anyway, what is this, Bill? I don’t think of you as a depressive.’

  ‘No, I’m certainly not.’

  ‘You always seem to have had a reasonably sunny outlook on life.’

  ‘Yes, I think I have.’

  ‘You certainly needed it, married to Andrea.’

  A moment of disloyalty. Ginnie would never have said that while they’d still been together. Bill noted the
lapse, but didn’t pick up on it. Time enough to find out how much more disloyalty Ginnie might be capable of. But the moment gave him a little frisson. It opened up the possibility of criticising Andrea.

  But for the time being, though, he concentrated on his age. ‘I just feel, being sixty –’

  ‘You’re not sixty yet.’

  ‘Near as makes no difference. So I’ve had my career – that’s over ...’

  ‘Not entirely.’

  ‘Again, near as makes no difference. I’ve had my marriage – that’s over. I need to rethink.’

  ‘Emotionally?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you need to rethink what your emotional needs are ... in your new circumstances?’

  ‘All right. Yes, I suppose I do.’

  ‘Then you also have to think about what kind of woman will fulfil those needs.’

  ‘Ginnie, I have just come through a ... I was going to say “long and painful divorce”, but I know, compared to some people, I’ve got off relatively lightly. But it still has been quite traumatic, and the last thing I need at the moment is to remarry.’

  ‘Who’s talking about remarrying? You don’t have to marry every woman you have a relationship with.’

  ‘No, I know I don’t, but ...’

  ‘You sound almost as if you think you do.’

  Bill Stratton assessed this claim and found, to his great discomfort, that it wasn’t far from the truth. In the late sixties he’d thought you had to marry someone with whom you wanted to have a relationship. Hence his wedding to Andrea. And, though he now knew the idea was as outdated as his concept of the menopause, he couldn’t deny that, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, its vestigial presence remained.

  ‘Andrea told me,’ Ginnie went on, characteristically direct, ‘that you were completely faithful to her throughout your marriage.’

  ‘So?’ He didn’t want to commit himself to a confirmation of that yet. Wait and see the direction in which the conversation was moving.