The Penultimate Chance Saloon (4 page)

And she fixed her hazel eyes on him so piercingly that he had to look away.

‘Look, I can't recreate the sixties in the twenty-first century.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because I'm actually
in
my sixties.'

‘Not yet.'

‘Near as damn it.'

‘Well, I think you could have a very good time, Bill. You're attractive, witty, still got your hair ...'

‘White, though.'

‘Doesn't matter for a man. No, you're going to enjoy yourself.'

‘Maybe in time. Right now, I'm still pretty shell-shocked after the divorce.'

‘Are you really?'

Again the hazel eyes seemed to bore through to the core of truth within him and, though he assured her of the genuine nature of his emotions, he wondered how honest he was being. In fact, now that the practical details of the divorce had been sorted, he thought very little of Andrea. Tucked away in a large house in Muswell Hill, comforted by Dewi and by constant phone calls from his worthy children, she had become a person in another life. And nearly forty years of marriage had the residual impact of a brief meeting.

Bill still felt the need to talk about other things, so he moved on to the one subject that, over the pine kitchen table in Putney, had been an infallible conversation-deflector. ‘Anyway, how's
your
love life, Ginnie?'

She let out the long sigh that had held Chekhov audiences rapt at the National Theatre. ‘As ever, darling. All my relationships are absolute hell.'

‘And who are you giving hell to at the moment?'

‘No one. It's just too painful to think of starting up with someone else. With each new relationship, the knowledge that it's going to end in tears kicks in nearer the beginning. I'm giving up sex,' she drawled, in a way that was incredibly sexy. ‘Too old for it.'

Bill could have argued that that wasn't what she'd just been telling him, but didn't want to sabotage his successfully manoeuvred change of subject. So instead he listened with relish to Virginia Fairbrother's tales of her lovers, almost all of whom were high-profile actors, whom she deftly excoriated with waspish wit.

The evening passed in an amiable flurry of bitchiness. Although the dinner had been Ginnie's suggestion, Bill insisted on paying the bill. When her taxi arrived, and he dithered as to which cheek to peck first, he was surprised to find the softness of her lips pressed against his.

And that night, alone in his double bed in Pimlico, there were stirrings inside Bill Stratton's pyjama trousers of something he'd almost forgotten about.

... and, by way of contrast,

a newsreader on a local television station

in Indiana, who proposed to his girlfriend

during a news bulletin, received fifty four acceptances.

In semi-retirement, Bill Stratton was actually well-heeled. He was a member of the last generation whose pension arrangements looked likely to meet their post-career needs. His income had always been reasonably good – at times exceptionally good – and he had been able to salt away the maximum allowable percentage into pension funds.

And, unusually in such situations, he had profited from the divorce. Andrea had always had a dark secret, which she was at pains to keep from her right-on NHS friends: her parents had money. As a result, they had subsidised the young Strattons' first house purchase, thus putting them a few rungs above their contemporaries on the property ladder. This bonus, at a time when only the deeply stupid could fail to make money out of buying and selling houses, had increased exponentially with each subsequent move, until, by the time of the divorce, the value of the Putney house almost embarrassed Bill. It certainly embarrassed Andrea, so perhaps guilt was a factor in her ready agreement that the profits of the sale should be divided fifty-fifty between them.

The purchase of the Pimlico flat, lavish though it was, had still left Bill with a wodge of capital, which he had invested in an unspectacular but safe savings account. And his earnings potential had not died totally with his retirement from full-time newsreading. His agent, Sal Juster, rang him regularly with requests for minor presentation or personal appearance jobs. These were random and unsolicited, but Sal assured him that he had only to ‘say the word', for her to start the positive marketing of Bill Stratton, which would bring a flood of new offers. And, she kept urging, he hadn't begun to explore the lucrative after-dinner speaking market. Bill found this knowledge a reassuring comfort blanket, but he hadn't as yet ‘said the word'. In the surprisingly benign haze of his post-divorce life, he didn't want to rush into anything.

And then, of course, he still derived some income from BWOC.

This was the acronym of his catch-phrase, ‘by way of contrast ...', which, remarkably, had turned into a rather effective small business. At the time of his maximum exposure on the nation's news bulletins, Bill had been approached by an enterprising small publisher. If the best of the ‘by way of contrast' sign-off stories were gathered into a small book, the entrepreneur suggested, they might make an attractive little package for the ‘Christmas funny' market. Producing the book would not involve any work on Bill's part. The publisher's editor would contact the television company's researchers to find the content and knock it into shape. All Bill Stratton would be required to do was to give his name to the project, have his photograph – showing his famous crooked smile – taken for the front cover, and ... the publisher was deeply apologetic for making this final outrageous request ... write a two hundred and fifty word introduction to the book.

In return for these strenuous efforts, the book would be published as the work of Bill Stratton, he would receive a substantial advance and generous scale of royalty payments.

After a good nano-second of self-questioning, he agreed to take on the project. Shortly before this offer, Bill had first been approached by Sal Juster, proposing that she should represent him. Regarding himself as a mere newsreader, he couldn't imagine that he'd ever need the services of an agent, but saw no harm in agreeing to her suggestion. Sal had taken on the
By Way Of Contrast
book as their first mutual project and, to prove how valuable she would be to her client in the future, had forced the publisher to make the advance even more substantial and the scale of royalties even more generous.

The book had been published to catch the 1998 Christmas trade. As a familiar television face, Bill Stratton was wheeled out on all the daytime chat-shows, where he quoted a few ‘by way of contrast' oddities, and smiled the self-depreciative crooked smile he had spent his entire career mastering.

The ‘Christmas funny' market differs from many areas of the publishing business in that its books are never going to be read all the way through. Though it shares this quality with other categories –  recipe books, gardening books and certain literary novels – nowhere else is the lack of ambition so blatant. The aim of a ‘Christmas funny' is simply to ease the agony of an English Christmas Day afternoon. The food has been eaten, the presents distributed, the television listings ransacked in vain for anything watchable, and ill-matched family members are finally faced with the dreadful option of having to talk to each other. Old arguments about money seethe under the surface, resentments engendered in the nursery are about to be revived, criticisms based on changing attitudes to child-rearing are on the edge of being voiced. The forced bonhomie of the last few hours is about to implode.

Then, just before the fragile family shatters, someone picks up the ‘Christmas funny' (a desperate gift to a relative without any discernible interests), flicks it open and lightens the threatening atmosphere by disclosing information about the size of the largest omelette ever made ... or showing around the Japanese invention of a pocket-sized Jacuzzi ... or pointing out hilarious photographs of dogs and cats with amusing speech bubbles. Compendiums of fart jokes are riffled through, politicians' gaffes ridiculed and, in that moment of family panic, even the collected works of humorous columnists become funny.

Hearty laughter follows. Over-hearty laughter, as the initial impact of the original joke gives way to the diminishing returns of repetition.

But the ‘Christmas funny' has served its purpose. Staved off the renewal of family feuds. Bridged that ghastly half-hour gap until it is legitimate to say, ‘Well, I think we probably ought to be off now.'

The Christmas funny' may be called upon to perform the same function a second time on Boxing Day, in those families unlucky enough to have two sets of ill-matched relatives to entertain. But, otherwise, it has achieved its end. Mission accomplished, the book can be relegated to a distant shelf or bedside table, never to be opened again – or to the loo, as an aid to concentration.

Because of people's desperation during the present-buying run-up to Christmas, the ‘Christmas funny' market is now an overcrowded one. No idea is too silly, no celebrity too far down the alphabetical listings, for a tiny volume to be rushed out in the hopes of winning the publishing lottery, of becoming the ‘Christmas funny' that gets into the bestseller lists.

Well, in 1998 Bill Stratton's ‘
By Way Of Contrast
' was fortunate enough to achieve that envied status. He would never know to what degree the Christmas murder rate that year was reduced by tension-breaking readings about dysfunctional Welsh marriages, kittens trapped in handbags and the exploits of amorous snake-charmers.

All he did know was that the book sold and sold. Suddenly, through no effort of his own, Bill Stratton had become a bestselling author.

In 1999 and 2000 sequels followed. Rather imaginatively, they were called
By Way Of Contrast 2
and
By Way Of Contrast 3.
Though not selling as well as the original, they didn't do badly. And for each one, Sal Juster negotiated an even more substantial advance and an even more generous scale of royalty payments. Though his only creative input remained writing the two hundred and fifty word introduction (or, in fact, making minimal changes to the previous one), Bill Stratton's literary career blossomed.

The
By Way Of Contrast
books generated a great deal of correspondence. Members of the public sent in their own news snippets of human foibles. When the books hit the bestseller lists, the flood of mail became so fierce that the publishers brought back a recently-retired office manager two days a week to deal with it. She was a woman of engaging cynicism called Carolyn, whose blondeness made no pretence at any origin other than a bottle. A well-rounded woman, spreading amiably towards fat, Carolyn had a taste for chunky gold jewellery, bright print dresses and cigarettes. Beneath the make-up her face had the egg-box quality of a heavy smoker, but nevertheless, she looked good. She possessed, in one of those withering phrases with which Andrea dismissed many women, ‘an obvious sexuality'. (And whenever Andrea said that, the word ‘brassy' lurked behind the phrase.)

Carolyn also possessed – more importantly for Bill Stratton – a son who was an expert in computers. Jason quickly set up a database for his mother to organise the
By Way of Contrast
clippings, and soon progressed to the creation of a
By Way of Contrast
website. He also originated the acronym BWOC for the company that developed.

Some contributions from the public were incorporated into the second two books, but the decision not to publish a fourth did not stop the flow of material. With the encouragement of Carolyn and Sal, Bill moved the operation away from the publishers. The investment was small, and Bill let himself be persuaded to set up the BWOC company out of curiosity more than anything else, just to see whether it took off. An office was rented just South of Vauxhall Bridge. Bill and his accountant were named as directors. Carolyn and Jason were the only staff. Jason was kept on a retainer as occasional consultant and computer fixer. Carolyn continued to go in two days a week at first, but soon there was enough business to occupy her for a full working week. Carolyn complained that she hadn't got to sixty simply to start work all over again, but she was very good at the job and, though she'd never give herself away by saying so, she clearly loved doing it.

Gradually, the BWOC operation grew. As well as mail from members of the British public, the website began to attract amusing trivia from all around the English-speaking world. Carolyn built up contacts with news agencies and local press reporters, and stories came from those sources too.

The thing that puzzled Bill Stratton about the whole operation was why – or, perhaps more accurately, how – it made money. He knew that the
By Way Of Contrast
books still sold through the website, and he knew that Carolyn organised supplies of humorous snippets to after-dinner speakers, radio presenters and newspapers, but he still couldn't see that that was enough to bring in the profits it did. Carolyn and Jason had once tried to explain to him about the revenue from advertisers using the website and making links to other websites, but he didn't really understand.

Never mind. So long as the money rolled in, how it happened was really a detail. And all Bill Stratton had to do to receive his substantial cut of the profits was to attend the odd BWOC board meeting, make rare promotional appearances, and every week or so, drop in to show an interest in what Carolyn was doing.

He was scheduled for a visit to the Vauxhall office the day after he'd had dinner with Ginnie, and he felt blithe as he walked from Pimlico to the Vauxhall office. The Thames was in a sparkling tourist postcard mood, rather than its more usual slough of Dickensian murk. On that June day the city harmoniously blended the old and the new. Sunlight filtered out the fumes of pollution and despair.

And, as ever, the sun seemed to bring the breasts out. Bill knew that all women had breasts, all of the time. But some days they were a constant surprise to him. For months the existence of women's breasts was simply a fact of life, seen but not remarked upon, like telephone kiosks and zebra crossings. Then, suddenly one day they were everywhere. It was impossible to be unaware of them. They pressed against the webbing of haversacks, they jiggled on cyclists, they objected to the restraint of T-shirts.