The Penultimate Chance Saloon (6 page)

‘What takes too bloody long?'

‘Life.'

‘Ah.'

They were sitting in a pub in Bayswater, not far from Trevor's flat. In fact, very near Trevor's flat. The nearest pub, which Trevor regarded virtually as an annexe to the flat. In fact, he called it ‘The Annexe'. ‘Fancy meeting up for a drink in The Annexe?' was his customary summons, the one that got Bill there that evening.

They'd known each other for decades. Trevor had been an aspiring television news editor when Bill Stratton had started reading the bulletins. And they'd stayed friends, riding the rollercoaster of Trevor's professional and emotional life. Once, in a moment of sodden soppiness, he'd said, ‘Wives may come and go, but a good friend like you, Bill mate, that's for ever.'

Trevor's most recent wife had been his fourth, but she'd left him, for much the same reasons as the first three. The BBC had indicated too that their relationship had had to end, but had at least left him with a pension which was sufficient for the maintenance of his small flat. And almost sufficient for the maintenance of its annexe.

Bill recognised the stage Trevor was at that evening. Stage Two. The effects of the lunchtime drinking had dissipated, leaving him low and self-hating. The first evening drink had diluted the gloom, creating a trance-like state in which he was prone to making remarks which sounded like profound gems of philosophy. Despite the portentousness of their delivery, all of these observations were complete cobblers. Later in the evening Trevor would become raucous and, at least in his own estimation, extraordinarily witty. Then, as his drinking companions drifted away, he would grow morose, and mourn his single state as, to his eyes, the nothing-to-write-home-about barmaid grew more and more beautiful.

Bill reconciled himself to hearing more pearls of philosophical wisdom, and sure enough they came.

‘Thing is,' Trevor went on, ‘life's a con-trick, really, but by the time you realise that, you're too caught up in the whole business to do much about it. And you're too old, too. By the time you realise what you should be doing, you've already done most of it.'

‘Someone once said that experience is a comb that life gives you when you've lost your hair.'

‘Well, he bloody hit the nail on the head, Bill, that bloke ... whoever he was.' Trevor cast a mournful eye at his friend. ‘Mind you, you're doing all right in that respect. You've still got some hair.'

‘White, though.'

‘If I'd got as much hair as you have, you wouldn't find me being picky about the colour. Anyway, if it bothers you, you could dye it.

‘It doesn't bother me that much. Anyway, I don't want to go around with copper-beech-coloured hair.'

‘Hmm?'

‘That's what always happens. Think of the men you know who've got dyed hair. Why is that while women's hair colouring can range through every subtone of the natural palette – not to mention the unnatural one – men's dyed hair always ends up the colour of copper beech?'

‘I don't know.' Trevor shook his head, apparently unwilling to pursue this interesting philosophical question. He took a long swallow from his pint, and looked dolefully around the bar. ‘Alcohol speeds things up,' he said.

‘Sorry? You've lost me.'

‘What I was talking about earlier. We all need things that speed time up. Alcohol serves that purpose. Life's being a real drag, you can't believe how slowly the minute hand's moving ... then you have a few drinks, and – bang – that's a whole evening disappeared. Five hours have gone without you noticing them.'

‘Are you saying that's a good thing, Trevor?'

‘Too bloody right I am. Think of the alternative.'

‘Which is ...?'

‘Every minute has taken a full bloody minute to go by. Sixty bloody seconds every time. Not even a fifty-nine second minute. You have to go the distance on every bloody one of them.'

‘Why is that so terrible?'

‘Because it's real. Full frontal reality. Not good for you. Humankind, it has been observed by one wiser than me, cannot bear very much reality. I know I can't.'

‘But why not?'

‘Because the real world is so bloody depressing.' Trevor raised his pint mug and peered through it. ‘That's why I can only survive by looking through beer-tinted glasses.'

Early in every conversation with Trevor there came a reminder that he was a depressive. Bill, who'd never experienced the condition, could sympathise, but not empathise. And secretly he reckoned his friend got a lot of mileage out of his depression. The drinking was justified on the grounds that he was a depressive; so was his appalling lack of responsibility in the matter of women. No bad behaviour was the fault of Trevor Rainsford; it was always the fault of whatever malign deity had made Trevor Rainsford a depressive.

As ever, the mention of his depression seemed to lift it a bit. He raised his glass again, this time to Bill. ‘Congratulations.'

‘On what?'

‘On being unmarried.'

‘I don't think I'm
un
married.'

‘Then what are you?'

‘Well ...'

‘Are you married?'

‘No.'

‘Then you're unmarried. By definition.'

This didn't seem right, but Bill couldn't fault the logic.

‘And a good thing too,' Trevor went on.

‘What is?'

‘That you got away from Andrea.'

‘But why?'

‘Because you were so unsuited to each other. Everyone could see that.'

Everyone except me, thought Bill. He was getting a little miffed about the way everyone was getting at his marriage. Ginnie ... Carolyn ... now Trevor ... not to mention Andrea herself. Was he the only person in the wide world who thought they'd had a vaguely workable marriage? Apparently so.

‘Do you hear from her much?'

‘No.'

‘Lucky bastard. One or other of my ex-wives is on the phone every day, moaning about something. Usually money.'

‘Andrea and I managed to sort out that side of things fairly amicably.'

‘All right for some.'

‘Do you still see any of them?'

‘Not if I can help it.'

‘See any of the children?'

‘Not if they can help it.' Trevor let out a deep sigh. His lack of relationship with his children caused him a lot of depression ... though not enough depression to make him go and try to build bridges with them. On the whole, he preferred the depression to the children.

‘You were lucky not to have kids.'

‘Yes.' Bill didn't want the conversation to proceed any further down that route. The discovery of Andrea's deliberate avoidance of conception was the area of his former marriage which continued to hurt most. ‘You still betting on the horses?' he asked uncontroversially, knowing that the question would usually unleash a catalogue of equine disasters.

But to his surprise, Trevor answered, ‘No. Given it up. What's the point? Either a horse is going to win or it isn't.'

‘Come on, that's not the gambler's spirit.'

‘True, though.'

‘Yes, everyone knows it's true, but I thought gamblers were impervious to the truth. Everyone knows betting's a mug's game, everyone knows that statistically you're almost definitely going to lose, but gamblers ignore that ... keep their optimism in the face of the overwhelming justification for pessimism.'

‘That's how gambling used to work with me, Bill, but, as with all illusions, once you've seen through it, you can never really believe again. It's like losing your faith.'

‘And you've lost your faith in horses?'

‘Totally. Gambling just doesn't do it any more. Which is a pity, because that's another of the activities that used to speed time up a bit for me. The tension of picking a horse to back, the build-up to the “off", the excitement of the race itself, the reaction to the result ... even when it was a loss, which it usually was, half-hours could flash by during that process, until you were aware of time again. And then you could build yourself up again for the next race ... There was a stage when I'd bet on anything the betting shop would offer ... horses, greyhounds ... even virtual horse racing. I mean, how sad is that – grown men getting excited about contests between computer-generated animations of horses? But now ...' Trevor shook his head mournfully.

‘Doesn't do it for you?'

‘Nothing does.' Another swig from the pint pot. ‘Except this.'

‘What about women? Now you too are
un
married?'

A lugubrious shake of the head. ‘No more sex for me.'

‘Why not?'

‘Can't seem to do it. Bloody thing doesn't work any more.'

‘Don't you think that might have something to do with the alcohol?'

‘Who cares what it's to do with? All I know is that it's an unalloyed blessing. There was a period when even an undressed salad would get me randy, but that's all gone. When I think of all the time over the years I've wasted thinking about sex, trying to get sex, trying to get out of sexual relationships ... you can't believe how good it is to know all that nonsense is over. I've even stopped having fantasies ... God, the brain activity I used to devote to dreams of making it with a younger woman, you know, a pretty little thing in her twenties ...'

For a moment the nostalgic thought almost rekindled something, but only for a moment. The fire was truly out. ‘All gone, I'm glad to say.

‘I mean, Bill, if you stop to think how much of a man's life is wasted by women. Trying to get them into bed, yes, trying to get them to like you, but also – and this is the real time-waster – trying to understand them. That old Freud poser, “What do women want?” The answer is: nobody bloody knows. Even women don't know, so how the hell should poor pathetic men have an inkling? The point about the question is that, like all the really important questions of life, it doesn't have an answer. It's taken me far too long to realise that, but finally I have got a handle on it. And you can't believe the relief. I no longer feel guilty about my inability to understand women, because now I know for a fact that the assignment is impossible. For the first time in my life, I can think straight. My mind is completely unclouded.'

‘So you cloud it up again with alcohol.'

‘I know.' Trevor grinned. ‘Bliss, isn't it?' He looked across at Bill, and once more raised his glass. ‘Welcome to post-sex heaven.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Count your blessings. You've managed to get out of your marriage to that witch Andrea.. .now you can enjoy yourself.'

Yes, I intend to,' said Bill cautiously.

And you never have to think about women again.'

The memories of Ginnie's kiss and Carolyn's back were too recent for Bill entirely to endorse that sentiment. He couldn't quite envisage a definition of enjoying himself that involved no women at all.

‘I think I'll let my mind follow its own course, Trevor. If it wants to stop thinking about sex, then fine. If not ... well ... I'll wait and see.'

‘There is stuff you can take to stop you thinking about sex, you know ...'

‘What? Are you talking about bromide, given to the soldiers in the First World War – and supposedly during National Service too?'

‘I'm not talking about bromide. I'm talking about
this
' Trevor gathered up their glasses. ‘Come on, we'll have a couple more of these.'

... and, by way of contrast,

a man in New York has proposed to his

psychotherapist, reckoning marriage

would be cheaper than paying her by the hour.

‘You're still nursing a lot of anger.'

‘I don't know that I am.'

‘Believe me, Bill, you are. I've just read this book called
Anger: Men At Work,
and you fit perfectly into the B3 Category. You're a “Mr Nice Guy”. You match the profile exactly.'

Bill offered no prompt, knowing that Sal would elucidate anyway. They were having lunch in a little Turkish place in Fitzrovia, just round the corner from the office of Sal Juster Associates. In so far as the vagaries of Sal's diets would allow, this was their most regular meeting place.

‘It says in the book that “Mr Nice Guys” like to be liked.' ‘Don't most of us?'

‘Yes, but with them it's an obsession. And they're afraid that if they express anger, then people will stop liking them.'

‘Sounds reasonable to me.'

‘No, but the point is, they won't even express legitimate, justified anger. When someone's really shafted them, they'll still be nice to them.'

‘Anything for a quiet life,' said Bill easily.

‘It may be a quiet life, but it's not a healthy life. “Mr Nice Guys” are prone to stomach ulcers, sleep disturbance and depression.'

‘Well then, I must be in the wrong category, because I don't suffer from any of those.'

‘Potentially
. You suffer from them
potentially
.'

‘You mean they'll catch up with me one day?'

‘Yes.'

‘I can wait.'

‘Bill, repressing anger is very dangerous. And you must have so much hatred of Andrea inside you that you're just not vocalising.'

‘You don't know how much I vocalised it. When she first said she wanted a divorce, some fairly vicious comments were exchanged.'

‘Yes, but that was just between each other. And now that you no longer have Andrea around to vocalise your anger to, you're suppressing it.'

‘You're suggesting that I should moan on to everyone I meet about what a cow my ex-wife was?'

‘Why not? That's what most divorcees do.'

‘Well, I don't need to. Sorry to disappoint you, Sal, but I think I've pretty well got over the divorce.'