Daughter of Mine

‘Aye,’ Lizzie said.

As the girls were discussing Steve, so he was saying to Stuart, ‘I was crazy about her, you know.’

‘I can understand it. She’s a looker,’ Stuart said.

Steve shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I mean, when I remember the prison cell and all. God, she did nothing, she just stood at the attic window of that hotel and watched them dragging me away. She didn’t come down and say it was partly her damned fault. Part of me can’t ever forget that.’

‘Put her out of your head, mate,’ Stuart advised. ‘She’s bad news.’

‘That’s it. I can’t,’ Steve said. ‘Despite it all, I still love her like mad. I don’t know why either.’ He didn’t go on to say that when Lizzie had told him it was over he’d wanted to die. You didn’t share that, even with a mate. He’d think you’d gone soft in the head.

Steve looked across the room. Lizzie was still wearing her bridesmaid’s dress of peach-coloured satin with the long lacy sleeves, and she looked breathtaking. The headdress was gone and her hair was drawn up into an elegant chignon, showing her slender neck, and he felt the blood pound in his brain.

He knew he had to at least talk to her. If he lost this opportunity he’d probably never get another and he’d always regret it.

‘Oh God, Steve’s coming over,’ Lizzie said to Betty.

‘So what? You’ll have to meet him sometime.’

‘Why? Anyway, he’s been drinking.’

‘Course he bloody has. It’s a wedding, ain’t it?’

‘Yes, but…’ There was no time to say more for Steve was suddenly beside her.

‘Hallo, Lizzie.’

‘Hallo, Steve.’

Across the room, Flo dug Rodney in the ribs. ‘Go across and tell our Steve to get away from that Lizzie!’ she demanded.

Rodney was too drunk to care who Steve was talking to. ‘For God’s sake, woman, he’s a grown man.’

‘Are you going or not?’

‘Not. Go yourself if you’re so concerned. Rescue your wee, innocent son why don’t you?’

‘Useless, you are! Bloody useless!’ Flo cried, and she marched across the room.

Lizzie saw her coming. ‘Your mother’s on her way,’ she just had time to say to Steve before Flo was in front of her demanding,

‘What d’you want of my son now, you brazen hussy?’

That was rich, Lizzie thought, seeing that it had been Steve who’d come over to her, but she didn’t bother saying this. This was Mike and Tressa’s day and she wanted no scene, so she smiled at Flo. ‘Just exchanging pleasantries,’ she said and Steve urged, ‘Go on back to Dad, Mom. This doesn’t concern you.’

‘Oh, so it doesn’t concern me that this dirty little trollop caused you to be taken in by the coppers?’

Scene or no scene, Lizzie wasn’t standing for that. ‘I did no such thing, and I won’t be called names I don’t deserve.’

‘You do deserve them and more, you brazen, troublemaking bitch.’

‘Mom, that will do.’

‘I’ll decide what will do,’ Flo snapped. ‘That one will have you for a fool and throw you to one side when she’s done with you.’

‘Mom, shut up!’ Steve said, his voice rising in agitation.

‘That’s a fine way to speak to me.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ Steve said, exasperated, and he took his mother by the elbow and steered her across the floor to where his father was. Lizzie took the opportunity to slip outside and hoped the night air would cool her cheeks, which were flaming with embarrassment and anger. She leant against the wall. It was still as light as day outside, but some of the heat had gone and she was glad of the little breeze.

‘Thought I’d find you here.’

‘Steve!’

‘Lizzie, are you scared of me?’ Steve asked, worried about the wary look that had come over Lizzie’s face and her widened eyes.

Lizzie looked him full in the face. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘If the boot was on the other foot, wouldn’t you be scared? Look at the size of me to the size of you, and that night…well, I’m not sure what you would have done if I hadn’t got away. And quite apart from that, you could have lost me my job.’

‘I know, and I understand how you feel,’ Steve said sincerely. ‘I’ve regretted that night often and wish I could turn the clock back, for it was never my intention to hurt you. All I can say in my defence, and it is no excuse, is that I was angry and drunk, for I’d seldom drunk as much in such a short space of time. My head was reeling, and then, when you told me it was over…Christ, I think I really went clean mad for a bit. I’m real sorry about it, Lizzie.’

Lizzie saw the true regret and more than a hint of shame in Steve’s eyes and so she said, ‘I do understand that I hurt you a great deal that night, Steve.’

‘Until that moment I’d never pleaded with a woman, you know,’ Steve said. ‘I suppose I was angry that you’d made me look like a bloody fool. Then the next night I saw you all laughing at me as they led me away.’

‘No one was laughing, Steve, believe me,’ Lizzie said. ‘I wanted to come down, but Tressa wouldn’t let me. I watched only because I was concerned. It gave me no satisfaction to see you taken away in handcuffs.’

‘I’m glad of that at least.’

‘Let’s put it behind us now, shall we?’ Lizzie said. She put a hand on Steve’s arm and went on, ‘You are a lovely man and you could find a girl much more worthy than me, one who’d love you back.’

Steve could have told Lizzie there and then he’d tried a variety of girls, all willing, and he’d near drunk the pubs dry, but it had only blurred the image of her from his mind. In his sober moments each day she was there at the forefront of it, tantalising him.

But he didn’t say this, and Lizzie went on, ‘Steve, we knew each other for some weeks, and apart from those two awful nights—the one where I told you it was over, and your reaction and the incident the following night, which was linked to it—we had good times. Let’s at least part as friends?’

That wasn’t what Steve wanted, but it was a step in the right direction. ‘If that’s how you want it,’ he said, and he took Lizzie in his arms as one might a friend and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

Lizzie gave an inward sigh of relief and the guilt she’d felt towards Steve shifted slightly. ‘I must go in,’ she told him. ‘Tressa will be leaving soon, according to her uncle. Will your mother attack me if I go back?’

‘She’d better not. I’ve told my father to keep her at the table and to sit on her if he has to.’

‘I’d like to see that,’ Lizzie said with a grin, and she went back inside and Steve followed.

Three weeks after Tressa’s wedding, a bouquet of twelve red roses was delivered to the hotel. Lizzie had been serving breakfasts when the receptionist sent for her. ‘Someone has an admirer,’ she said, handing Lizzie the bouquet.

Lizzie had never received flowers before. ‘To Lizzie, from your very good friend. Happy Birthday. Love Steve,’ the card read.

‘Friend, my Aunt Fanny!’ the receptionist spluttered. ‘If any fellow sent me flowers, I’d know he’d want to be more than a friend.’