Daughter of Mine

‘Anyway,’ Steve went on stubbornly, ‘I don’t know why you’re saying these things cos you don’t want to. I can hear it in your voice.’

Lizzie felt for Steve’s fingers and held his hands. ‘You do hear sadness,’ she admitted, ‘because I am sad that I don’t feel the same for you as you feel for me. I care for you, Steve, I do truly, and I wish I could feel more, but I can’t.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Steve said again. ‘How can I? Look how you behaved the first night I met you.’

Lizzie was dreadfully ashamed of that night. ‘I was drunk and I can remember little about it. I am really sorry if I gave you the wrong impression of me.’

Steve’s eyes narrowed. He knew nothing had happened that night, but Lizzie had admitted she didn’t remember it. He was hurting to his very soul and he hit back. ‘Well you did give me the wrong impression, and not just me, I might add. People were scandalised by your shameless behaviour. And when you suggested going outside there was no holding you. I was good enough for you then all right. There isn’t much of your body I haven’t explored already, so what you’re being so prissy about now beats me. As for being drunk, my old woman always says that what’s in a man sober comes out when he’s drunk, and I reckon it’s the same for a woman, so don’t play the bloody innocent with me.’

Lizzie listened, appalled. She didn’t doubt the truth of what Steve said. Hadn’t Tressa hinted at something similar? But to hear the words dripping from Steve’s tongue. God, it didn’t bear thinking about.

But Steve hadn’t finished. ‘It was you begging me to go on then,’ he said.

‘My God!’ Lizzie thought. The disgrace of such behaviour engulfed her and she held her head in her hands.

Steve was enjoying her obvious discomfort and went on: ‘Ripe for it, you was. It took all my willpower, I’ll tell you, not to take you that night, for you wanted me to. Bloody fool that I am, I didn’t want to take advantage, like. I did think, though, after that performance, you’d be little goer like your cousin, but you turned into an ice maiden. By Christ, you’re a prickteaser all right.’

Lizzie was mortified. Never in her wildest dreams and however much she had drunk would she have believed she could have conducted herself in such a way. If her parents knew any of this they would disown her. She was so burdened down with the things Steve had told her, the total embarrassment of it all seeping out of the very pores of her skin, that she was unprepared for Steve, who chose that moment to make a grab at her.

She tried to wrench herself from his arm, and though she managed to push him away, one of Steve’s hands held on to the neck of her coat and the blouse beneath. She was suddenly scared of Steve for the first time. ‘Let me go, Steve, for pity’s sake?’

Steve didn’t answer, but Lizzie heard his breath coming in short pants. She knew she had to get away and quickly. The sudden lunge she gave took him by surprise and she heard some of the buttons from her coat fall to the ground and felt the blouse tear and Steve’s fingernails rake the back of her neck.

But it mattered little for she was free, and she began to run as she’d never run before, up Temple Row and across the churchyard to the hotel, expecting any minute to hear footsteps pounding behind her or clawing hands reaching for her.

She almost sobbed with relief as she reached the door of the hotel, and as most of the buttons had been ripped from her coat she wrapped it tightly round her before opening the door. Even so, Ron, the night porter, looked at her strangely as she made for the stairs. ‘You all right?’

‘Aye, I’m fine,’ Lizzie said. But she was far from fine. She was trembling all over and she wanted to be by herself in her bedroom and safe.

She was quiet, for both Pat and Betty were fast asleep, and she didn’t even put the light on. She was glad no one was up to see her take off the torn blouse, which she threw to the back of the wardrobe. She was in no mood for Tressa coming in enthusing about the night; she knew she’d see her in the morning, and so she turned over and tried to sleep.

Tressa was disappointed to find her cousin in the land of nod. She’d wanted to relive the night again, confide in Lizzie that her virginity was gone and forever and how wonderful the experience was. She was tempted to wake her up, but Lizzie slept deeply when she did go off—and what if, in trying to waken her cousin, she also roused Pat and Betty. She reckoned they’d string her up if she did that again. They’d been very stiff with her after last time.

So she lay on the bed and went through it in her mind and fell asleep with a smile on her face and dreamed of making love to Mike over and over again.

Tressa felt very delicate when she woke somewhere around mid-morning, but Lizzie didn’t look too hot either, she noticed. In fact, she looked dreadful. Tressa gasped when she saw the score marks on the back of Lizzie’s neck as she pulled her nightdress over her head.

‘Who did that to your neck?’

‘Who do you think?’

‘It was never Steve?’

‘Oh yes it was,’ Lizzie said grimly, ‘after I told him it was over,’ and she went on to describe exactly what had happened. ‘He frightened the living daylights out of me,’ she said. ‘And yet nothing really happened and I didn’t wait around to see if it would. But now…oh, I don’t know, I think it was partly my fault.’

‘How in God’s name did you work that out?’

‘Maybe I told him clumsily,’ Lizzie said. ‘You know, maybe I should have led up to it more, not just told him like that, straight out.’

‘He still shouldn’t have done that to your neck.’

‘He didn’t do it on purpose,’ Lizzie said. ‘He was holding on to me, holding my coat at the neck, and when I pulled away quickly his nails sort of caught me.’

‘Even so…’

‘Tressa, he wasn’t himself and he was so dreadfully hurt. I felt a heel. I should never have let it go on so long.’

Tressa could see the guilt settling around her cousin. She knew her well and was aware how that guilt would eat away at her. ‘Come on, Lizzie,’ she said. ‘Put this behind you now.’

‘I’m sorry, Tressa,’ Lizzie replied. ‘How did it go with you and Mike?’

‘Do you want to know, after your night ended so badly?’

‘Course I do,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m not that smallminded.’

‘Well I’ll tell you in the bathroom.’

‘Bathroom?’

‘Aye,’ Tressa said. ‘I’m going to run you a hot bath. It will do you the world of good.’

‘Tressa, I’m feeling a bit groggy.’

‘Then a hot foamy bath is just the thing,’ Tressa declared, and went on with a smile, ‘come on, and while you are soaping yourself, I’ll tell you about my night of passion.’

Lizzie forced a smile from her reluctant lips and began collecting her toiletries together.

The girls were tired when they returned to their room that night. It was Valentine’s Day and there had been a special menu, so the place had been bursting at the seams and they’d been run off their feet, for they’d been on the go since three o’clock. Lizzie sat thankfully down on the bed with a sigh when they’d got back to their room. ‘What time is it?’

Tressa consulted her watch. ‘Just turned eleven.’

‘Oh, Hell, and we’re on earlies tomorrow.’

‘You don’t have to tell me.’

There was a lot of noise outside for a Sunday night and someone was yelling something out in the street. ‘Sounds as if someone’s celebrated a bit too well,’ Pat said from the other side of the room.

‘Aye,’ Tressa said, crossing to the window, and then she exclaimed, ‘God Almighty! Lizzie, it’s Steve.’

‘No!’ Lizzie crossed to the window and saw Steve, off his head with drink and leaning against Mike, who seemed to be trying to remonstrate with him.

The other two girls crowded behind them to see. ‘Ain’t that your feller?’ Betty said to Lizzie.

‘He was,’ Lizzie said. ‘I finished with him yesterday.’

‘Doesn’t seem to have taken it too well then,’ Pat remarked.

Lizzie watched him shake Mike’s hand away, totter a couple of steps and, looking straight at her framed in the window, he screamed, ‘Lizzie! Come out, you bitch. You hear me, Lizzie?’