The Penultimate Chance Saloon (20 page)

‘I wasn't using that argument. I just ... well, I thought we had something going between us.'

‘We did. As I said, very enjoyable sex.'

He wanted to ask, Was that all? but couldn't bring himself to. There were limits to how feeble and feminine he could sound.

‘And, incidentally, Bill, there is a bit of pot and kettle going on here. I would point out that when you saw me at Cruising with my date, you weren't alone yourself.'

‘No, but ... she's been a friend for ever. And also –'

‘What?'

‘I mean, that woman I was with ...'

‘Virginia Fairbrother,' she said dismissively. ‘Yes, I did recognise her.'

‘Well, I didn't go to bed with her.'

‘I don't care whether you went to bed with her or not. It's not my business.'

‘I never have been to bed with her.'

‘Bill, I don't want to hear your life history.'

‘Well, you've heard plenty of my life history. You kept asking me about myself.'

‘Yes, but that was just for professional reasons.'

‘Oh?'

‘As a psychotherapist, I have to find out what makes people tick. It's an occupational hazard. But I've never wanted to get into a situation where I have to start treating you. Evenings I'm off duty. All I've ever wanted from you was good uncomplicated sex.'

He let out a dry chuckle. ‘That's what
men
are supposed to say.'

‘I thought you weren't going to use the gender argument.'

‘No, I'm not ... I just ... I thought I meant something to you, Leigh.'

‘You did. You had two things going for you. You were an amusing companion and a good lover. Now we seem to be reduced to one thing, and quite honestly, I can always find myself amusing companionship.'

‘And other good lovers?'

Leigh smiled complacently. ‘Oh yes.'

He felt the need to move the conversation on. ‘Tonight, I mean ... what happened ... or didn't happen ... I'm sure it's just a blip. I mean, I don't think I'm, like, impotent for life. It will come back ... you know, with a bit of care and concentration and relaxation.'

‘Bill, I'm not about to take on the role of a sex therapist. Just accept the facts. We had a nice time, we enjoyed each other's company, we enjoyed each other's bodies ... and now that little interlude has come to an end.'

‘So don't you want to meet again?'

‘There doesn't seem to be a lot of point. We were going to finish soon, anyway.'

‘Were we?'

‘Yes. I'd been getting the feeling recently that we'd run our course. Hadn't you?'

‘No.'

She shrugged. To her it seemed the whole affair was already in the past.

‘So we just part, do we, Leigh? I go through that door, and we don't see each other again?'

‘Sounds about right, yes.'

‘We don't even talk on the phone?'

‘What would be the point of that? What do we have to say to each other?'

‘But ... do we leave as friends?'

‘Does it really matter?'

‘Well, I don't want there to be any ... sort of –'

‘Oh, please, Bill, for God's sake, don't do the “hard feelings” line.'

‘No, I just mean ... Leigh, I wouldn't like to think –

‘I know exactly what you wouldn't like to think. Like every other bloody man. You wouldn't like to think that I have any negative feelings towards you. You'd like to think I still
like
you. You'd like to think I regard our time together as a magical little oasis in the desert of my life, on which I will look back fondly as I get older. Whatever happens, you don't want me to think badly of you.'

‘Well...' She was embarrassingly close to the truth. ‘What will you think of me, Leigh?'

‘Bill, I think it's very unlikely that I will think about you at all.

... and, by way of contrast,

a dentist in Tasmania has written his

autobiography under the title A Bridge Too Far'.

The message on the answering machine was prickly and curt. Dewi had discussed Bill's request with Andrea and the children, and been persuaded – against his better judgment, the tone implied – that a visit would be permissible. It was scheduled for two-thirty to three PM the following Saturday. Dewi gave details of the hospital and ward where Andrea could be found.

Not the most welcoming of acquiescences. For a moment, Bill Stratton was tempted to let the opportunity pass. Andrea was now so far out of his life, why should he bother visiting her? He clearly wasn't wanted and, besides, he'd always had a squeamishness about hospitals. Whereas Andrea had seemed positively energised by their atmosphere, he had always tried to avoid visiting them. Even with a couple of closeish friends who'd died, Bill had taken the coward's way out towards the end, sending a card rather than appearing in person.

Had he been feeling his usual self, he probably would have given seeing Andrea a miss. But his encounter with Leigh the night before had left him raw, with an instinct for self-flagellation. He wouldn't enjoy going to the hospital to see Andrea. For that very reason, he must make the visit.

He left a message on Dewi's answering machine to that effect.

* * *

Bill Stratton's dentist had an hour a day set aside for emergencies. The broken tooth was reckoned to qualify and, after one look, the dentist announced that the offending molar should be removed.

‘There's hardly any of it left, anyway. Mostly just old filling I'll be pulling out.' The dentist was Australian, reputed to be very charming to his female patients. He didn't bother with any of that for the men. ‘Do you want an injection?'

‘Yes, please.' Bill had never been that keen on pain.

The dentist sighed at his cowardice. ‘Very well. But it'll come out with one tug. There's not much holding it in place.'

Bill was adamant. ‘I'd still rather have the injection.'

‘Fine.' The dentist made rather heavy weather of inserting the needle into the gum, and didn't disguise his impatience during the wait for the anaesthetic to take effect.

‘That won't be the last one,' he said ominously.

‘What?'

‘The last tooth to come out. They're all in bad nick.'

‘Oh, thank you.' Not only impotent, now my body's falling apart. ‘What would you recommend?'

The dentist shrugged. ‘Have them all out. Get dentures.'

The image wasn't appealing. Bill knew he should have looked after his teeth better over the years, but his squeamishness about medical establishments extended to dental surgeries as well as hospitals, so he had developed a bad habit of missing his regular check-ups.

The idea of dentures, though ... of putting his smile in a glass overnight. Or didn't people do that anymore? There were enough advertisements for denture fixatives around ... day-time television commercials featuring desperately enthusiastic, fit-looking pensioners of the kind who were about to realise the equity in their houses and would soon be equally keen on buying stairlifts and walk-in baths.

(As soon as he had the thought, Bill's mind returned to a question which always bugged him when he saw those commercials for walk-in baths. He wasn't stupid enough to think you fill the bath before you open the door but what he always wanted to know was: what happened when you emptied it? Presumably you just sat there, getting colder and colder, till the water got below the, sort of, doorstep level and you could walk out. Which might well explain why old people were so wrinkled.)

He brought himself back to thinking about denture fixative. Maybe they did now manufacture some that lasted twenty-four/seven? Maybe, like toupees, there were now false teeth that would not inhibit the wearer's normal life in anyway ... false teeth that could be worn in the shower ... in heavy winds ... even while making love? Bill still didn't like the idea of dentures, though; didn't like the image of himself as a resolutely smiling extra in a denture fixative commercial.

‘I gather,' he said to the dentist, ‘that there are alternatives to dentures these days.'

‘Always have been.' He tapped one of Bill's teeth, none too gently, with a metal probe. ‘Can you still feel that?'

‘Yes,' he lied. He wanted to find out more about the potential cosmetic solutions to his dental problem. ‘But can't you get false teeth kind of ... screwed into your gums?'

‘That's not exactly the process, no.'

‘Or veneers? A friend of mine has had veneers.'

‘For veneers to work, the basic teeth have to be in good condition.' The dentist took a disparaging look into Bill's mouth. ‘You might get away with veneers on the front ones. At the back, though, it looks like Dresden after the Allied bombing. That's going to need more structural work.'

‘Do you do that?'

‘No, but I know a very good cosmetic dentist if you'd like to be referred.' The answer was too practised; clearly there was some lucrative mutual back-scratching going on.

Bill said he would like to have the contact number.

‘Right. Let's just get rid of this little stub first.' Bill's tooth received another healthy clout with the probe. ‘Can't feel that, can you?'

Before there was time for a reply, a pair of what looked like pliers were inserted into Bill's mouth, there was a quick twist, and a lump of grey metal and yellowed tooth emerged.

‘See – hardly any root there at all. You didn't need the injection.'

Which made Bill Stratton feel even more as though his body was quietly crumbling away.

* * *

The orthodontist was Australian too, confirming Bill's suspicion of some kind of connivance between them. Female, beautiful body in white work suit, whiteness continuing in pale make-up under sculpted black hair. But not fanciable; there was something too antiseptic about her. She had all the sex appeal of a cotton bud.

She inspected his mouth, calling out information to a junior cotton bud, who keyed it into a laptop. When she finished, her expression didn't change, but Bill got the strong feeling he hadn't passed the examination.

‘Well, there are a lot of possibilities nowadays,' she announced. ‘Presumably you want the bite straightened, apart from anything else?'

‘What, and get rid of my “crooked smile”?'

‘Sorry?'

‘I've just always had this crooked smile. People expect it, when they see me. You know, when I do public appearances.'

‘Ah.' She showed no interest in his celebrity. ‘Well, I can reduplicate existing deficiencies, if required.'

‘Well, I would like that existing deficiency reduplicated.'

‘Fine.' She nodded to the junior cotton bud, who made a note on the laptop, and then passed across a bound album. ‘I'd like to show you the kind of cosmetic work I can offer you.'

The ‘before' photographs made him feel a bit better. Surely his dentition wasn't as bad as those. On the other hand, presumably she'd selected the worst cases, to show the wonderful transformations that her wizardry could achieve.

‘A friend of mine,' Bill ventured, ‘has just had veneers done, and she's very pleased with the result.'

‘Yes, well, of course I do veneers.'

‘So you're, kind of, a veneerologist?'

She wasn't amused. The junior cotton bud didn't crack a smile either. Bill got the impression they had both heard the line before. ‘I'm an orthodontist,' she said sharply. ‘Or cosmetic dentist, if you prefer.'

‘Right.'

She then confirmed his dentist's view that veneers might work on Bill's front teeth, but more radical work would be needed at the back. She didn't use the Dresden analogy; she said the area looked like ‘a scrap metal yard.'

‘Would it be possible just to do the veneers, and leave the back as it is? I mean, nobody's going to see back there, are they?'

She winced at this affront to her professionalism. ‘It would be possible, Mr Stratton, but it would be very unwise. Storing up even worse problems for you in the future.'

‘Mmm, but I mean, out of interest ... how much would just doing the veneers cost?'

She patently disapproved of answering the question, but did not refuse to do so. She went through a ritual with the junior cotton bud about finding the up-to-date price-list. ‘We would of course be talking about porcelain veneers. There are others on the market made of cheaper materials, but I personally don't deal with them.'

‘Right, porcelain it is. So how much would it cost?'

She told him. Bill let out a low whistle. ‘Pricey.' He grinned. ‘Still, if that sorts out my whole smile, I suppose it's not bad.'

‘Mr Stratton, that is the price per tooth.'

* * *

His media career had inculcated the habit of punctuality in Bill Stratton. The timing of news bulletins was not elastic, and he would always arrive in good time for his shifts. So he was at the hospital, with a rather tatty bunch of flowers bought from a nearby kiosk, soon after two on the Saturday afternoon.

He was interested to find that Andrea was being treated on a private ward. She and Dewi might be avid supporters of the NHS in conversation, but when it came to something really serious they paid for what they hoped would be the best.

He checked in with the nurse at the flower-bedecked ward reception and was told which room Mrs Roberts was in. Tea or coffee was offered – something else you get for paying extra – but he refused.

Bill breathed in deeply as he walked along the plushly-carpeted corridor, trying to quell his customary discomfort on hospital premises. The scent of the flowers could not quite mask the endemic smell of disinfectant. The decor was muted blues and purples; small chain hotel, one step above a Travelodge. Framed pictures on the walls were of swans on lakes and misty sunsets through trees.