The Penultimate Chance Saloon (21 page)

He stopped outside a door in whose Perspex slot was a card reading ‘Mrs Roberts'. Once again, he felt the urge to duck out, just to run and avoid the inevitable awkwardness. It wouldn't matter. Dewi and his family couldn't think less of him than they already did.

But he put away the cowardly thought, and tapped on the door.

A full minute elapsed before Dewi opened it. Though in the early days of their separation Andreas lover had filled his thoughts, Bill had by now almost forgotten what the man looked like. He had not visualised the bushy eyebrows, the matching fringe of hair around the bald dome of his head, nor thought of Dewi's off-duty penchant for pastel pullovers in geometric designs, pale blue trousers and leather slip-ons with extraneous bits of metal on them.

‘I said half past two.' The voice was heavy with Welsh pique. ‘It's only twenty-two minutes past.'

‘Yes, I'm sorry. I arrived early.'

‘You could have waited. They do have chairs at reception.'

‘Yes, but –'

‘It doesn't matter, Dewi. Since he's here, let him come in. '

Bill Stratton could not believe the voice that emerged from the recesses of the room. Very light, working hard against some resistance, like a sea wind through thick dune grass. Only just recognisable as Andrea's.

Unwillingly, Dewi stood back to admit the unwelcome guest. Bill moved into the one-step-above-Travelodge private room.

If Andrea's voice had been a shock, the sight of her was a bigger one. Propped up on pillows, her thin arms made her look like nothing more than a stack of kindling. She was attached to a drip. Her brown eyes seemed disproportionately large in her yellow-grey face. He couldn't see the state of her hair, because she had tied a bright, defiant bandana around her head.

Bill didn't know what to do. His instinct was to go and give his ex-wife a kiss, but Dewi's glowering presence discouraged that. Also, Andrea looked so frail that a mere peck on the cheek might be too much for her.

So instead he held out his pathetic bunch of flowers.

‘I'll take those.' Dewi did so. ‘I've never been in favour of flowers in a sick room. The nurses'll look after them.'

But he didn't go off to reception. Instead, he sat down in a chair on one side of Andrea's bed. He maintained a defensive, proprietorial air. Bill hovered, uncertain whether he should take the chair on the other side of the bed, until Andrea wheezed, ‘Do sit down.'

There was a silence. Bill desperately tried to think of something to say. All that came into his mind was a BWOC line from his after-dinner speaking routine. ‘... and, by way of contrast, before a big match an entire hospital football team developed chicken pox and had to scratch.' But he knew it wasn't the right moment for that.

‘So, in for some tests...?' he managed eventually.

This was so obvious that Andrea wasn't going to waste breath on answering it. She nodded.

‘Any results yet?'

‘Not final results, no,' Dewi replied. ‘And if we did have them, they would be confidential, just for the family.'

All right, all right, thought Bill, you've made your point. I am no longer part of Andrea's life. I know that. He was surprised by Dewi's level of prickliness. Bill didn't flatter himself that he meant anything to Andrea now. Her second husband had no cause for anxiety. But Dewi still seemed very twitchy.

The silence seemed fated to continue for ever, so Bill asked, ‘And they're treating you all right in here, are they?'

It was Dewi who replied. ‘The staff are excellent. The performance figures for this hospital are the best in the area. That's why we chose it.'

‘Fine, fine.' Again the silence looked as if it was going for a Personal Best.

Andrea broke it this time. ‘Dewi,' she gasped, ‘why don't you take the flowers to reception?'

‘Well...' He was unwilling to abandon his sentry duty. He couldn't stand the idea of leaving his wife with her ex-husband.

‘Please...'

With bad grace he conceded. He rose and walked away, holding Bill's flowers as though they were some dead rodent that needed binning. At the door he stopped and looked balefully at the visitor. ‘You arrived here at twenty-two minutes past, so I'll be back at eight minutes to three.' The half-hour that had been negotiated. Bill would have bet that there was no slippage of appointment times in Dr. Roberts' surgery.

He looked at Andrea. There was a vagueness, a blurring in her prominent brown eyes. Presumably she was on heavy medication. ‘I'm sorry. I can see my being here is upsetting Dewi. Perhaps I shouldn't have come.'

‘Dewi'll get over it. Anyway, I wanted to see you.' She didn't make it sound as though this were a heart-felt need, just a necessary chore.

‘So, I mean, Andrea, you can tell me ... what is the, er ... I mean, what kind of ... have they given you any indication ...?' The words tangled in his squeamishness about matters medical.

‘What is the prognosis? Is that what you're trying to say?'

‘Er, yes, I suppose it is.'

She shrugged. ‘The consultant says fifty-fifty. Having nursed cases like this, I'd put it nearer sixty-forty against.' She spoke without emotion, ever the medical pragmatist. ‘The thing is, if I am going to need surgery, then I'm going to have to build up my strength. But I think I'm in with a chance.' She paused to regather her breath. The long speech was taking it out of her. ‘As you probably know, with cancer, mental attitude matters a lot. And I am very positive. I'm determined to get better ... now that I've got so many things in my life to live for.'

Bill didn't need to ask for details. He didn't want to hear the manifold virtues of Dewi and his children catalogued. Nor did he want the contrast between her current status and her former life with him spelt out. From her tone it was clear that if she'd developed cancer while she was still married to him she would have given up the ghost with no struggle at all.

‘And how are you?' she asked, more as a formal politeness than out of any great interest.

‘Oh ... well ...' He tried to think of things in his life that he could tell her about. His recent impotence was hardly appropriate. And his dental troubles seemed singularly unimportant, given the scale on which Andrea was suffering. Nor did he think it was quite the moment to start listing his post-divorce sexual encounters. ‘Not so bad,' he concluded feebly.

‘Good.' She still didn't sound interested.

‘I have been doing a lot more after-dinner speaking.'

‘Oh, really?' There was a note of surprise in her voice.

‘I mean, mostly based on old “by way of contrast” lines.'

‘Ah. That would explain it.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Well, I can't imagine you coming up with any original material for after-dinner speeches.'

‘Maybe not. Sal's set it all up. She's still acting as my agent.'

‘Uh-huh.' She dismissed the news, as she always had dismissed details of his professional life. Andrea still had the ability to make him feel very shallow and trivial. In fact, she could do it even more now she had the support of the infinitely worthy Dewi and his infinitely worthy children.

‘And the only other person I really see from our former life is …'

In spite of the unsatisfactory nature of their last meeting, he still felt a little bold saying the name ‘...Ginnie.'

‘Oh God.' Andrea was surprised. ‘Is she still as affected as ever?'

‘Well, she's still a bit actressy, but I wouldn't have said she was affected.'

‘Oh, she was. She always was. I never knew why you wanted to stay in touch with her.'

‘I wanted to? She was your friend, Andrea.'

‘No, she wasn't.'

‘Oh, come on. From school onwards.'

‘All right, I don't deny that I knew her before you did, and yes, she was my friend actually
at
school, but afterwards ... no, it was you who kept wanting to include her in everything we were doing.'

‘That's not how I remember it.'

‘Your memory always was conveniently selective, Bill.'

‘But –'

‘You're not having an
affair
with Ginnie, are you?'

‘Good God, no.'

‘Well, perhaps you should.' For a moment Andrea sounded almost sympathetic.

‘I don't think –'

The moment of sympathy passed, as she went on, ‘You're both as shallow as each other.'

‘Oh.'

Her breathing was getting difficult again. Anyway, I'm glad you're all right, Bill. We're both so much better off apart.'

‘Maybe.'

‘We should never have got married. Amazing, thinking back, how much pressure there was to do that, even in the sixties. Doing what one
should
, doing the proper thing. What a lot of time we wasted.'

‘I don't think it was all wasted, Andrea.'

‘Well, I do. Still, at least – thank God, better late than never – I've found out what a happy marriage can be like.'

With that stuck-up prig, Dewi? Not the moment to express the opinion, though.

‘That's why I'm going to get better,' Andrea wheezed. I've got every reason to live.'

‘Yes, yes, of course you have,' he agreed automatically.

Bill tried to think of other things to say. Nothing offered itself. Normally, when conversation lay becalmed, he would ease the atmosphere with a few ‘by way of contrast' lines. But Andrea had never been amused by them while they were together, and he didn't think the influence of Dewi would have changed her attitude.

‘Presumably, this cancer ...' he said at last, ‘was caused by passive smoking?'

‘What?'

All your nursing friends. You know, if you think of the amount they used to smoke round that big kitchen table in Putney, they –'

‘My cancer,' Andrea breathed imperiously, ‘has been sent to test me. I don't know where it came from, but it's a challenge. And it's a challenge I'm going to win.'

‘Ah. Good.'

Anyway, I'm glad you're all right, Bill –'

‘Well, all right
ish'.

‘It'd be nice to think that we've both managed to move on after that disastrous marriage.'

‘Now, just a minute. I think you are exaggerating a bit there. Okay, our marriage wasn't perfect –'

‘You can say that again.'

‘– but I think “disastrous” is a bit strong.'

‘That's the word I'd use.'

‘Why, Andrea? What was wrong with it?'

‘You
were wrong with it, Bill. It was all right while we were engaged, but the minute we got married...' She gasped for breath.

‘What happened the minute we got married?'

‘You instantly became jealous, possessive and controlling. You were always watching what I was doing, and you were deeply resentful of any attempts I made to set up anything that didn't involve you.'

She panted, running out of air, but still determined to finish her catalogue of grievances. ‘You used to constantly criticise my appearance and my home-making skills. And your sole aim in life was to totally undermine my confidence.'

Bill Stratton didn't recognise any part of himself in that description. But then, presumably, nor did any of the world's other ex-husbands.

He left the hospital before the end of the half-hour Dewi had allotted for him.

... and, by way of contrast,

an advertisement for a second-hand hearse

in a South African newspaper said it had

fifteen thousand miles on the clock and

a carefully maintained body.

Andrea died ten days later. She never went home from the hospital. Nothing wrong with her will to resist the challenge. That was strong, but the cancer was stronger.

Bill Stratton received the information in a phone-call from one of Dewi's sons. His father, he explained, was too upset to talk to everyone. Dewi had done the immediate family, but the children were working through the other names in Andrea's address book'. They certainly knew how to rub it in, thought Bill. The son's accent, though not Welsh, carried the same overtone of offended righteousness as the father's.

Bill came up with some appropriate form of condolence to be passed on to Dewi, and asked about funeral arrangements. The son said they weren't finally settled yet. Bill said he'd be grateful to be informed when they were. The son reluctantly agreed to pass on the information. He made it clear, however, that the family would find the event quite difficult enough without having Andrea's ex-husband around as an additional irritant. But they would let him know.

The phone call left Bill numb. He was not unfeeling about his ex-wife's death, but he knew that the details of what he felt would take a long time to shake down. For the time being, numbness would have to do. He was also aware of the incongruity of his situation. If Andrea's cancer had been diagnosed two years earlier, the crisis would have been on his watch. Bill Stratton's wife would have been faced with a potentially terminal disease, and Bill Stratton himself would have done all the things a dutiful husband should. (In spite of what Andrea had said about him, Bill did still think of himself as having been a dutiful husband.) It would have been he who reacted with horror to the diagnosis, who waited agonisingly for the results of tests, supported her through the debilitating effects of chemotherapy, and sat by her side through the long, losing struggle for her life. And their friends would have been as supportive as they could, would have empathised with their sufferings, would have felt respect and compassion for Bill Stratton's stoicism in the hour of ultimate challenge.

Whereas now ... all that sympathy would be lavished on Dewi Roberts. He would be the sufferer and the saint. Which was, Bill had to concede, entirely fair. Dewi was the one who'd been there to support his wife through the ghastly leaving of this world. And it was a job that, with his medical skills and trained bedside manner, he probably did a lot better than Bill would have done.