‘It’s not funny.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Tressa said. ‘And you’re not spoiling my Sunday off because you got drunk last night. We wouldn’t have got home at all if Steve hadn’t nearly carried you to the door, and I nearly broke my neck getting you in the room. When we got here, you lay on the bed and began to laugh. The other girls were none too pleased being woken up, I can tell you.’
‘I woke them up!’
‘Not just them I shouldn’t think,’ Tressa said with gusto, laying it on. ‘God, you were in a state. I undressed
you because you were incapable of doing it yourself. I put on your nightdress and tucked you up, and you owe me. So get on your feet.’
‘I can’t, Tressa, I’ll throw up.’
‘Well then, throw up,’ Tressa said unsympathetically. ‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you it was better out than in? And when you’ve been sick, take a couple of aspirin, clean your teeth, wash your face and put on your clothes for Mass.’
‘Did anyone ever tell you how aggravating you are, and a bloody prig into the bargain?’ Lizzie said, getting to her feet with difficulty and a degree of caution. She was unable to wait for Tressa’s response to this, though, for she had to run to the bathroom, her hand to her mouth, while Tressa’s tinkling laugh followed her down the corridor.
Steve noticed Lizzie’s pallor as soon as she emerged from the church and guessed the reason for it. He felt sorry for her, certain that the previous night had been her first brush with alcohol.
She was so embarrassed in front of him. She could scarcely meet his eyes, and though he thought she’d remember little of the previous night, he knew her cousin would have filled in any gaps and probably with embellishment.
‘Where shall we go?’ Mike asked. ‘The day is too raw for walking much. I fancy a pub somewhere.’
‘Somewhere where we can get food would be nice,’ Tressa said. ‘My stomach thinks my throat is cut.’
‘Of course, Communion,’ Mike said. ‘What about the Old Joint Stock?’
Tressa made a face. ‘No, they don’t do food. Anyway, it’s too close.’ It was just down the road from the hotel, near to Snow Hill Station. ‘Half the hotel go in there from time to time.’
‘What about The Old Royal in Edmund Street?’
‘I don’t know if they do food either. I’ve never been in.’
‘What about you, Lizzie? Have you a preference?’
Oh God yes, she had a preference. It was to go back to the hotel, crawl into bed and let the world go on without her, that’s what her preference was. Catching sight of Tressa’s face, she knew that if she voiced those thoughts her life wouldn’t be worth living. ‘No, not really.’
‘Tell you what,’ Steve said suddenly, ‘let’s go down Digbeth Way. We can cut down by the Bull Ring and there’s hundreds of pubs there and we’re bound to find one doing lunches.’
‘Aye, and the walk will give us an appetite.’
‘God, I don’t need to walk to give me an appetite,’ Tressa said. ‘If I don’t eat soon I might go mad altogether.’
‘What d’you mean,
go
mad?’ Mike said with a laugh, and when Tressa went to hit him with her handbag he caught her around the waist instead and kissed her on the lips.
Lizzie was shocked at Tressa behaving that way in daylight and in front of a church too. She saw Mike now had his arm around Tressa and both were laughing and looking at each other in such a way that Lizzie felt suddenly shut out.
Steve saw it too. When he draped an arm over her
she wanted to protest at the familiarity, but then she remembered Tressa’s account of how she’d behaved with the selfsame man just the previous evening and felt she could say nothing.
‘How about you, Lizzie?’ Mike asked. ‘Are you hungry too?’
Lizzie gave a brief shake of her head, but regretted it immediately for it started the thumping pain again. ‘No,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I’m not hungry at all, and even the thought of food makes me feel sick.’
‘You need some of Uncle Steve’s medicine,’ Steve told her.
‘Uncle Steve’s medicine? What’s that?’
‘You’ll soon find out,’ he said with a smile.
‘Brandy,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’ve never had brandy in my life.’
She felt the nausea rise in her throat as Mike said, ‘You’ve not lived. Drink it down, it’ll settle your stomach.’
She looked around at them all watching her in this little old pub called The Woodman, chosen because it had a restaurant on the side, and she wondered if Steve was right, for the different smells of alcohol, cigarette smoke and food cooking were making her feel incredibly sick. She’d die of embarrassment if she was sick in front of everyone, and Tressa would kill her altogether.
Lizzie picked up her balloon glass and looked at the amber liquid. ‘There’s an awful lot of it.’
‘I asked for a double,’ Steve said. ‘I thought it an extreme case. Get it down you.’
‘It smells awful,’ Lizzie moaned, putting the glass down. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Course you could,’ Tressa snapped. ‘For God’s sake, Lizzie, you’re not putting it up your nose. Don’t be such a wet blanket.’
Steve put his arm around Lizzie and said gently, ‘Trust your Uncle Steve, he’s had more hangovers than you’ve had hot dinners, and I know this will make you feel better. Hair of the dog, d’you see.’
Lizzie didn’t see at all, but suddenly she put the glass to her lips and took a gulp. It was like the very worst medicine she’d ever tasted and it burned her throat and made her eyes water, but even as she coughed and spluttered she felt the warmth of it trickling down her throat.
‘Treat it with care,’ Steve said, touched by Lizzie’s naivety, his arm still around her. ‘Sip it.’
Lizzie warmed to Steve for his patience and understanding, and when she had emptied the brandy glass she had to admit it did settle her stomach, but it went straight to her head and made it swim. However, that felt quite pleasant and was better by far than the pounding ache.
When Mike came back with the news that he had a table booked for one o’clock, even Lizzie didn’t dread it so much; and when Steve bought her and Tressa a port, the drink Tressa had had previously, Lizzie took it without a murmur, and liked the dark, slightly sweet drink much better than the brandy.
Lizzie and Tressa had been introduced to wine with the meal and neither were keen. Lizzie drank sparingly anyway, for the port and brandy had made her feel strange enough and she hoped they weren’t to stop in
there all afternoon, though it was no day to be outside either. Mike and Steve must have felt the same, for as they finished their apple pie and custard, Mike said, ‘How d’you two feel about the pictures?’
Lizzie was delighted. Since arriving in Birmingham she’d been many times to the pictures with Tressa and liked nothing better. ‘What’s on?’ she asked. ‘
The Blue Angel
is on at the Odeon on New Street,’ Steve said. ‘I noticed on the way here. It stars Marlene Dietrich. Fancy that?’
‘Oh yes,’ Tressa said. ‘Neither of us have seen that.’
Steve was very attentive to Lizzie as they prepared to leave, fetching her coat and helping her into it, and taking her arm once outside. The wind had come up and icy spears of rain were attacking them, and Lizzie was glad of Steve’s arms encircling her, holding her so close she was able to semi-bury her head into his coat.
Steve felt ten-foot tall holding this slight-framed girl in his arms. He’d had many sexual experiences and with a variety of women, for he was a highly sexed man, but never had his heart been stirred before. But it was stirred now all right, in fact it had been churned up right and proper, and the prospect of her beside him in the dark of the cinema filled him with excitement.
Lizzie was delighted by the chocolates Steve presented her with in the cinema, but puzzled when he led her into the back row. Nevertheless, she presumed he had just followed Mike and Tressa, who were in front of them, and she sank into the seat in contentment.
No one had ever bought her a box of chocolates
before and she took off the wrapper and looked in amazement at the selection. ‘All right?’ Steve asked.
‘More than all right, much more,’ Lizzie said, and, leaning over, she kissed Steve on the cheek. ‘Thank you.’
Steve felt expectation fill his body and Lizzie gave a sigh of contentment as the lights dimmed and she sat back to enjoy the film.
Evidently, Steve was uninterested in the film, for it had barely started when she felt his arm trail around her neck. She made no protest, though, until his hand cupped her breast, and then she gasped in shock. She shrugged her shoulder, hoping to dislodge his hand without disturbing the people in front of them. Steve, thinking Lizzie’s gasp was one of pleasure, began kissing and then gently biting her neck.
Lizzie threw Steve’s arm off roughly and moved away, sitting up straight in her seat. ‘Stop it.’
‘What? Stop what?’
‘All that sort of carry on.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Lizzie.’
‘Look, whatever impression you had of me at the dance, I’m not that sort of girl.’
‘You could have fooled me.’
‘Yes, well, now you know.’
‘You agreed quick enough to come into the back row.’
‘Ssh,’ said someone in front of them. ‘Go and have your row someplace else. We’ve bought tickets for this film and want to see and hear it.’
‘Sorry,’ Lizzie responded, flaming with embarrassment.
Steve was smiling, but in the darkness she couldn’t see that. ‘Look around you,’ he whispered in her ear.
She did, and though she could see little she knew some of the people were in very odd positions altogether and her eyes widened in shock when she thought she saw Mike’s hand inside Tressa’s clothes. Maybe, she thought, you said you were up for things like that when you agreed to go into the back row. She didn’t know the rules for this place. They’d never had any type of cinema in Ballintra, but she had no intention of forgetting herself.
‘We’ll hold hands,’ she said.
‘Hold hands!’ Steve cried in dismay. He’d forgotten to lower his voice and the people in front glared around at them. ‘I’ll have a word with the usherette if you don’t pack it in.’
Mortified, Lizzie grasped Steve’s hand firmly. After all, she told herself, she hardly knew the man and he wasn’t her type at all. Holding hands was really all he could expect.
Steve held hands, knowing he’d get no further and would only worsen things if he was to insist or try and force Lizzie; but never had he sat and just held hands before, especially if he’d bought drinks and chocolates. This time he’d even splashed out on a meal as well. Most girls would be more than grateful and not averse to a bit of slap and tickle themselves. Look at Tressa with Mike. Christ, he envied him, but his Lizzie sat rigid and he knew if he wanted to win her he’d have to play by her rules, for now at least.
Because of the girls’ shifts, it was the 23
rd
of December before Tressa and Lizzie saw Mike and Steve again, when they were taken to a theatre called The Alex to see
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
‘A fairy story!’ Lizzie cried in disbelief.
‘It’s a pantomime,’ Steve said.
‘What’s a pantomime?’
‘You’ll see.’
And Lizzie saw. She saw a sort of play with music, where the principal boy was a girl dressed up and the crowd were encouraged to boo and hiss and cheer and clap and some of the jokes were so suggestive they made her face flame. She wasn’t at all sure if she enjoyed it or not, but the others seemed to and so she said nothing. Then, they were taken to the Old Joint Stock for a few drinks before being delivered back to the hotel.
Tressa was happily tipsy and confided to Lizzie when they reached their room that she was in love with Mike.
‘How can you be?’ Lizzie demanded, shocked. ‘You’ve only just met.’
‘Sometimes a person just knows these things.’
Lizzie was still doubtful, but whether Tressa was in love with Mike or not, Lizzie knew that with their shift rota there would be little chance of her seeing Mike before the New Year. Christmas was almost upon them, one of the busiest periods of all at the hotel, where time off was minimal or altogether non-existent, and any free time they did have was usually spent sleeping the deep sleep of the totally exhausted.
All Tressa could talk about, though, was Mike. ‘I love him,’ she declared. ‘Wait till you love someone, you’ll sing a different tune then. It’ll hit you like a ton of bricks, I bet.’
‘Maybe,’ Lizzie said. ‘We’ll have to wait and see. It hasn’t yet anyway, and remember, when you marry it’s for life, Tressa.’
‘I know that,’ Tressa replied, ‘but if I wait a lifetime I’ll want no one else. How d’you feel about Steve?’
‘He’s all right.’
‘Come on, why don’t you give the man a chance?’
‘I have. I am. I just don’t feel that way about him.’
‘He’s smitten with you.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘You just do, the way he looks at you. His eyes never leave you. You must have noticed.’
Had she, and refused to acknowledge it? She didn’t know, but it was obvious Tressa was right because when they next went out with Mike and Steve in January, Steve asked her to tea the following Sunday to meet his parents, as she was free until seven o’clock that evening.
‘Why don’t you want to go?’ Tressa asked later. ‘I’m going to see Mike’s.’
‘I know, but you and Mike…well, it’s different.’
‘Lizzie, all you have to do is smile and be polite. What’s so hard?’
‘It’s not that. It’s the complexion Steve will put on it. It means something, surely, when you meet the parents?’ Lizzie bit on her thumbnail in consternation. ‘I mean, maybe it would be better to end it now, stop him getting ideas.’
No way did Tressa want Lizzie doing that, but she didn’t say this. Instead, she said, ‘How will you tell him? Do you know where he lives?’
‘No, well, only vaguely.’
‘So, you’re going to wait until he comes, when everyone’s gone to the trouble, made tea and all sorts, and you’ll let him go back alone to face their ridicule and scorn?’
Lizzie hadn’t thought of that. ‘You think it’s better to go through with it then?’
‘I think it’s the only thing to do now. You should have told him straight at the time.’
‘I meant to. He sort of took me aback a bit.’
‘Well, I think you’ve got to see it through now,’ Tressa told her, and Lizzie knew in her heart of hearts that Tressa was right.
Edgbaston was Lizzie’s first experience of back-to-back housing. Steve and Mike had come to meet the girls and as they alighted from the tram on Bristol Street, which was another first for them both, they all went up Bristol Passage, and at the top both girls stood and stared. Lizzie was in shock, and so, she saw, was Tressa. Nothing in their lives so far had prepared them for
anything like these cramped and crowded houses, squashed together in front of grey pavements and grey cobbled roads. And so many of them: they went on and on, street after street of them. Even when Lizzie had seen the beggars and poor in the market, she’d not thought of them living in places like this. She’d not think of anyone living in places like this. Her father’s calves were better housed.
The two men didn’t seem to notice the girls’ disquiet. ‘We’ve come to the parting of the ways now,’ Mike said. ‘You go straight up Grant Street, so we’ll see you later.’
When they moved off, Steve put his arm around Lizzie. ‘All right?’
Whatever she felt privately, Lizzie told herself this place was Steve’s home, and she hadn’t any right to criticise it. How would she feel if she took him to Ireland and he tore her family’s farm apart? And so she said, ‘Aye, I’m grand.’
‘It’s bound to be a bit strange at first.’
‘Aye.’
‘And it’s natural to be nervous.’
‘Aye.’
‘Can you say anything other than “Aye”?’ Steve said with a grin, and Lizzie smiled back and answered in the same vein: ‘Aye.’
Steve’s parents’ house was number thirty-five, halfway up the hill, and it opened onto the street. ‘We’ll go in the entry door,’ Steve said, and led the way down a long, dark tunnel between two houses, where there was a door on either side. He turned the handle and went in, but not before Lizzie had had a
glimpse of the cobbled yard the entry led to with washing lines criss-crossing the place and three toddlers playing in the dirt and grime.
Steve, following her gaze, said, ‘Normally this place is teeming with children. The bad weather today is keeping most of them inside.’
‘Aye,’ Lizzie said again, and ignored Steve’s sardonic grin as she wondered where in God’s name the teeming children played. But she had no time to frame this question, for Steve had gone inside and Lizzie had no option but to follow.
To the left of the entry door was a scullery of sorts, with a sink with lidded buckets beneath it and shelves to one side. There was no tap, and Lizzie wondered at that. Yawning cellar steps were directly in front of her and there was a door to the side which was ajar, and which was where the family were assembled to meet Lizzie.
Lizzie saw there was just one small-paned window letting light in, and that was covered with curtains of lace and heavier curtains of blue brocade hanging on either side. ‘So you’re here then,’ said a thin, sour woman Lizzie assumed to be Steve’s mother.
‘As you see, Ma, as you see.’
Now she had time to study the woman, Lizzie saw she had many of the same features as Steve and thought it odd that though they turned Steve into a handsome and presentable man, they turned his mother grimfaced and surly looking, unless it was life itself that had given her that discontented air.
Steve’s father was introduced as Rodney and was just a little taller than his wife, and Steve’s brother Neil
was the same. Both had sandy hair and pale brown eyes, their noses had little shape and they had slack lips and an indeterminate chin, while Steve’s was chiselled and firm. Lizzie wondered if Neil resented his brother at all, for he was obviously at the back of the queue when good looks were given out. Beside his tall, brawny brother, he looked like a wee boy, and when he shook her hand his was clammy and limp and his father’s little better. It was like shaking hands with a warm, wet fish.
But she was to soon learn much of Neil’s rancour was caused by his mother, and it had nothing to do with looks or size, for, as Steve had boasted the first time Lizzie had met him, Flo only had eyes for her eldest son. He was the light of her life, and in case there should be any doubts, Flo went into a litany of how good, honest, upright, decent, respectable, etc. Steve was. What a marvellous son, a tremendous man altogether, and, she inferred, Lizzie was lucky to have him.
The point was, Lizzie didn’t want him. Flo could keep him by her side a wee while longer, but now wasn’t the time to say so.
It was a comfortable and well-furnished room, Lizzie had to admit. A brass clock was set on the mantelshelf below the picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that familiar picture in all Catholic homes. A selection of brass ornaments were either side of the clock, and a shop-bought, fluffy blue rug was before the gleaming brass fender. Dark blue armchairs and a matching settee, each scattered with cushions of pale blue and cream, were pulled in front of the fire, which was
roaring up the chimney. The linen, lace-edged arm covers on the chairs matched the antimacassars draped across the backs of the chairs and settee. Against the wall was a sideboard with a runner across the length of it and a large oval mirror above. Brass candlesticks stood each end of the runner with a potted aspidistra in the middle.
Lizzie guessed the table against the other wall matched the sideboard, for the ladder-backed chairs around it certainly did, but it had a tablecloth of lace covering it.
In one of the chimney recesses were shelves holding some books and a few toby jugs, but the wall the other side was covered in photographs of Steve. The brothers were so unlike each other, both in looks and stature, there was no mistaking them. There was just the one picture Lizzie could see that had been taken when Steve looked to be about ten and Neil about five. The rest were all of Steve: one of him as a baby on a lambskin rug, then as a toddler and a schoolboy. Steve’s First Communion was also documented, as was his Confirmation, and him in his new suit for the occasion, and another where he wore new overalls, checked shirt and shiny new boots, probably for his first day at work. There were none of anyone else.
The visit could not be considered a success. She knew afterwards that, whatever she’d done or said wouldn’t have been right, for the talk was stilted and false, and though the tea was adequate and well-prepared it felt like sawdust in Lizzie’s mouth. I pity the girl who eventually takes Steve on, she thought, for Flo will make
her life a misery. Thank the Lord it’s not going to be me!
Eventually, Lizzie ran out of things to say and there was an uncomfortable silence for a minute or two before Rodney Gillespie began on his favourite topic: hatred of the Irish generally and Ireland in particular. ‘I was found by the parish priest when I was but seven years old,’ he said, ‘and all about me were dead or dying of TB. He took me in and tended me and apprenticed me to a brass worker in Birmingham the week after my eighth birthday.’
Lizzie did feel for the old man for Steve had explained some of the work they did the night they’d gone to the Old Joint Stock after the pantomime. He’d told Lizzie how the copper and zinc were turned into molten brass in furnaces that burned white-hot, and how they had to carry heavy ladles of it to pour into crucibles. He spoke of the heat and the danger and the way hands grew cracked and calloused and how bare backs ran with sweat all the day long, and of how his father had been at the work since he’d been a young boy.
‘Ah, God, for a wee child to be in such a place,’ she’d said.
‘Yeah, it was a hard life for him I think,’ Steve told her. ‘The apprentice was always the whipping boy, the one who got the toe of someone’s boot in his behind if he slackened at all, or spilt precious metal. Yet he has a love of England and brass, for he says it’s given him a home. There was always enough food for us, bags of coal and warm clothes and boots for the winter and blankets for the bed. My mother has never had to pawn.’
Lizzie had never heard the word pawn, so Steve had explained it to her, but she’d understood the rest: how a young boy was given the gift of life, and a good life, though a hard one. But now she saw he was revelling in this story that he must have told often, almost enjoying it, when life for many was hard then. So when he said, ‘Ireland took everything from me: parents, brothers and sisters,’ Lizzie said,
‘I thought it was tuberculosis did that?’
And then she nearly jumped out of her skin as Rodney’s hand slammed the table with such ferocity the crockery rattled. ‘Tuberculosis wouldn’t have taken hold if they’d all had the right food, and a decent cottage rather than the stinking hovel we had, and money for medicines,’ he thundered. ‘Ireland is no friend of mine.’
No one said a word after that, and the silence was strained. Lizzie left as soon as she decently could.
‘Don’t start my father on about Ireland if you don’t want a tirade,’ Steve warned later as they made their way to the tram stop. ‘He’s a mild-mannered man in most things but that, and he can’t bear being contradicted.’
‘Well, we might not meet again, so it will hardly matter.’
‘Of course you will, you silly girl.’
Lizzie decided she couldn’t let Steve go on in blissful ignorance of how she felt, and so she said gently, ‘Don’t read too much in to this, Steve.’
‘In to what?’
‘This visit to meet your parents.’
‘What’re you on about?’
‘I’m not ready for anything serious, not with you or anyone yet.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Steve said. ‘When you agreed to come it meant…well, it means something. Why did you come if you feel like that?’
The tram pulled up then and Steve waited until they were seated before he said, ‘It was him, wasn’t it, that put you off: the old man, and our poker-faced Neil.’
‘No, it wasn’t them.’ Lizzie tried to explain without hurting Steve’s feelings too much. ‘I admit I was alarmed by the way your father reacted, but that isn’t the reason I’ve said I don’t want anything serious. I…I just don’t want to be tied down.’
‘I ain’t in no hurry for marriage,’ Steve said. ‘But you can still be my girl, can’t you?’
‘No, Steve.’
‘Look, it’s how it is: Tressa and Mike, and me and you.’
‘Tressa and Mike have got nothing to do with us. We’re separate people.’
‘Mike won’t see it that way. We’re marras, mates, like, and if I tell him this he’ll chuck your cousin without a thought.’
‘He wouldn’t.’
‘Yeah, he would.’
Lizzie wondered if Steve was right. She remembered Tressa’s face earlier that day, the adoring looks she kept giving Mike. She had it bad, Lizzie knew that, and she also knew she couldn’t live with herself if she was to be the cause of the break-up.