Daughter of Mine

Have we to be totally unaware of the two men walking towards us so deliberately, Lizzie thought. It seemed that way, and they’d reached the table before Tressa appeared to see them and Lizzie had her first good look. Both were tall, she noticed, and one had sandy-coloured hair and grey eyes and his mouth was wide and full, his whole attitude one of laughter and fun. His friend, though, was a different kettle of fish altogether, his countenance graver and his attitude altogether more serious. His hair was nearly black, his nose long and mouth thin, but his eyebrows seemed so prominent they almost hid his deep brown eyes.

Lizzie didn’t take to him at all, but the other man seemed to have eyes only for Tressa. They asked if they might sit for a while and talk to the ladies, and as Tressa was more than willing there was little Lizzie could say. They introduced themselves: the one enamoured with Tressa was Mike Malone, and the other one, Steve Gillespie. Lizzie sat and sipped her punch and listened to them talking. Both came from a place called Edgbaston, they said, only a short distance away, where they lived just a street apart. They’d been friends since their first day at St Catherine’s School and both were in full-time work, in the brass industry. ‘We’re lucky,’ Mike said. ‘And we know it, with so many unemployed now.’

They heard of Mike’s two elder sisters, now married and away from home. ‘I’m the youngest too,’ Tressa said. ‘Lizzie says I’m spoilt.’

Lizzie opened her mouth to say something, but Mike forestalled her. ‘Never,’ he said. ‘Such a beautiful girl cannot be spoilt. And I love your accents.’

‘Your names sound Irish too,’ Tressa said. ‘But your accents don’t.’

‘Our dads were both from Ireland,’ Steve answered. ‘But we’ve been brought up here. My father has no love of Ireland, for he had a hard time there after he was orphaned at the age of seven.’

Lizzie would have asked more questions, but Mike would not allow it. He forbade all talk of sadness and fetched more punch for the girls and a Guinness each for themselves, before leading Tressa onto the dance floor.

Steve watched Lizzie’s eyes as they followed Tressa and he said, ‘You don’t want to dance, do you?’

It was said ungraciously and Lizzie didn’t want to dance, at least not with Steve. She didn’t even want to sit with him. He unnerved her. She wanted to say she needed the Ladies, but she could hardly skulk there all night, and anyway, Tressa would root her out and be furious with her. So she said, ‘No, no, it’s all right.’

‘Your glass is empty, I’ll get us a refill,’ Steve said, and Lizzie was surprised. She couldn’t remember drinking the punch at all, but she took a big drink of the glass that Steve brought her as he talked of his father, who’d fought in the Great War as a volunteer. ‘He was injured, my father,’ Steve went on. ‘Had his leg shot to pieces and it probably saved his life.’

‘Have you any brothers or sisters?’ Lizzie asked. Her voice, she realised, was nothing like her own. It was thicker and the words were harder to form.

‘Yeah, one brother, Neil. He’s five years younger than me. I’m the golden boy, though, even above my father in my mother’s eyes.’

‘Oh.’

‘Oh yes. If I told my mother to jump, she’d just say, “How high”?’

‘I pity the girl you marry then.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Steve said, and his hand caressing Lizzie’s made her insides jump about uncomfortably. ‘I have good points too, Lizzie Clooney,’ he said in a husky whisper. ‘And many ways of making a woman very happy.’

Lizzie withdrew her hand and Steve laughed, and Lizzie drained her glass of punch, for she didn’t know how to react. But when he took her by the hand and led her onto the dance floor, she went willingly. Even when she felt his hands slide across her bottom as they waltzed to ‘The Blue Danube’, and his lips nuzzle her neck in the darker corners of the room, she found she didn’t mind at all. In fact, she liked it.

Tressa was happy to dance with Mike for the rest of the night, and Lizzie thought dancing with Steve wasn’t so bad and better than sitting on her own at the table. At some stage, as the night wore on, Lizzie was brought more punch, and after she’d drunk it she found it hard to stand up, let alone dance, and Steve took her outside. ‘You’ll feel better with some air,’ he said.

Lizzie hoped she would. She felt distinctly odd. Her legs refused to obey her and so did her mouth. She wondered what was the matter with her and she was glad of Steve’s arm around her.

Steve Gillespie had been attracted by the young girl since he’d first spotted her, and though he’d seen that Mike had been smitten with her cousin, she was nothing besides Lizzie. Lizzie was a real beauty.

Steve also knew the girl was virtually untouched, probably never even been kissed properly. She was now very drunk and he could guess that it was probably the first time she’d been in this state too, and she would be putty in his hands, if he so desired it. However, he didn’t want to scare her off altogether and so he decided he would proceed very slowly. So, when they reached the darkened entry, he kissed her, but gently on the lips and held her close.

Lizzie responded to Steve’s kisses. It was her first sexual experience and she felt faint urges tugging at her. Steve wasn’t used to such innocence and usually he was out for all he could get with a woman, but he felt an attraction for Lizzie that he had never experienced before. He felt a thrill of excitement when Lizzie groaned as he kissed her neck and throat. He kissed her more passionately, though he didn’t prise her lips open with his tongue, feeling that would frighten her. He felt the kirby grips she’d fashioned her hair up with fall to the floor as he held her head, and then he ran his fingers through the freed locks and buried his face in Lizzie’s neck. ‘Oh, Lizzie.’

The name, whispered so huskily, awakened her a little more and, greatly daring, she put her hands either side of Steve’s face and kissed him hungrily. She’d never had a real kiss, but for all that she was excited by feelings she didn’t understand, and when Steve ran his hands over her she didn’t object.

Steve was surprised, and supposed it was the alcohol she’d consumed that was making her so compliant. When she continued to kiss him and pressed her body close against his, he could not resist trying to go further. With his arm around her, he cupped one of her breasts, and when Lizzie didn’t push him away he felt the heat of desire flow through his body and his fumbling fingers began unbuttoning the bodice of her gown.

Lizzie, even in her hazy state, reacted strongly. ‘Stop it, Steve! What are you doing?’

‘Showing you how much I care for you,’ Steve said huskily, tightening his arms around her. ‘Ah, come on, Lizzie? Don’t stop now.’

‘No,’ Lizzie said, pulling away from him. ‘I’m not that sort of girl.’ She began to do up the buttons, unaware in her tipsy state that she’d clumsily buttoned herself up wrongly and left two buttons undone entirely. ‘I want to go back in now,’ she said, and Steve didn’t protest. He knew he had gone too far and too fast, and he also knew if he wanted to have a chance to see this beautiful girl again he would have to proceed slowly.

Tressa, coming into the hall, intending to look for Lizzie, saw them come in. When she saw the state of Lizzie, her flushed cheeks, messed-up hair falling about her face and unbuttoned bodice, she thought Lizzie and Steve had been up to far more than they had. She was mightily glad Mike hadn’t come with her and there were no other witness either, and also glad the Ladies led off the hall. With a glare at Steve that should have rendered him senseless on the floor, she shoved Lizzie into the Ladies to try and repair the damage.

‘You bloody little fool,’ she admonished as she wiped Lizzie’s face with her handkerchief, which she had dampened under the tap. ‘You haven’t the sense you were born with. Why did you agree to go outside with him in the first place?’

Lizzie looked at Tressa with an inane grin on her face. For the life of her she couldn’t understand why Tressa was cross. ‘For air,’ she said. ‘I was hot.’

‘Hot, my foot,’ Tressa cried. ‘The state you’re in, Steve Gillespie could have taken advantage of you.’ Might have taken advantage of you, she thought, but didn’t put in to words.

But what she said got through to Lizzie’s befuddled brain. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’m a good girl, Tressa.’

‘Aye, course you are,’ Tressa said sarcastically, buttoning Lizzie’s bodice up correctly. ‘Turn round and I’ll see if I can do something with this hair, and then I’m getting you a big glass of water and you are going to drink it. That punch is alcoholic, you know; Mike told me. I took to orange afterwards.’ Lizzie heard the words but they didn’t seem to matter. Nothing did, and she just grinned again. Tressa sighed and said wearily, ‘What’s the use of talking to you? Turn around and let me see if I can work some sort of miracle.’

There were not enough grips to put Lizzie’s hair up the way it had been and Tressa was forced to leave some of it loose, but it looked good even so. When Lizzie had obediently drunk the water, Tressa, surveying her, thought she’d done the best she could in the circumstances and led her back onto the dance floor.

Steve was sitting with Mike, and when he saw Lizzie framed for a moment in the doorway he thought he’d never seen anyone lovelier. Her face was no longer flushed and she had regained her creamy complexion, and her hair, though tidy, was now allowing waves to fall down her back and tendrils of it framed her face. He stepped forward quickly to claim Lizzie before someone else did, a large glass of punch in his hand. She lifted it to her lips, her eyes met Tressa’s, who raised hers to the ceiling as Lizzie took a large gulp.

The next morning, when Lizzie opened her eyes because Tressa was shaking her, she felt as if she’d fallen into the pit of Hell. A thousand hammers were beating in her head, her eyes throbbed and she felt sick. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘No way will I,’ Tressa said. She was glad the other two girls that shared the room were not there, for they were on breakfasts this morning while she and Lizzie weren’t on duty until six, and looking at her cousin’s comatose frame she was glad of it.

Tressa expected Lizzie to feel bad. Mike had said she’d have a bad head when she woke in the morning. They’d had to nearly carry her home and she’d almost tumbled down the stairs as Tressa forced her up them, her arm around Lizzie’s waist; and now she lay like one dead, while Tressa’s insides were filled with delicious excitement at seeing Mike again, and she was letting no drunken cousin spoil it. ‘Get up!’ she commanded, giving Lizzie a shove.

‘I can’t.’

‘You can and you bloody will. We’ve got Mass at eleven o’clock and the fellows are going to meet us outside.’

‘The fellows! What fellows?’

‘God, Lizzie! What fellows do you think? Mike and Steve, of course. We arranged it yesterday. Don’t you remember?’

Lizzie shook her head, but gently. She remembered very little, but she recalled her earlier feelings about Steve. ‘I don’t think I like Steve much,’ she said.

Tressa looked at her scornfully. ‘Oh aye,’ she retorted sarcastically. ‘Is that why you danced with him all night and went out with him into the night, arm in arm, and came back with your hair looking like you’d been pulled through a hedge backwards and your bodice nearly unbuttoned?’

Lizzie sat bolt upright in the bed, putting her hands to her aching head as she did so and fighting nausea. ‘I didn’t,’ she breathed, horrified. ‘Say I didn’t?’

‘You did. You were all over him and his hands were everywhere when you danced and you never said a word. You couldn’t get close enough. Even when we sat down, you sat on Steve’s knee and nuzzled into his neck. It was embarrassing. Do you remember none of it?’

‘No. Oh God!’ Lizzie said. ‘I can’t even remember how I got home.’

‘They walked back with us,’ Tressa said. ‘I could never have managed you on my own. I told you that punch was alcoholic, for all the good it did. You just kept knocking it back.’

Lizzie couldn’t remember Tressa telling her that, couldn’t remember anything much. But, whether she could remember it or not hardly mattered. According to Tressa, those glasses of punch had caused her to do God knows what with a person she had just met and in her sober moments hadn’t cared for. The evils of drink—Jesus Christ! Her mother had been right all along.And she felt so ill. ‘Tressa, I feel like death. I don’t think I’ll make Mass this morning,’ she said.

Tressa laughed. ‘You’re hammered, and for the first time in your life, I bet,’ she said. ‘Your mother would be scandalised.’

‘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.

CHAPTER THREE

Because of the girls’ shifts, it was the 23rd 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.