wear make-up, so she’d been able to buy drinks since she was only 15.
It was yet another reason why Shirley couldn’t wait for her eighteenth birthday. Anita nodded. She knew the drill. ‘You grab some seats then, okay? Half of bitter?’
Shirley cast about then, trying to spot a couple of seats free in one of the corners, though it was difficult to see through the throng of people. Many were just standing chatting, but a few were gyrating to the sounds coming from the throbbing juke-box, and Shirley felt the familiar tug to get on the impromptu dance-floor and move to the music as well.
But then she spotted an empty table and rushed to bag it before it was taken, content for the moment to take in the atmosphere and marvel at the couples jiving and jitterbugging nearby.
‘Guess who’s propping up the bar?’ Anita shouted above the din as she set down the two drinks on the table.
‘Who?’ Shirley asked, too far away to see over the crush of bodies.
‘That Tucker Hudson. Remember? One of those brothers from over Canterbury.’
Shirley nodded as she sipped the head off her beer. She didn’t really know the Hudson brothers, but she certainly knew of them. Knew they were best avoided, like pretty much everyone else did from her part of the world. She also knew the eldest one, Charlie, was back out of prison, and that he was the one you needed to avoid most of all, even if John had always talked about him like he was some sort of local hero.
She remembered that day she’d gone to court with John. It had seemed a strange thing to do then and it still felt strange now. All the cheering and chanting, and there being so many people, all to see someone sent down for doing something criminal – all there to support someone who her dad had said only got what he’d deserved. She’d never really understood that, even if John had tried to explain it to her. But then John had been friends with the Hudsons – one of the younger ones, anyway. Keith, was it? Yes, she was sure that was his name. The cocky, good-looking one. Till he’d gone and joined the army, at any rate.
‘Which one?’ she asked Anita, feeling suddenly fretful that if he was here, John himself might be in tonight as well. Which wasn’t a problem, exactly, but she still didn’t want to see him. Not so soon after finishing with him, anyway.
‘Keith,’ Anita confirmed, sitting down and shrugging her bag off her shoulder. ‘The short one. Remember? He’s in here with his sister. You know. Annie? Annie Jagger?’
Shirley shook her head, because she didn’t think she did. She wished she was more like Anita, who always seemed to know everyone. But then she would, wouldn’t she? She had two older brothers to go out with, after all.
‘There,’ Anita was saying now, as a record ended and the crowd parted briefly. ‘See them now? She’s the one with the platinum blonde hair.’
Shirley spotted them finally and then felt her face immediately flush; Keith Hudson was looking straight at her.
She lowered her gaze. Now she remembered him. And he’d hardly changed at all. Filled out a bit, even if he didn’t look a great deal taller, and with the same arresting dark looks that she remember being so taken with before. John had noticed that too – she remembered that as well. He’d gone on about the two of them making eyes at each other – given her a pretty hard time about it, refusing to accept her denials. And now, having forgotten all about him these past two years, she realised those denials had been untrue. She risked raising her eyes again. He was still looking straight at her. Sizing her up. Almost willing her to hold his gaze.
‘So?’ she said to Anita, dropping her eyes again, feeling suddenly flustered. ‘Why should I care who’s in?’
‘I didn’t say you did care,’ Anita answered. ‘I was just saying, that was all. But now you mention it …’ she added, glancing towards the bar and back again and grinning.
‘Are we having a dance then, or what?’ Shirley interrupted, twisting on the banquette so that she was facing more away from the bar now, feeling strangely uncomfortable under Keith Hudson’s continuing scrutiny and still worried that John might be somewhere roundabouts as well.
‘Hold your horses, Shirl!’ Anita said. ‘Let me have a slurp of this, at least. Ah, and don’t look now, but guess who’s coming over …’
Shirley turned around, expecting to see Keith Hudson striding towards her. But it wasn’t. It was his sister, who looked like a mini Marilyn Monroe. It was a look lots of girls tried to emulate, but few managed to achieve. This one did, though. She was really very pretty.
But she also had the same sort of reputation her brothers had, if Anita was to be believed. ‘Watch her, Shirl,’ she whispered now. ‘She’s a bit of a wildcat.’
Not knowing quite what to make of that – what was she going to do? Attack them? – Shirley could only smile and make room on the banquette as the girl, who had that confident look of someone in her early twenties, marched up, said ‘shove up’ and plonked herself straight down between them.
She didn’t speak at first either, but instead delved immediately into a capacious patent leather handbag, plucked out a pack of cigarettes and pulled one out with her teeth. She looked as though she might offer them round, and Shirley hoped she would. The rest of the girls there looked so sophisticated with their cigarettes hanging from their manicured fingers. But no, they quickly disappeared back into Annie’s bag again.
She lit the cigarette using a shiny book of matches, and then took a long drag, carefully blowing out a series of smoke rings through her perfectly painted ruby lips.
Shirley watched in awe, wishing she could do something so clever. But, despite managing the odd secret practice, it was a skill that had so far eluded her. She would definitely have to pinch one of her dad’s Capstans the next time she got a chance so she could practise some more.
Her entrance made, Annie Jagger turned towards her and smiled. Shirley smiled back nervously, wondering what exactly she’d come over for.
‘My brother fancies you,’ she said matter of factly, while tapping the end of her cigarette in the direction of the already over-flowing ashtray. She looked Shirley up and down then; not in a bitchy way, just as if she was working out whether she agreed with him.
‘For some reason,’ she then added, causing Shirley to revise her first interpretation. ‘And he wants to take you out on a date.’
Shirley blinked at her. Fancy sending his bloody sister over to ask for him! So, for all his swagger, Keith Hudson was obviously not as brave as he liked to make out, then.
‘Well, you can tell him no thank you,’ she heard herself saying.
Annie Jagger drew on the cigarette again and blew some more smoke rings before answering. ‘You still seeing him, then?’ she asked finally. ‘That John Arnold lad?’
‘No,’ Shirley began, shaking her head. ‘We’ve split up.’
Annie Jagger nodded knowingly. ‘I should think you would an’ all, love! He’s a wimp, he is, John Arnold. Why’d you want to go out with a wimp when you could be going out with a proper man?’
Shirley stared at her, bristling at the dismissive sneer on her face now. Bar pointing out that ‘proper’ men asked for their own dates, which she didn’t dare to, she wasn’t really sure how to respond to that. But it seemed she wasn’t required to.
‘A lad like our Keith,’ Annie added, sending another inch of ash in the general direction of the ashtray, but missing and showering it on the table and over Shirley’s skirt instead. ‘A proper man, one who was off doing his bit for his country. While John bleedin’ Arnold was hiding behind your flarey skirts, love!’
Now Shirley really didn’t know what to say, and neither, it seemed, did Anita. She’d picked up her glass and was hiding as well – behind her beer. But, even as Shirley blushed, she felt a sudden rush of annoyance. No, he might not have