by Anne Bennett
‘I don’t care.’
‘You didn’t want me face messed up, is that it?’
‘I didn’t want you hurt at all,’ Lizzie said.
‘I didn’t think you cared.’
‘Of course I care.’
Steve pressed her close. ‘You don’t know how good it makes me feel when you say things like that.’
Lizzie’s heart gave a lurch. She didn’t mean it that way at all, but before she was able to explain this Steve had grabbed her arm. ‘Look, there’s the man who lies on the bed of nails,’ he said, and taking her hand he pulled her into the ring of onlookers watching the man, lying seemingly unconcerned.
‘Who’d like to stand on my stomach?’ the man said as they approached, scanning the women in the crowd. ‘You, darling, or you? Come on. Don’t be shy. Promise I won’t look up your skirt.’
Eventually, a girl stepped forward. She would have been about Lizzie’s age, and she was out with a crowd of similar-aged girls who were egging her on. In horrified fascination, Lizzie watched the girl remove her shoes and step gingerly onto the man’s stomach. Lizzie was glad of Steve’s arm around her, glad that she could bury her face in his coat and not see the nails sinking into the man’s flesh to the sympathetic ‘ooh’s’ and ‘ah’s’ of the crowd.
Coins splattered into the bucket, but Steve led Lizzie away. The accordions and fiddles had begun their tunes, and as they passed the hot potato man, Steve bought them one each, served in a poke of paper folded into a triangle to protect hands.
The tunes being played at first reminded Lizzie of Ireland and they lifted her spirits. She had the urge to lift up her skirts and dance the jigs and reels of her youth, but she didn’t, for she guessed Steve wouldn’t like her to make such an exhibition of herself. She contented herself by leaning against Steve and tapping her foot to the music as she ate her potato. Then they changed to the popular songs of the music hall that Lizzie had learnt during her time in Birmingham. They began with, ‘By the Light of the Silvery Moon’ and went on to ‘Just a Song at Twilight’, before changing tempo to, ‘I’m Getting Married in the Morning’. By the time they’d got to ‘Daisy, Daisy’ the crowd had begun to sway and they really belted out ‘Roll Out the Barrel’, ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and ‘Knees up, Mother Brown’ before the musicians ended the impromptu concert with ‘The Old Bull and Bush’.
Lizzie had had a wonderful time, finishing off her visit to the Bull Ring singing the hymns with the Salvation Army band until they marched back to the Citadel with the tramps and the destitute trailing behind them, confident of a good feed. She acknowledged that Steve had been kind, generous and good fun to be with. He’d also been the perfect gentleman and had not done or said anything even mildly suggestive, and so she relaxed against him as they sauntered back to the pub for a drink before Steve would leave Lizzie at the back door of the hotel.
Steve had also felt the difference in Lizzie, but he put a totally different interpretation on her behaviour, especially when he remembered how she’d reacted at the boxing ring when there was the possibility he could have been hurt.
In the pub, they talked easily of that night and the things they’d seen, and they discussed the budding romance between Mike and Tressa. As they made their way back to the hotel, Lizzie realised she might have had a totally miserable time without Steve, for she’d not have wanted to tag along after Mike and Tressa, even if they had allowed her to, so at the doorway she said, ‘Thanks for tonight, Steve.’
‘S’all right. My pleasure.’
‘Well, I truly appreciated it,’ Lizzie continued. ‘I’ve had a wonderful time.’
It was on the tip of Steve’s tongue to say he could think of a more satisfactory way of finishing the evening, where she could show him just how appreciative she was. But he bit the words back. Nor did he force her lips open when she kissed him goodnight, though he was so filled with desire that he shook slightly, and his groin ached so much he knew he’d have to seek relief before he made for home that night. And yet, despite his frustration, he went home whistling because he really thought Lizzie was warming to him, as he’d prophesised she would in time.
CHAPTER FOUR
The days slid one into another and the girls went out to the pub, theatre, music hall, cinema or dancing, and when Lizzie could stop feeling guilty about leading Steve a dance she enjoyed herself immensely.
When the two girls had first come to England and explained they were cousins, the office staff had tried to work it so their free time co-ordinated. As they had each other, they didn’t need to make deep friendships with the others, though they liked them well enough, and Lizzie knew that if she hadn’t had Steve she’d have been a lot lonelier.
However, she didn’t think that was a good enough reason to go out with someone, but Steve seemed happy with it. What he wasn’t happy with was the way he’d got no further than a kiss on the lips, linking arms as they walked along the street and holding hands in the cinema.
He knew Mike was getting much further with Tressa, because Mike had told him, boasted of it even. Lizzie knew it too, but she wasn’t going down that road with a man she was dating almost as a convenience. So, when Steve asked her to go again to tea, she hesitated. She had no desire to go near the place, but she pleased Steve in so very little and he was incredibly generous buying drinks, dinners and tickets for the threatre or cinema with money he near sweated blood for. ‘Won’t they think…I mean we’re not a committed couple, are we?’
‘Who gives a sod what they think?’
‘Well you must. They are your family and they don’t seem to have taken to me at all. Not that that matters, except that I don’t know why you want me there.’
‘I just do,’ Steve said obstinately. ‘And it would please me if you came. They will behave better this time, I guarantee it. I’ve warned them all.’
Against her better judgement Lizzie went, and she found the atmosphere much as before. This time, in an attempt to stop Flo extolling the virtues of Steve, she tried to get to know his brother Neil. She didn’t like him much, for he’d been surly and barely polite at their first meeting and he hadn’t improved. But, she excused him. Surely such blatant favouritism of the first-born, who already had everything going for him, would affect anyone?
She knew Neil hadn’t gone into the brass industry like his father and brother, but had been taken on as an apprentice in a bespoke tailors’ in the Bull Ring. Steve had told her that and said it was a bone of contention in the family, but after the tea, which had been eaten in almost total silence, Lizzie asked Neil about his job. ‘We can make up a suit, with a waistcoat thrown in, for thirty bob,’ Neil said with a hint of pride. ‘You wouldn’t get me near brass. Makes old men out of young ones. You should see the state of this pair when they gets in of a night.’
‘It’s a living, ain’t it?’ Rodney growled.
‘Some living.’
‘You ungrateful sod!’ Rodney exploded. ‘Many of the barefoot, bare-arsed and starving kids around these doors would have been glad of their fathers working any damned place, and most of the poor buggers out of work that cluster on the street corners would give their right arms to earn half as much as me. You don’t get that kind of money sitting on your arse stitching clothes for toffs.’
‘Yeah,’ Steve put in. ‘Just how much do you put into the house, our kid?’
‘I know I don’t earn much yet,’ Neil said, ‘but when I finish my apprenticeship in two years I’ll be on a good enough wack.’
‘You mind they don’t finish you then,’ Rodney warned. ‘Happens in the factories all the time, and the bloody shipyards.’
‘They won’t.’
‘You’re sure of yourself,’ Steve said. ‘I hope you’re right. Sometimes you haven’t money to bless yourself with, never mind give a woman a good time.’ He put his arm around Lizzie, who was by his side. She didn’t shake him off, she wouldn’t shame him that way before his family, but she did wish she’d never started the
conversation that had developed into these heated words. In fact, if she was totally honest, she wished she’d never set eyes on Steve Gillespie and his dysfunctional family at all.
‘Give a woman a good time,’ Neil said sarcastically. ‘I know what manner of good time you like to give a woman. Maybe some of us are more choosy and like to keep it in their trousers more.’
Flo clouted Neil on the side of the head. ‘Less of that dirty talk.’
Neil looked across the room where Lizzie stood, her face crimson. ‘Dirty talk, Mom, dirty talk!’ he cried scornfully. ‘Why don’t you complain about the dirty deeds your sainted son gets up to.’
‘Shut your mouth!’ Lizzie felt the anger flooding through Steve, so even the arm he had around her shoulders trembled slightly and she saw the whitening of his fisted knuckles.
Neil ignored his brother and, addressing himself to Lizzie, said, ‘See, our Steve here likes variety, goes down the streets like a dose of salts, sampling them all.’
‘I said, shut your gob, or by Christ I’ll shut it for you.’
Lizzie put a hand on Steve’s arm and said gently, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ But Steve could tell by Neil’s sly eyes what he was going to say next unless he put a stop to it. He and Mike both had very high sex drives and when between girlfriends, or going out with girls that gave them little sexual satisfaction, or perhaps just for a change, they often frequented places where they could pick up a woman of the night. They never considered it a problem and it meant they didn’t have to force the girls they were dating to go further than they wanted to.
Often, after Steve left Lizzie he’d be so worked up that he’d be forced to seek solace elsewhere. How had Neil found that out? Steve did not know, but he saw Neil knew all right: he could see it in the little shit’s eyes. He also knew that if Lizzie was made aware of it, he’d never get near her again.
Neil smiled at his brother. It was good seeing him squirm for a change. ‘Lizzie has a right to know what she’s taking on,’ he said. ‘Does she know, for example, that some of the women…’
Steve had dropped his arm from Lizzie’s shoulder and was across the room in an instant. He almost lifted Neil from the floor with his left arm, while his right fist powered into Neil’s face.
Lizzie watched, horrified. No one seemed surprised or went to the aid of the boy, who slid down the wall as Steve released him. Neil’s mouth and nose spurted blood and Lizzie noticed that one of his teeth had been knocked clean out.
Flo, with a sigh, crossed to the fire and filled a bowl from the kettle to the side of it, got a clean rag from the line above the hearth and carried it over to Neil. ‘You asked for that,’ she said as she handed it to him. ‘Why couldn’t you stay quiet when you had the chance?’
‘Why should I?’ Neil’s words were slurred because of his thick lips but his eyes still held contempt. ‘Just because big brother says so?’
‘If you want more of the same, I’m willing to oblige,’ Steve growled out. ‘Only this time I’ll not stop at one punch, you little shit. I’ll beat you to pulp.’
Lizzie crossed to Steve. ‘Please, don’t fight any more.’
She was totally shocked. The angry, hate-filled words had been bad enough, but fighting! And yet the family took it almost as a matter of course, so much so that Rodney hadn’t even raised his head from where he sat, staring into the fire.
Steve looked at Lizzie and regretted she’d seen any of this. ‘Get your coat,’ he snapped.
‘What?’
‘Are you deaf? Get your coat!’
Lizzie hurried to obey him. She knew it wasn’t her that Steve was so cross with, but she was still unnerved by the angry, curt way he had spoken.
They walked side by side in silence, Lizzie knowing anything she said would be wrong. She didn’t care about Steve’s past, she didn’t really care about his future either, because she wasn’t going to figure in it. This had decided her. She’d dallied long enough and really had made a monkey of the man, and the sooner she came clean the better. Neil’s phrase—‘what she’s taking on,’—had filled her with dread. Someone else would have to fill that role; it would certainly not be her.
She kissed Steve when he left her at the hotel, but on the cheek only, and turned without even a hug and opened the door to the stairs.
Christ Almighty! Steve thought. He knew the rage, still burning within him, needed some outlet. Sex would fit the bill nicely and he turned to make for one of his familiar haunts, where he knew one or two of the women liked him to be a bit rough.
Lizzie waited for Tressa to come in that night, not a thing she did now as a rule, but she needed to talk to her about Steve. They both had the whole evening off and so, after tea with the family, Mike had probably taken Tressa out somewhere. Steve might have done the same if that distressing scene at the house hadn’t happened. It seemed to have upset Steve totally, and whether he’d forgotten Lizzie had the evening off or whether he’d wanted to be by himself, she didn’t know nor care. In the few hours she’d been with the family, she had had enough of them all; enough to last a lifetime. How could one simple question start such a barrage? She was glad to reach the peace and quiet of her room, for her nerves were still jangling, and she lay down on her bed fully clothed and thought about it.
She was woken by Betty and Pat, who’d been on duty, coming in and complaining about their feet. They’d turned the light on before they noticed Lizzie.
‘Sorry!’
‘That’s all right,’ Lizzie said. ‘I must have dropped off.’
‘You’re back early.’
‘Aye, let’s say it wasn’t a total success.’
‘Oh!’
‘Aye, Steve had a row with his brother, which turned into a fight.’
‘That’s men all over,’ Betty said. ‘Solve everything with their bloody fists.’
‘Well, I was glad to leave anyway,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s not my idea of a pleasant Sunday afternoon. I’ll wait for Tressa and see what she makes of it.’
‘You won’t see your cousin for some time yet,’ Pat said.
‘How late is it usually then?’ Lizzie said. ‘I never hear her come in.’
‘I know you don’t hear her,’ Betty told her. ‘You must be a deep sleeper. It’s always the early hours when she arrives home. She’s woken me a few times. She has an arrangement with the night porter to let her in when she knocks in a certain way.’
‘The early hours!’ Lizzie repeated. ‘What does she do till the early hours?’
The two girls giggled. ‘Don’t you know about the birds and the bees?’ Pat said with a smirk. ‘I’d have a good guess at what she’s up to, her and that feller she has. Lead you on, blokes do. You’ve got to keep your wits about you. I tell you, Lizzie, it would be good to warn her, like. A girl needs to watch herself.’
‘Yeah, and she’s in a state sometimes,’ Betty put in.
‘A state?’
‘Yeah, drunk, like, or very near it, anyroad.’
‘I had no idea, though I know she’s hard to rouse sometimes, but then she has never been easy to get up.’
‘Thought you hadn’t guessed,’ Betty said. ‘Glad to have told you. You’re the only one to have a word. She’d not listen to us.’
‘She’ll probably not listen to me where Mike’s concerned.’
‘Well, at least you’ll have tried,’ Betty said. ‘Sorry, I won’t be able to keep you company if you’re set on sitting up for her, I’m jiggered.’
‘Me too,’ Pat agreed. ‘And me feet are burning.’
‘I don’t need company,’ Lizzie said. ‘You get to bed, you’ve been at it all day.’
She lay quiet until the girls’ even breathing told her they were asleep and then she got softly out of bed. The clock at St Phillip’s Cathedral tower, opposite the hotel, said nearly eleven o’clock, and she decided to get herself ready for bed and then if she did drop off in the wait it didn’t matter.
Before half-eleven she’d finished her ablutions
and was undressed, her Sunday clothes put back in the wardrobe and her uniform for work in the morning hanging on the picture rail. She was in her nightdress and tucked up in bed, with just the lights on her side of the room lit, and was reading a book she’d bought from a stall in the market.
Twice she got up to go to the toilet and looked at the clock, and twice she dropped to sleep, the book still in her hands, and was jerked awake. By half past one she decided Tressa could go hang herself for all she cared, she was too tired to wait any more and both of them were on earlies the following day. She put the book down, padded across the floor to put out the light, and climbed into bed, pulling the covers over her.
The light flooding the room pulled her back from the edge of a wonderful dream and she opened her eyes wearily, blinking in the sudden brightness to see her cousin standing there. Her face was aglow, as if a light had been lit behind it, and there was an inane grin on her face. Betty’s words came back to her.
‘You’re drunk,’ she said.
Tressa giggled. ‘Maybe,’ she replied. ‘We were celebrating.’
The blood in Lizzie’s veins suddenly felt like ice. ‘Celebrating what?’
‘Getting engaged!’
‘Getting engaged!’ Lizzie repeated, relieved it wasn’t something worse.
‘No ring yet,’ Tressa said. ‘I mean, Mike asked me to marry him tonight, and I said “yes” of course, and then he said he must ask Mammy and Daddy and do the thing properly, but that won’t be a problem. I’ve told them about Mike every week and how wonderful he is.’
‘You’re so young to be engaged.’
‘No I’m not,’ Tressa protested. ‘I’ll be twenty in July. We’re not getting married yet awhile. We have to save quite a bit first, Mike said. But an engagement is a commitment.’
‘I’ll say,’ Lizzie agreed. She got out of bed and crossed to the window. ‘It’s turned two o’clock.’
‘Who cares,’ Tressa laughed, turning a pirouette in the room. ‘Mike bought a bottle of champagne.’
