Daughter of Mine

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.

‘Look,’ Steve said. ‘Do you dislike me; find me physically repulsive?’

Lizzie shook her head, for her initial dislike of Steve had frittered away, and he was a very good-looking man.

‘Do you like me, even a little?’

‘Of course I like you, but as a friend.’

‘That will do, Lizzie. I have enough love for both of us.’ ‘No, Steve. It isn’t like that.’ ‘I know, but sometimes feelings take time to grow,’

Steve urged her. ‘Give it a few more weeks, eh? Give me a chance. For God’s sake don’t pull the bleedin’ rug from under me already. We’ve only known each other a short time.’

‘And then what, after a few weeks?’

‘You’ll be madly in love with me.’

‘And if I’m not?’

‘I don’t accept failure,’ Steve said.

Nor does he accept ‘No’, Lizzie thought. He’s like Tressa. He wants his own way all the time, for he’s used to it.

But she said none of this, for the tram had pulled into the terminus in the city centre and Steve put his arm around Lizzie as they walked along. She didn’t object, because she was thinking over Steve’s words. Would it be any better if she told him in a few weeks’ time? She didn’t know, but at least then he couldn’t say she hadn’t given it a fair crack of the whip.

‘I’ll give them all what for when I go home,’ Steve told Lizzie, convinced, whatever Lizzie had said, that it was his family’s behaviour that had made her say what she had.

‘Steve, there’s no need.’

‘There’s every need,’ Steve snapped. ‘They’ll behave better next time, I promise you. I’ll even have a go at the old woman. She could have been more welcoming.’

‘She loves you, Steve,’ Lizzie said. ‘She doesn’t want anyone, especially any woman, to be more important in your life than she is.’

‘She’ll have to learn then,’ Steve said. ‘Silly cow. She’ll do as she’s bloody well told.’

‘Hush, Steve. Try and understand her point of view,’ Lizzie said, though she had no love for the woman herself.

‘She should bloody well understand mine,’ Steve growled. ‘And she will. I’ll see to it.’

Lizzie had had quite enough of Steve’s family. ‘I’ll have to go in, Steve,’ she said. ‘I’ll be late and then I’ll catch it.’

She was glad to go, for this bad-tempered Steve unnerved her more than a little. She almost felt the anger coursing through him as he drew her into his arms. The kiss was like a stamp of ownership. It was a hard, unyielding kiss, which bruised Lizzie’s lips and pushed them against her teeth, but Lizzie bore it without complaint, for she was too nervous of Steve to protest much.

She was changed and ready to go on duty when Tressa dashed in, red-faced both from the cold and the warmth of Mike’s embrace, and the kisses which had left her breathless. She was prepared to make light of any trepidations Lizzie might have had about Steve and his family problems, though she was pleased that Lizzie had agreed to go out with Steve a little longer. Lizzie felt she was being inexorably drawn into a future she didn’t want and felt filled with apprehension as she and Tressa went down to the kitchen.

The following Saturday morning, the head waiter, who had a soft spot for Lizzie, approached her as she was finishing her breakfast stint. ‘You and your cousin were down to work tonight, but you can have the night off if you like.’