The Penultimate Chance Saloon (24 page)

‘Hmm. So you reckon, if you'd never got involved with any women at all, your life would have been better?'

‘Obviously. I would have been much more successful in my career. I would have made a lot more money – and kept a lot more of what I did make. No, it's women who ruined everything for me.' At this bleak conclusion, Trevor took a deeply satisfied swig.

‘So from now on you're just going to concentrate on that – your new addiction?'

‘It's not new. I always drank.'

‘Yes, but in the old days you used occasionally to do something other than drink.'

‘Hmm. And now I don't have to.' Trevor smiled complacently. ‘Not all bad, is it?'

‘So didn't the
Daily Mail
reckon that your drinking was also a reflection of your obsessive personality?'

‘Oh yes, probably. But it does me much more good.' He looked fondly at his glass. ‘I mean, I've always got much more logic out of a pint than I ever have out of a woman.'

‘Hmm.'

‘Anyway, let's raise our glasses, Bill...'

‘To what?'

‘To you having seen the light as well.'

‘Which light are you referring to?'

‘The light that spells out in big neon letters: “WOMEN DON'T DO YOU NO GOOD.'”

‘Ah.'

‘Well, come on. That's what you said.'

‘I said that I wasn't intending to have any more emotional relationships with women.'

‘Exactly. As I say, you've seen the light. Now you can be properly enrolled as the second full-time member of “The Annexe Misogynists' Club”.'

‘What would that involve?' Bill asked cautiously.

‘Just doing more of what we do now. Meeting up here for as many drinks as we feel like, and stopping every now and then to raise our glasses to the lucky escape we've had from the perfidy of womankind.'

Bill saw exactly what Trevor had in mind, and the idea was not without appeal. Two old codgers tucked in the corner of a bar, complicit in their masculinity, safely sealed away from the emotional storms of inter-gender relationships. Such a life could get boring at times, but alcohol can be quite as effective as procrastination in the role of ‘thief of time'. The Annexe would make a very effective fortress against the real world.

And for Trevor, how attractive that scenario would be. No more lonely drinking. An ever-present friend to share his moans, to stir the depths of his depressions. And to join in his castigations of the gender that had caused so much devastation in his life.

Yes, Bill could see the attraction.

But it did have one big drawback.

At some level, very deep down, even now, Bill did like women.

* * *

When he staggered back to Pimlico, at the end of a very long session with Trevor, there was a message from Virginia Fairbrother. The series had come to an end. She was hanging up her wimple, and would shortly be back in London.

... and, by way of contrast,

scientists testing the theory

that the best place to hide is

nearest the light have concluded

that it doesn't work for moths.

The restaurant this time wasn't trendy, just an Italian in Pimlico that Bill used fairly regularly. There was no likelihood of seeing anyone famous there. He hadn't even thought it posh enough as a venue to take Leigh to. But Ginnie had said she wanted something really simple. After months of eating
en masse
with all the Sister Saga cast and crew, she craved quiet.

Even her costume was more subdued. A well-cut but anonymous black trouser suit, a silver-grey scarf. She didn't want to make an entrance, she didn't want to be ‘Virginia Fairbrother the famous actress'. She just wanted to have a quiet meal with an old friend.

Bill knew he wasn't looking his best. Though he had started back on his gym routine, he hadn't yet lost all the weight he'd accumulated during the post-funeral slump. His teeth also looked odd. The grinding process had been done, but the proper porcelain veneers had yet to be attached. As a result his teeth were wearing temporary plastic covers, of which he felt very self-conscious.

He mentioned the way he looked before Ginnie had a chance to. Get that over with.

‘Oh, don't worry,' she said huskily. ‘I look dreadful too.' From where Bill was sitting this was patently untrue. She looked absolutely gorgeous. ‘Quite honestly, I'm still wiped out by all that filming. They're cutting so many corners in television these days that the schedule's ridiculous. We were often doing twelve- and fourteen-hour days, and still, of course, no proper rehearsal time.'

‘But you had the odd break.'

‘Very few.'

‘You went to Krk.'

‘Oh yes. Managed to fit that in.'

‘With Dickie Burns.' Though he had given up all thoughts of relationships with women, Bill could still feel jealousy. ‘So how was it?'

‘Not marvellous. Rained most of the time.'

‘Still, it must have been nice for you to be with Dickie.'

Ginnie's mobile face produced a grimace which gave Bill enormous encouragement. ‘He's a bit of a bore, to be quite honest. And he's not dealing with age as well as you and I are.'

‘Oh?'

‘Bit of the old mutton-dressed-as-lamb syndrome, poor Dickie. Because he always was the matinee idol type, he thinks he's still got this fatal attraction for women. But I'm afraid whatever he used to have in the way of looks has gone ... as have other of his woman-attracting qualities ...'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Even Viagra doesn't do it for him.'

While this was, in one way, encouraging news, it also necessitated the uncomfortable question: how did Ginnie know? So Bill asked it.

‘Oh, purely anecdotal.' She was such a good actress it was impossible for him to know whether or not she was lying. ‘But I think it's true. One of the make-up girls told me. He'd come on to her.'

‘And presumably he came on to you too?'

‘God, no.'

‘I thought you were having a romantic break on Krk.'

‘Just a break in filming. No romance involved.'

‘But I thought you and Dickie had had a fling at one time.'

‘At one time, yes.'

‘And you didn't just pick up where you'd left off when you were on Krk?'

‘God, no, darling. How many times do I have to tell you?' Again Bill wanted to believe her, but couldn't been sure. He remembered how giggly she'd sounded when telling him why she couldn't attend Andrea's funeral.

‘I've got very few rules in my love life,' she went on. ‘One is no sex without the possibility of love. The other is: never go back. A relationship that ended in tears once is – however hard you work to resuscitate it – always going to end in tears.'

‘So you and Dickie didn't – ?'

‘I spent my time with Dickie on Krk inside dreary little bars, listening to the rain pelting down and him going on and on about how old he felt.'

‘Ah.'

‘You almost sounded relieved there, Bill.'

‘Well ... when I rang you to tell you about Andrea's death, you were just about to go off to Krk and ... well, for one thing I was disappointed that you wouldn't be able to come to the funeral, and, well ...' He hesitated for a moment, then went for it ‘... you made it sound as if you and Dickie were going off to, well ... to rekindle your love affair.'

‘Me and Dickie?' She let out a throaty laugh at the incongruity of the pairing. Then she stopped and, turning the full beam of her hazel eyes on Bill, said, ‘Mind you, I'm touched that you cared.'

‘Well ...' Why not say it?

‘I did.'

Their eyes locked, and the contact was only broken when the waiter came to take their order. He knew Bill as a regular, and there was much coy laughing and Signor Strattoning. Ginnie said she hadn't the strength to make even the feeblest decision, and asked Bill to order for her. He suggested what he was going to have, his usual Parma Ham and Melon followed by Spaghetti Carbonara. Ginnie said that sounded divine.

When the waiter had gone, she reached her long thin hand across the table and placed it on top of Bill's. ‘I'm sorry about the funeral. What I said about the trip to Krk was true, but nothing had been booked at that stage. Dickie had suggested our going there, and I saw it as a potential escape route. I just ... I don't know, I didn't think I could face everyone at the funeral. I thought I'd give it a miss.'

‘Very wise decision. I wish I'd done the same.'

‘So ... don't tell me if you don't want to, but how was it?'

Bill found he did want to tell her. He hadn't discussed the funeral with anyone and, without realising, had bottled up a lot of resentment on the subject. So he gave Ginnie a blow-by-blow account, from the moment he had entered the chapel, to the disapprobation of most of the congregation.

As he developed his narrative, he found the experience not only cathartic, but also profoundly funny. The absence of any trace of Andrea, the po-facedness of the mourners, the priggishness of the Roberts family – everything suddenly seemed hilarious. Bill knew he was exaggerating the awfulness, but, rewarded by the tears of laughter trickling down Ginnie's cheeks, could not help himself from embroidering the story even more. When he quoted the lyrics of the song specially composed by Dewi's children, she became incapacitated with laughter.

‘Signor Stratton, I thought you do your funny talking after dinner, not before,' said the approaching waiter.

‘Sometimes both,' Bill managed to say through his giggles.

He realised that only the arrival of the starters had caused Ginnie to remove her hand from his. Otherwise, it had been there right through his funeral routine. He smiled across at her. He felt hugely relieved at having got all that off his chest, at having vented his spleen. Yes, he was being unfair to Dewi and his children, ridiculing their very genuine grief, but what the hell, it made him feel better.

‘So how have you reacted since the funeral?' asked Ginnie, in a softer voice.

‘Pretty bad, really. I've been very low.' He was surprised to find himself making the admission – it was not the kind of thing he'd ever said to her before – but at that moment it felt right.

‘I'm not surprised. Because, whatever your feelings for Andrea have been since you split up, for a very long time you were in love with her.'

He shrugged. ‘Well, I thought I was.'

‘You were.'

‘Yup. I thought I'd been part of a happy marriage ... until Andrea told me how wrong I was.'

‘I think she made your life pretty tough.'

‘Oh, I don't know ...' Why was he being so diffident? Was he conscious of the old taboo about ‘speaking ill of the dead'?

‘I saw you together a lot, Bill, and I thought Andrea gave you a rough ride.'

‘I don't think that's fair.' What strange instinct was it that that found him defending the woman who had rejected him?

‘It may not be fair, but it's true. You have an exceptionally kind, gentle nature, and Andrea took advantage of that.'

‘I'm not sure that –'

‘Take my word for it, I'm right.'

He couldn't think what to say. After what he had been thinking about himself for the previous two weeks, to be told he had ‘an exceptionally kind, gentle nature' came as something of a shock. ‘You see, Bill, I never really liked Andrea.'

‘I know, you said that. If you didn't like her, then why on earth did you stay in touch with us for so long?'

‘It wasn't the “us” I wanted to stay in touch with, Bill. It was you.'

Again, Ginnie's words removed his capacity for speech. He could only gape at her, plastic tooth covers on display.

She reached forward once again to his hand. This time she did not place hers on top. She held his in a soft but firm grasp. ‘You mean a lot to me, Bill. You have always meant a lot to me.'

He did manage to croak out, ‘You mean a lot to me too, Ginnie.'

‘And I think we ought to get together.'

‘You and me?'

‘There's no one else at the table, Bill.'

‘No, but ... Ginnie ... I'm sorry, I'm not being very articulate.' She shook his hand gently. ‘You don't have to be.'

‘But you ... I always thought you were out of my league.'

“‘Out of your league”? What on earth does that mean?'

‘You're an internationally famous actress and I'm just a nonentity, an ex-newsreader who hasn't had much success at –'

‘Bill, stop it. Don't put yourself down. All right, I've had a modicum of fame, but surely you've read enough in the tabloids to know that fame doesn't bring happiness. It takes you away from people, it puts a barrier between you and the rest of the world. It doesn't have any effect on who you love.'

She had used the word. Bill could not believe the way the evening was turning out. ‘I've always loved you, Ginnie,' he said shyly.

And I've always loved you.'

The rest of the meal flashed by. Bill knew what he was eating, because his order was always the same, but he tasted nothing. He and Ginnie were talking too much to be aware of food.

They talked about their childhoods, their families, subjects that had never come up during their brittle three-way conversations with Andrea, or even their more recent formal restaurant meetings. No time seemed to have passed when Bill became aware that they were the only people left in the place, and the waiter, looking significantly at his watch, smiled rather less benignly on Signor Stratton than he had earlier in the evening.

Outside the restaurant Bill and Ginnie joined together in a long kiss. Not hard, just gentle, teasing, exploratory.

‘Not bad for someone with plastic veneers on,' she said, as they drew apart.