The Local by Michelle Blackwell
“Your usual, Bill?”
Before Bill could nod, Becky was taking a pint glass from the shelf overhead and flipping up the tap of his favourite ale.
“What would you do if I said no?” he asked with a laugh.
Becky threw him a look. “Come on Bill, everyone knows you never order anything other than a pint of best. Two pints on a weeknight, maybe 4 pints if the lads are in on a Saturday. Although there was that time you managed a fair few more than that. Remember? The night that Liverpool won the league wasn’t it? Me and Jack helped you home and you sang all the way.”
“Ahh, good times, Becks, good times. To be fair, in my youth there was many a night I sang my way home from here. You know I’ve been a regular in the Keys since I was old enough to drink. And my old man used to bring me in before that. Lord, that makes me feel old to think of it.”
Picking up the cool pint glass and pausing for a second to admire the swirling amber and rust coloured liquid within, Bill swallowed, a long deep pull of ale. He placed it carefully back down onto a ring stained beermat. A previous customer had picked at the edges until they were fanned like a pattern in a kaleidoscope. He let out a satisfied sigh.
Becky had gone back to talking to the only other customer sitting at the bar. Bill didn’t mind. Nice girl Becky, but she did go on a bit and sometimes all Bill wanted to do was drink his pint and relax without getting caught up in a conversation about EastEnders or Coronation Street or any of the other programmes in which he had no interest. Sandy had liked to watch them but now she was gone he could go days without turning the tv on.
People would always act with shock when he confessed that and assumed he must be lonely without even the comfort of the TV. Bill had stopped trying to explain that he didn’t find TV any kind of company at all, that he much preferred the company music provided. There was a song for every kind of feeling known to man. Feeling sad? Stick on Jonny Cash’s version of Hurt or Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven. Feeling happy? Well the possibilities were almost endless.
Music had always made him feel as if he wanted to dance and jump around and forget everything except the sheer pleasure of that moment, that exact moment where you think of nothing other than the beat of the music and the joy of yelling out the lyrics to anything by The Beatles, maybe Get Back or The Stones, Start Me Up or if his grandson was staying over then something by Greenday or Foo Fighters. He’d learnt a lot about music from his grandson, but he liked to think his grandson had learnt a lot about music from him too. No, you could keep your shouty TV programmes showing people living seemingly miserable lives. Music beat that hands down, any day.
There used to be a juke box in the corner of the bar, where Bill sat now. Looking through the wooden struts of his bar stool he could still see the dents in the floorboards, showing the weight of the Wurlitzer that had stood there for years. Closing his eyes, he rubbed the toe of his shoe gently over the dip, back and forth.
Memories flooded back. He could smell the cigarette smoke, hear the chatter of the men who drank there 40 or 50 years before, their local dialect somewhat stronger than those who classed themselves as locals these day and then loud and clear, the clunk of a record dropping onto the turntable as someone selected a song to listen to.
Becky looked over at him.
“You alright there Bill? You’re looking a bit wobbly?”
Bill blinked slowly a few times. He could still smell cigarette smoke. “I’m ok love, just reminiscing about the old jukebox.”
Becky grinned. “Tell you what Bill, you tell me what songs you’d like me to play and I’ll get them on for you. Any songs you like, even some of your oldies.”
“Ahh, Becky, you know the oldies are the best. You’re a star though. Stick a bit of ‘The Who’ on for me will you? ‘I Can’t Explain’. Absolute classic. It will take me right back to the 60’s that.”
As the music began, the short sharp blasts of guitar erupted from the speaker overhead and Bill closed his eyes again. This was the first song he’d ever played on the jukebox in here. He’d first heard it in the coffee shop in town, where he’d go every Saturday afternoon after his rugby match. Bill and his mates would pile into The Forum Coffee Shop to listen to music and eye up the girls. He and the lads thought they looked so cool with their long hair and flared trousers, smoking an Embassy Filter. Of course, in reality, the girls weren’t remotely interested, but Bill could still remember the rush of excitement at the ever-hopeful possibility that they might be.
That night he’d been dragged along to The Cross Keys to make up numbers on the skittle team with his older brother and friends. Bill had felt a bit out of his depth making small talk with the attractive girl behind the bar, so made straight for the jukebox. And there it was. ‘I Can’t Explain’ by The Who.
As past and present merged for Bill, he leant back on the bar stool and took another sip of his beer. He could hear his long dead brother teasing his friend for not having the courage to ask the barmaid out.
“Get on,” he heard him say.
“I reckon young Bill here has got more guts than you when it comes to women. Ask her out before we go down to the skittle alley or you’ll not get another chance tonight. She’ll be too busy bringing the sandwiches and crisps out when the game is finished.”
Bill lit a cigarette and watched as the lad shuffled awkwardly from one foot to another, desperately trying to think of a reason not to ask a girl he clearly fancied out in front of his mate and mate’s young brother. Bill was 17 years old and full of the bravery of a young man who had not yet been turned down by a girl. So, leaning forward he called out, “Hey, Sandy. Fancy going out for a drink one night?”
Sandy turned to look at him. Tossing her head, she replied flippantly, “Come back in a few years’ time love. When you’re old enough to legally be in a pub.”
Bill smiled gently. He had done just that and had spent the last 50 years of his life with Sandy by his side. His original barmaid. His favourite barmaid. He missed her so much. Losing Sandy not long after losing his brother had almost finished him off. Shaking his head as if to dispel the memories, he looked up.
“Becky, next song if you please. Let’s try a bit of Queen. ‘Hammer To Fall’ if you don’t mind.”
What a riff, what a song. “Here we stand or here we fall.”
Freddie’s unmistakeable vocals rang out around Bill. 1984 was the year. The pub hadn’t changed that much from 1969. Still the same old heavily varnished wooden bar, the coat hooks underneath to hang your jacket, leaving both hands free for a pint and a fag. Big metal ashtrays everywhere. Castlemaine lager on tap. Good days for Bill although life was pretty tough. Married to Sandy with two small kids, he was the sole wage earner. The rent on the council house they’d been lucky enough to get didn’t leave much left over for luxuries. But Sandy never begrudged him a night down the Keys, as long as a babysitter was organised every now and then so she could join him.
In those days they’d been members of both the skittles and darts team. A real tight group of friends. No one had much money, just enough to pay the bills and take the kids away for a week at the seaside once a year. If you needed something there was always someone who knew a man who could get it for you, no questions asked. Alcohol or fags, 50 Cornish pasties, a bike for your kid and once, memorably, half a cow. If you weren’t too fussy about what was on offer then you’d more than likely be offered something again and sometimes, not often, but sometimes that would come up trumps.
Bill remembered making a killing on a load of steak that had fallen his way off the back of a lorry. You’d call it stealing nowadays and Bill supposed it was, but no one really thought of it that way. Not at the time. It was just a way to get by. The advent of computerised systems saw the death of the dodgy geezer in the pub and goods falling off backs of lorries and to be honest Bill missed it. He missed those times.
His regular gang would meet up to play skittles or darts. No one thought twice about playing an away game on the other side of town, sinking 5 or 6 pints then getting in the car to drive home. That wouldn’t happen in this day and age, one thing that had changed for the better at least.
“Another pint please Becky. Yeah. I know, I may even go for four pints tonight. Last song Becky, I promise and then I’ll leave you in peace. Put on my grandson’s favourite band, they’re pretty rocky but ha! There’s life in this old dog yet you know. Turn it up a bit... Bit more... That’s it. I know, I know. You can’t turn it up too loud but there is no way that Foo Fighters can be listened to quietly. Remember that Robin Williams film, Good Morning Vietnam? Well this needs to be turned up as if Artillery Bob is listening. Just play it loud, ok?”
The slick, fast and relentless pace of Monkey Wrench began, definitely not as loud as he would like, but it would have to do. Bill had only recently begun listening to Foo Fighters. He had no memories of any of their tracks being played in the pub. He guessed at that point, around the late 90’s, the Wurlitzer had gone, replaced for being too big and taking up too much room, with a smaller CD version. You flicked through printed lists of albums, choosing songs as you chose a can of coke or packet of crisps from a vending machine. D7, followed by B12. The buttons would make a very satisfying clunk as they were pressed. The danger was you could end up listening to any old random and obscure album track if that was what took the fancy of your fellow punter.
Bill still found it hard to believe that the 90’s were almost 40 years ago. He refused to listen to any of the modern music. And by modern music he meant anything post 2020. He wanted no memories of the 10 years that had passed since then.
Bill knew he’d had more than his usual few pints. The room was rolling around him and he felt slightly wobbly on the stool. He knew what was coming. He thought playing loud rock music would head her off, but he should have known that it was inevitable. She had made sure of it. Of course she had made sure of it. He wouldn’t be allowed to wallow in drunken memories of the past too much or for too long.
Although part of him dreaded it, there was another part of him that relished the pain it caused because at least it made him feel alive for God’s sake. In a time when it was difficult to feel alive because everything was so bloody automated, so bloody computerised, so bloody impersonal, so bloody inhuman.
Bill looked up and sure enough, standing behind the bar was Sandy. He caught his breath, still thrown by emotion every time he saw her, trying to convince himself that each time it happened, he would be more in control, feel less emotional, less destroyed than before.
“Good evening my love.”
Sandy’s voice rolled over him in a tsunami of memories. Her voice. How he missed it. Singing, shouting, laughing, crying, cooing in baby talk, abrupt with annoyance, slurred after a few drinks. So many memories. Of joy and of pain. How was that even possible with one short sentence?
Bill breathed out unevenly, but calmly.
“Sandy, I’m ok, honestly I am. I’m enjoying myself. There’s no need for you to be here. Get Becky back”
“Oh Bill. Always the great pretender. This is exactly why me and the kids set up this Virtual Reality for you. Come on my love. I know you’ll never get over losing me to that damn awful virus. And I know how difficult it was and still is for you to not be able to visit the pub, the pub that’s been such a big part of you for all your life. But this is why we set it up this way. This virtual reality will always be there to provide you with a barmaid to talk to and poured pints of beer. And of course, the music, always the music but when you begin to get to the maudlin part of your evening, then it’s time for me to appear, to tell you to switch it off and go to bed. See? I still get to nag you even now I’m gone. There’s not many wives that can say that, is there?”
Bill did as he always did. He smiled broadly at Sandy, feeling slightly ridiculous because the tears that were pouring from his eyes had nowhere to escape, so simply pooled up behind his mask, like a diver with a leak. And it did feel as if he was drowning.
He put his hand out towards her, wishing it would connect with warm flesh rather than the cold metal casing of his VR set. Sometimes he wished he had been taken by coronavirus at the same time as Sandy. Nothing was the same with it or without her.
They lived through the 2020 outbreak, thought everything was going to be ok but then 3 years later she’d caught it and died, followed swiftly by his brother. His son followed during the 2025 outbreak and he almost gave up completely then, but he had grandkids to think of. So, this was it. What he was left with. A VR recording to remind him every night of who and what he’d lost.
“Goodnight Sandy. I love you.”
And he removed his headset.
Written by Michelle Blackwell
I worked as a sign maker for many years but sold my business to spend more time with my teenagers (mainly as a taxi service) and to do more things I want to do rather than have to. I've always read prolifically but not really written much since I was a kid. I'm loving this opportunity to go back to doing something I used to love.