The man stared at her blankly as she sat down. ‘I remember you with your tin hat when you was a warden,’ she said. ‘I was the one you were always shouting at for being the last to clear off the street when the sirens went.’ She giggled. ‘I always seemed to be forgetting something when the doodlebugs were practically overhead.’ He still showed no signs of recognition, so Hilda said, ‘There’s quite a few others as I recognize from the shelters here tonight, folks who said they drank at the Rovers,’ and he finally nodded. ‘Happen like me they’ve come to check out what all the fuss is about, now they’ve done this place up. I wanted to see what they’ve made of it, because I remember when it still had the reputation of not being a place you could take a lady.’
Hilda pursed her lips, not wanting to admit Stan had brought her here on several occasions when it was still called the Tripe Dresser’s Arms. ‘You don’t have to apologize,’ she said stiffly. ‘It doesn’t matter to me where you choose to drink. It’s the landlady up at the Rovers I feel sorry for. She’s the one who’ll be licking her wounds tonight.’
‘If I pays me money I can take me choice of where I sup,’ the man said, and he took a long drink from his pint. ‘Happen Annie Walker will have to look sharp if she wants to keep hold of all her regulars on a Saturday night.’
‘I, of course, have the privilege of working here,’ Hilda said, unable to keep the boastfulness out of her voice, ‘so I’ve come here tonight to offer my support.’ Her hands strayed to the nape of her neck where she detected several loosened strands of hair and she wound them nervously round her finger into a small roll. She gave a satisfied smile. ‘At least, that is, until my Stan gets back from Italy. He’s a prisoner of war over there, been there a while, but if the news is anything to go by, I reckon he could be coming home soon.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ the man said. ‘Haven’t you heard what’s been going on in Germany? Our boys have been involved in some kind of bombing raids over there, a place called Dresden. That could set things back a fair bit, so it’s not over yet.’ Before he could say more, Phyllis Bakewell had pushed her way through the crowd and had come to sit with them followed by an even larger lady with a strident voice who, it seemed, ran the corner shop where Phyllis was registered with her ration coupons. From their ongoing argument it seemed the two had had many a clash with Phyllis having strong words to say about the lack of availability of certain food items for the shop’s regular customers. She practically accused the shopkeeper of running a black market, but before the larger woman could reply, Phyllis suddenly changed tack and turned to Hilda.
‘So, you say your husband’s still overseas. Stan Ogden you said his name was? – how can you be sure they’ll let him come home soon?’ she said as she set down her Campari and soda on the little table between them and chortled as she tried to twist her outsized body in the chair so that she could face Hilda.
‘Of course they will, and don’t you be saying otherwise,’ Hilda said, shocked at the suggestion.
‘I’d be careful what you wish for,’ another voice said, ‘for you may not want him home if it’s the Stan Ogden I remember.’ Hilda looked up, horrified, particularly as she didn’t know the man who now joined the group, but it seemed it was Ron Bakewell, Phyllis’s husband, and that he’d known Stan as a young lad. Ron sat down. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I hope you’ve got a job that pays well, cos otherwise you’ll be hard put to keep his body and soul together as well as your own.’ There was a general titter of amusement among the group and Hilda bristled. She was about to respond with a sharp-tongued reply but Ron turned away from her as he pulled up a stool so that he could sit next to his wife.
‘If you’ve not, maybe he won’t want to come home after all,’ Phyllis said as he joined them. ‘It might dawn on him that he’d be better off staying where he is with guaranteed sunshine and regular meals.’
At that, everyone in the little group laughed and Hilda, uncertain at first, decided to join in, somehow managing to reassure herself that it was just a joke and that they meant no harm. Over the years she’d often been the butt of others’ jokes, but she had found that if she smiled and didn’t object, their playful banter would sometimes make her feel as if she was one of them, even if she wasn’t.
It had been like that with the kids she went to school with, when she’d tried so hard to be one of the gang. They’d teased her mercilessly, always picking on her faults and shortcomings, never seeing any good in her. They used to call her ‘two planks’. ‘Cos that’s what you’re as thick as,’ they’d chant when they were out in the schoolyard during playtime or racing off home at the end of the day. Then they would scamper away, leaving her on her own with no way to defend herself against any of the gangs from other schools and with no chance of running fast enough to catch up with them. How she’d hated those children then. Most of them were worse off than her family was, though it was hard for her to remember that when they tried to lord it over her pretending that they weren’t. But unlike many of the others, she and her two brothers at least had something to eat most days and they had clothes to wear, even if they didn’t always have shoes. She’d also consoled herself that her mother and father had shown her some love – when they weren’t drunk. But it wasn’t in her nature to call the other kids bad names, however poor or stupid they were.
In the end she’d had the last laugh over those she considered to be ‘uppity’, because here she was now, a married woman with an important job in a new pub. A job that paid her enough to rent two rooms in the heart of Weatherfield. Sadly, so many of the young lads had been killed or injured in the war, while most of the girls she knew had made disastrous marriages that usually involved a trail of children, even at their young age. ‘I wasn’t too thick to recognize a good ’un when I met my Stan,’ she reminded herself whenever she thought back to those difficult school years. ‘I spotted him as the man for me right from the start, and even if he didn’t exactly match up to Clark Gable, he was smart enough to live out most of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp in the sun.’
Suddenly a loud voice was calling for hush and Hilda, remembering where she was, saw that her new boss, Bob Bennett, was banging on an empty pint mug with a spoon. He had come on stage wearing a top hat that looked as old as his master-of-ceremonies outfit and was perched uncomfortably on the top of his head, but as he began to speak he took the hat off and stood it upside down on a chair by the microphone.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, if I could take a few minutes of your time,’ Bob began. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to shout while they’re still playing about with the electrics back there, so I hope you can all hear me.’
There were shouts of, ‘Get on with it before the lights go out,’ and ‘Anyone got a spare bob for the meter?’ but Bob was not a stranger to projecting his voice.
‘It might seem strange to be celebrating the reopening of our lovely new pub on a Wednesday night,’ Bob continued, ‘but then as you know this is no ordinary Wednesday night.’ He paused while he scanned the room, taking in the large crowd. Then he lifted the tankard and shouted, ‘This is Valentine’s night.’
‘I’ll drink to that!’ someone called out.
‘Indeed!’ said Bob, raising his pint pot in the air once more. ‘So let’s have a toast to all our brave soldiers, especially to our absent loved ones to let them know we’re missing them and waiting for them to come safely home.’ Then he turned his head in different directions as he mouthed the words, ‘and we’re keeping the bed warm’ with an exaggerated wink, and several individual cheers went up. ‘And let’s have another toast,’ Bob went on, ‘to all those who’ve made it here today, on this very special, romantic night. Let’s raise our glasses to Saint Valentine.’ He turned towards Lizzie as he lifted his glass.
‘To Saint Valentine!’ everyone in the room responded.
‘To the end of the war!’ someone else called out and a rousing cheer went up again. As the room quietened, Hilda could hear Ron Bakewell muttering to his wife about