The Penultimate Chance Saloon Read Free

‘m’s – menstruation and menopause – had remained unmentioned in the Stratton household. In common with most children, to the young Bill the idea of his parents having an active sex life was distastefully unimaginable. When he was sixteen, at the time of maximum hormonal confusion, the idea of people of thirty having an active sex life was unimaginable (almost as unimaginable then as the idea of he himself ever getting to the point of having a sex life).
    But Bill Stratton’s adolescent gleanings of incomplete information had left him with the firm conviction that the menopause definitely closed the lid down on all that stuff. If grown-ups hadn’t had the decency to stop having sex before, at least the menopause would put a permanent end to their little games. Post-menopausal women would become little old ladies, like his grandmothers.
    Better information gathered through his life should have dissipated this illusion. The media – particularly the Daily Mail – were increasingly loaded with over-frank testimonials from mature women about their continuing and flowering sexuality – but Bill was never quite convinced. The primitive beliefs of his childhood had left their imprint on his thinking. His image of the menopause remained as a big, dark, heavy shutter.
    As a result, when Andrea told him the menopause had caused her to lose interest in sex, he was disappointed, but not surprised. And, to his mind rather nobly, he did not force his attentions on her. His libido was not as rampant as it had been, and, wistfully, he tried to reconcile himself to the fact that that part of his life might be over.
    He was therefore not a little upset when Andrea told him the real reason she had stopped having sex with him was nothing to do with her time of life. That, rather than diminishing it, the menopause had increased her enjoyment of sex.
    Sex with someone else.
    He was called Dewi, which to Bill seemed only to add insult to injury. If he was going to have a love rival, at least he could have been granted one with a less silly name.
    But he had to admit that her new man’s profile was perfect for Andrea. A doctor throughout his career, Dewi Roberts had resisted the attractions of even the minimum of private work and devoted all of his professional life to the NHS. He had also volunteered much of his spare time for committee work, and had travelled extensively taking medical help to the world’s impoverished peoples. Dewi was so worthy he made Bill want to puke.
    Nor could this paragon be criticised for the seduction and abduction of Andrea. Dewi was not betraying anyone, his wife having died of emphysema five years before their meeting, leaving him with three children, all of whom were at university studying worthy subjects. He was devoted to his offspring, and, though he and Andrea were mutually in love, had insisted for a long time that it would ‘be better’ if they stopped seeing each other. Dewi didn’t want to have the break-up of her marriage on his conscience.
    It was then, Andrea related to Bill with perhaps excessive glee, that she had told Dewi her relationship with her husband was ‘a sham’ and ‘a marriage only in name’. Now she had met the right person, all she wanted to do was to divorce Bill and ‘make up for lost time’. She also wanted to ‘get to know’ Dewi’s children and ‘build up a relationship with the next generation that had been denied to her throughout her unfulfilled marriage’.
    Andrea’s logic and determination were difficult to argue with, and Bill didn’t try that hard. When she was that clear about what she wanted to do, he knew from experience that there was little point in trying to dissuade her.
    So, unwillingly but with as much good grace as he could muster, he bit the bullet and agreed to the divorce. Andrea said that was ‘the best present he had ever given her’, a phrase that