The Penultimate Chance Saloon

by Simon Brett

  ‘I don’t come on to women.’

  ‘No? What’ve you been doing tonight?’

  ‘We’ve been talking.’

  ‘Mmm.’ She nodded thoughtfully ‘Well, look, let’s have the sex- or-no-sex discussion right here, rather than going up to your room.’

  ‘Fine by me. Well, I do find you very attractive –’

  She smiled, and looked at him. ‘You’re not without your attractions either.’

  ‘We’re both grown-up people –’

  ‘And how. Neither of us will see sixty again.’

  ‘So...?’

  ‘So ...’ There was a very long silence. Bill was aware of the clatter of glasses being tidied up. ‘So ... no. We don’t go and make love tonight.’

  ‘Oh.’ He wanted to ask why, but didn’t.

  ‘But ... if you want to meet again ...’ She handed him a card. ‘There’s my number.’

  Then Leigh leant across, kissed his cheek and, before Bill had time to reciprocate, was on her way across the bar to the exit, in a glimmering of dark green.

  * * *

  This was different. Bill recognised the change. If he rang Leigh, he would be entering the arena of ‘dating’. The other women he’d picked up on his after-dinner speaking jaunts had not been ‘dates’ – they’d been the products of opportunism. But, by refusing the invitation up to his room, Leigh had immediately put herself into a different scenario. And Bill was not sure that it was a scenario of which he wished to be part.

  Asking someone out for a ‘date’ involved forward planning. The datee had to be contacted and, if she was agreeable, a mutually acceptable day and rendezvous then had to be arrived at. All of this seemed to Bill a rather stressful amount of organisation. To his surprise, the prospect also made him feel rather nervous. So many years had elapsed since he had last ‘asked someone out’ that he had forgotten the volatile panics that attended such bold gestures. In a hotel bar, emboldened by alcohol and isolation, he could be glibly confident, but the formal business of picking up a phone and asking Leigh to ‘go out with him’ took him straight back to the jitteriness of adolescence.

  Also, going on a date’ did seem terribly public. In the varied groups of businessmen, sportsmen and charity supporters amongst whom he usually strutted his after-dinner speaking stuff, there was never anyone he knew. And, although the organisers might snigger to Sal about the women he went off with, she didn’t know any of the individuals involved. But if he invited Leigh out, it would have to be to a decent restaurant, where he might well be seen by someone he knew. And the news would soon get around. Bill Stratton would be seen to be dating again for the first time since his divorce. This fact, for some reason, made him feel under a lot of pressure. He wasn’t really worried about the press – by now he was too far down the alphabet of lists to be of much interest to them. Unless, of course, Leigh were famous in her own right...

  He realised, with a little shock, that he had no idea whether she was or not. In fact, he knew nothing about her, just about her attitude to men. But he did want to know more. The deeper worry he had about ‘going out with someone’ was the fear of being defined by the person he was with. He remembered the feeling from the very early stage of his relationship with Andrea. Most of the time they had got on fine, but he recalled occasions when she had annoyed him – particularly by something she said in company – and he had wanted to disown her. He had wanted to say, No, she’s not with me. I have an identity that is separate from hers. I’m not like she is. The feeling was one which, as they settled into the routine of marriage, soon dissipated, and he had completely forgotten about it until the prospect came of his being seen in public with a woman again. (Strangely, no such worries assailed him when he was with Ginnie or Sal or Carolyn. But then he’d known them and often been seen out with them while he was still married. The divorce hadn’t changed anything so far as those three relationships were concerned ... or at least the public perception was that nothing had changed so far as those three relationships were concerned.)

  He did find he was thinking a lot about Leigh, though. He wouldn’t have dignified his feelings with the description of ‘love’, but he was certainly interested. He wondered for a moment whether that was simply because she had said no to him. Though not a great expert on the psychological advice doled out in women’s magazines, he did know about the recommended principle of ‘playing hard to get’. Saying no to a man was supposed to be the sure-fire way to stimulate his interest.

  But other women had said no to Bill. He had gone down his after-dinner conversation route a good few times without a result. When the suggestion of adjourning up to his hotel room had arisen, there had been some who’d turned down the rich gift on offer. And, except for a mild immediate tug of frustration, he had felt and thought little more about them. But he did keep thinking about Leigh. He was going to have to ring her.

  * * *

  ‘Erm, hello, it’s Bill Stratton ...’

  ‘Yes?’

  He’d expected more; some hesitation in recognising him, possibly even some enthusiasm at recognising him.

  ‘Is that Leigh?’

  ‘Of course it is. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known who you are, would I? Unless, of course, you’d rung the number of one of your other girlfriends by mistake.’

  One of your other girlfriends? Surely she didn’t know Sal, or hadn’t logged on to ‘billstrattonssexualencounters.com’, had she? But he was being paranoid.

  ‘No, no. Well, I’m glad it’s you. And I’m Bill Stratton.’

  ‘I think we’ve established that.’

  ‘We met at that charity do at –’

  ‘Bill, I may be over sixty, but I’m glad to say the Alzheimer’s hasn’t kicked in yet. I do remember the occasion.’

  ‘Yes, well, we did, erm ... talk about possibly meeting up again ...’

  ‘I remember that too.’

  ‘Good.’ Having successfully negotiated the conversation so far, Bill felt he needed a little breather, so took one.

  When she thought she had waited quite long enough, Leigh asked, with some exasperation. ‘So, do you think it’s a good idea? Or have you taken the trouble to ring me to tell me you think it’s a bad idea?’

  ‘No, no. I think it’s a very good idea. I just wondered if you did too ... think it’s a good idea, that is ...?’

  ‘Yes, fine,’ she said airily.

  ‘So you would like to come out with me?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Good.’ That significant point having been achieved, he felt in need of another breather.

  ‘On the other hand,’ she said after a while, ‘it would be easier for me to sort out the logistics if you actually had a date in mind.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ He suggested the following Friday. She couldn’t do it. The Saturday. She could. He mentioned a restaurant which was swish enough to show he was making an effort, but not one of his regular haunts. There was only a minimal chance of his being spotted there.

  ‘So ...’ he wound up slowly, ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you then.’

  ‘So will I. Bye.’

  And the line went dead.

  Bill didn’t know exactly what he felt after that. Was he being hypersensitive, or had Leigh sounded a bit low-key? Businesslike perhaps, rather than warm? What did she actually think of him? Did she think anything of him at all? What was going on inside her head?

  For the first time in a long period of negative thoughts on the subject, he became aware that his early marriage to Andrea had had benefits too. At least it had saved him from the endless second guessing involved in the dating game.

  Chapter Fifteen

  And, by way of contrast,

  in a Galashiels hospital there is a notice

  on the door of one of the male wards which reads:

  ‘Afternoon Visiting – Wives Only – One per Patient.’

  The restaurant had been a good choice. Excellent food, low lighting, discreet service, and not a fac
e Bill had ever seen before in his life. Leigh was looking good, in a linen suit the colour of wholemeal bread.

  She once again dictated the direction of the conversation. Bill hadn’t realised before quite how strong her personality was. But that strength didn’t deter him. Leigh was just direct and, by implication, honest. And she wouldn’t let him take the easy option of wheeling out his ‘by way of contrast’ lines. Again, she wanted to find out about him.

  And again, Bill was surprised by how much he let his defences drop in what he told her. By the end of the evening she knew all about his marriage to Andrea and its demise. She knew about Dewi and his ready-made family. She even knew quite a lot about Bill’s relationship with his parents and his reactions to their deaths.

  But he, frustratingly, still knew very little about her. There was an ex-husband in the background and, he managed to infer from things she said, two children somewhere. But details like their names, their professions, or how Leigh felt about them were not offered. Nor, though there was an implication that it might be something in the world of psychiatry, did he get a precise definition of the kind of work she had done ... or indeed whether she still did it. Somehow, each time, at the point when Bill should have asked a supplementary question, the conversation had moved on.

  The reason the conversation moved on was that Leigh always got in her supplementary question first and Bill, who hadn’t had much experience of it recently, found he rather enjoyed talking about himself. He was conscious on some level that Leigh was doing what he had done in all of his recent sexual encounters – maintaining personal privacy by expressing a lot of interest in the other person – but he was quite enjoying her interrogation. A pleasant change to meet someone new who was actually interested in him.

  And there was something to be said for actual dating, rather than shuffling anonymous women off to anonymous hotel rooms. He was surprised how nervous he had been all day about the prospect of meeting Leigh that first evening. His anxiety had made him pee a lot, and peeing a lot had made him anxious about whether he’d got a prostate problem. But once he was actually with her, the worries melted away.

  Until ordering coffee heralded the end of the evening. Then he started to get nervous again. He couldn’t forget Leigh’s strictures about the men she went out with. ‘But if there’s no empathy there ... or if the sex isn’t any good ... then I only do it the once.’ To him there seemed to have been empathy during their evening together, but he didn’t know whether it had come up to her standards. And if he had passed the empathy test, whether he’d come up to her standards sexually? Once again he was made aware of the perils of dating, of not knowing what the other person was thinking, of not knowing how to bring up the subject of what the other person was thinking.

  Leigh’s typical directness dealt with his second anxiety. ‘We seem to get on all right, don’t we ... at least so far as talking’s concerned ...’

  Bill agreed that indeed they did.

  ‘So, shall we see whether the sex works too?’

  As she said this, she put her hand on his, and tickled along the top of it with her middle finger.

  ‘Well, that would be ... very nice.’ He knew it sounded feeble as he said it.

  ‘Right. Two rules. We go back to my place. And when I ask you to, you leave. Happy with that?’

  Bill agreed that he was indeed happy with that.

  * * *

  Leigh had a small house in Clerkenwell. A whole house, but there was no evidence of anyone else living there. No photos on the mantelpiece to open windows onto the rest of her life, though a collection of books on psychology reinforced the impression Bill had received of the kind of work she did. The décor of the house was affluent without being flamboyant.

  As she gave him a drink in the sitting room, Leigh said, Another ground rule: no love.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Were going to go to bed together, because we like each other and we think the sex might be enjoyable. But neither of us need pretend that there’s anything more than friendship involved. No clingy emotions, all right?’

  ‘Fine.’ They were the words men had been wanting to hear from women since Eve refused to say them to Adam.

  ‘Okay.’ She gulped down the remains of her wine. ‘Let’s see how we go.’

  * * *

  They went pretty well. Leigh knew what she was doing, and she knew what she wanted. Bill, after his long schooling by Andrea, knew what he was doing and could supply what she wanted.

  ‘Good,’ Leigh sighed, after an hour of other contented sighings.

  ‘Do I pass the test?’ asked Bill. ‘Or wasn’t the sex any good?’ He wouldn’t have asked if her body hadn’t already given him the answer.

  ‘No, very nice. Thank you.’

  ‘Thank you. So, Leigh, we could do it again?’

  She sat up in bed and shrugged. ‘Could happen. No reason why it shouldn’t from a purely qualitative perspective.’

  ‘Then from what perspective might it not happen?’

  ‘Bill, there are so many reasons why things don’t happen. Let’s just not go into them.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She rolled over and consulted her watch. He looked with pleasure at the firmness of her back. Yes, the skin was a little more crepey than it once had been. But still beautiful.

  ‘I need to sleep, Bill. You’d better go.’

  A bit abrupt, but not too hurtful. He might have worried if she hadn’t so patently enjoyed the last hour.

  He kissed her gently on the nose, got up and started to dress. Leigh luxuriated in the space of her bed. ‘One of the great benefits of no longer being married is no longer feeling I should share a bed with someone. I sleep so much better. Have you found that?’

  ‘Well...’ He hadn’t thought about the question before. ‘Yes, I think I probably have.’

  ‘Beds are wonderful for making love in, but sleeping together... who needs it?’

  ‘A lot of your attitudes are very masculine, Leigh.’

  ‘Yes, they are. A few years ago, I did a kind of overview of relationships, a cold hard look, and I asked myself which gender did better out of them. There was no question, men had it easier. So I thought I’d take a few leaves out of their book.’

  ‘And has it worked?’

  ‘Certainly has. I’ve learnt the skill of compartmentalising my life.’

  ‘And sex has a compartment all its own, does it?’

  She gave him a foxy grin which was at odds with the innocence of her clear blue eyes. ‘At least one.’

  He was dressed. ‘So shall I ring you?’

  ‘Do that.’

  * * *

  As a late cab drove him back to Pimlico, Bill played the evening back in his mind. Pretty good, he thought. He’d rather have got in the ‘Well, I’d better be on my way’ before Leigh had done the ‘You’d better go’, but that was a small negative in what had been a generally very positive experience.

  He decided he wouldn’t do the customary Interflora order the next morning. He’d ring her instead. This one he wanted to continue.

  * * *

  And it did continue. The pattern had been set. They never planned their next meeting as they parted from the last one. Bill would ring Leigh the following morning and they would fix a date for their next encounter. Her diary was full and unpredictable, his was cluttered with after-dinner speaking bookings, but they managed to meet every ten days or so.

  The pattern set by the first evening was also maintained. A good dinner somewhere off Bill’s beaten track, which he paid for, then a return to Clerkenwell for an hour of good sex. And, though he did finally establish that she worked as a psychotherapist, Leigh still found out more about him than he did about her. But that didn’t worry him. He respected – and sympathised with – her need to compartmentalise her life.

  Time passed. Bill realised with a shock that he had been ‘dating’ Leigh for three months. He found he was increasingly looking forward to their meetings. H
aving someone in his life was a good feeling. Soon he might consider introducing her to some of his friends. Trevor for sure. The former director’s depressed ramblings in The Annexe had got so boring that Bill needed something to liven their sessions up. Leigh might be just the thing.

  Then Ginnie ... well, Ginnie was still away in Croatia playing nuns with dirty habits. And when he thought about it, for some reason he didn’t really want to introduce Leigh to the actress. His relationship with Ginnie was obviously platonic, but it was an exclusive one, nonetheless. They worked best on a one-to-one basis.

  Carolyn ... well, Leigh had expressed so little interest in – indeed, had been so positively bored by the whole BWOC concept that maybe that was another introduction that could wait.

  But Sal ... yes, he’d like to introduce his agent to his new ... what was the word? Girlfriend? Yuk. Mistress, maybe ... except could a man without a wife actually have a mistress? Well, introduce his agent to Leigh, anyway. The sexual frisson he’d felt when he told Sal he loved her had been rather forgotten in the flurry of real sex with Leigh. And it would be quite fun to surprise Sal with the news that there was another ongoing woman in his life.

  * * *

  But he didn’t get the chance to surprise her. His agent – perhaps predictably – already knew about Leigh.

  ‘But how on earth ...?’

  ‘Another of my clients recognised you in a restaurant, with the same woman – twice.’

  ‘Ah. And he didn’t snigger as he told you?’

  ‘No. No sniggering. He said she was a very pretty lady.’

  ‘She certainly is, Sal.’

  ‘And you’re seeing her regularly?’

  ‘On and off.’

  ‘But more on than off?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘So are you going to introduce me? Do I get to meet her?’

  ‘It’s funny. I was just thinking ... it’d be nice if you did.’

  ‘Bill, you’re maturing.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You’ve stopped picking up women you’re ashamed of. Now you’ve got one you want to show off.’