She realised that once again it was quite possible she’d linked up with a gambler, for Baz himself was a regular at the poker tables. But if so at least this gambler was successful, and she was not personally involved with him. Baz was merely convenient for business. At least that’s what she told herself. Baz was actually indispensable for business.

The Gaming Room was of course illegal, but they kept it discreet, and Val had decided early on that gambling wouldn’t be likely to cause as much of a problem with the law as prostitution.

These days, however, she’d changed her mind. Since the takeover of the town by the military, brothels were springing up all over the place, and despite disapproval from some local quarters, no-one was going to close them down. Certainly not the military, and therefore not the government. The military – who had the government in their collective pocket – were only too happy for troops to ‘satisfy their basic male urges’ with prostitutes rather than risk any form of emotional and lasting involvement with a woman, thereby losing focus upon the job at hand, which was to fight a war. The military, and most particularly the Americans, so far from home, were quite happy to have prostitutes available to service their men.

Val had wondered briefly about whether she should take advantage of this newfound freedom and the semi-official sanction afforded otherwise-illegal brothels. But no, she decided, those days were over. She liked being a publican.

Not that she was ashamed of her past. She didn’t dine out on it, certainly, but nor did she bother hiding her background. Who cares, she thought. On the odd occasion when a man recognised her and made some intentionally smartarse, smutty ‘Caravan Callahan’ comment intended to humiliate, she’d come back with a riposte of her own.

‘Oh, those were the days, mate,’ she’d say with a friendly smile. ‘Nice you remember me. Don’t remember you, I’m afraid. You must have been a dud.’

Nope, Val thought, I don’t care if there’s big money to be had in brothels, I’ll stick with my pub just being a pub.

She looked fondly at her girls, Betty and Jill. They were the daughters she’d lost all those years ago in little Daisy. They’re my Daisy all grown up, she thought. Course they’ve got mums of their own, and bloody good mums at that, but no harm feeling motherly is there? And I wouldn’t want one of my girls on the game. All the more reason for not opening a brothel.

She watched as Ben, having delivered the beers to his friends, returned to the bar, a bit of a swagger in his step, determined to chat up Betty. Betty kept working away, serving customers, wiping down the counter and transferring empty glasses to the sink behind her, all the while fielding his flirtatious chat with ease.