while in the hospital and longed for him to come in each evening. Wasn’t that a kind of love? True, it wasn’t the aching, bittersweet passion enjoyed by Tressa and Mike, but she and Steve were different people, so the way they loved would be different too, surely. ‘I don’t know how I feel about you now, Steve,’ she answered honestly.
‘Do you like me?’
‘Of course I like you.’
‘A lot, or just a bit.’
‘A lot, bighead.’
Steve gave a sigh of relief and knelt beside the hospital bed, but still kept hold of Lizzie’s hand. ‘Marry me, Lizzie?’ he pleaded. ‘I love you more than life itself.’
‘Oh, Steve…’
‘Please think about it?’ Steve begged. ‘I know this isn’t ideal and you didn’t want to get married so young, but your illness changed a lot of things and I will have a house for us to move in to.’ And then, as Lizzie’s eyes still looked troubled, he said gently, ‘If you refuse me, what is the alternative?’
And Lizzie couldn’t answer that. She had no job and no place to live, and even if she had both, Birmingham was a lonely place where she knew no one. Tressa, as a friend to go out with, or even as a confidante, was almost lost to her. Betty was getting married, Pat would soon follow, and Marjorie had never been a true friend.
‘Can I think about it, Steve?’
‘Oh yeah, bonny girl,’ Steve said, delighted that Lizzie hadn’t said no outright. ‘You can think about it. But don’t keep me waiting for weeks.’
‘I’ll not do that to you, I’ll give you the answer within the next few days,’ Lizzie promised.
The following day, she was leaving the hospital and had been offered a temporary home with Mike’s aunt and uncle at Longbridge, till she was on her feet and could decide what to do. Arthur and Doreen had taken to Lizzie at the wedding and Doreen had gone to see her a few times in the hospital after Catherine had left. Catherine had told them Lizzie wasn’t keen on going back to Ireland at all and yet there was little else for her to do as far as she could see. That had decided Doreen. ‘The girl can bide here a wee while until she is fully recovered and then she can decide what is to be done,’ she declared one evening.
Arthur nodded his head sagely, knowing agreement was the only and safest course to take with his wife over certain issues. He collected Lizzie the following evening after work, and Doreen saw how white-faced the girl was with tiredness.
After the evening meal, with the men away to the pub, Lizzie said, ‘I can’t thank you enough for asking me to come here for a while. Mammy wanted me to go home, but I had the feeling if I left these shores I’d never come back.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ Doreen said. ‘You can stay as long as you like.’
‘Aye,’ said Tressa. ‘It will be like old times.’
‘Not quite,’ Lizzie said with a smile. ‘Those days will not come back, I’m afraid. Maybe my carefree days are over too.’ And then, in a quieter voice, she said, ‘Steve asked me to marry him yesterday.’
Tressa’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Because she hadn’t been able to visit the hospital much she didn’t know the role Steve had played. The last she’d heard, Lizzie had told her firmly that they were just friends. ‘What did you say?’ she asked.
‘I said I’d think about it.’
Doreen, who’d had many a chat with Catherine about Steve, gave a sniff and said, ‘What’s there to think about?’
‘I’m not sure I love him,’ Lizzie said simply.
‘Love! Bumpkin!’ Doreen said disparagingly. ‘Love, let me tell you, flies out of the windows when the bills come in at the door. And it’s a good thing that man didn’t waste time to think about it when you were lying half-dead in a hospital bed.’
‘I know that.’
‘He has a good job, he’ll be a good provider,’ Doreen said. ‘Is he generous?’
‘Aye, very generous and considerate. He has a temper though.’
‘Not with you, surely?’
For a second, the scene when she told Steve it was over flashed through Lizzie’s mind, but she decided to say nothing, for Steve had apologised profusely and since then he had been kindness itself. ‘No,’ she said, and added, ‘He fights mainly with his brother.’
Doreen gave a snort. ‘What brothers do not?’ she asked. ‘But they’ll probably get on better when they have wives and children of their own. It’s a very gentling experience becoming a father. I’ve seen it many a time. Tell me, Lizzie, do you like Steve?’
‘Oh aye.’
‘Well, let me tell you that liking is often more sustaining and fulfilling than love. When love dims, liking will survive.’
‘So you think I should say yes, Doreen?’
‘I do, my dear.’
‘What about you, Tressa?’
‘It’s entirely up to you, Lizzie,’ Tressa said, ‘but do you not want a home and family of your own?’
Unbidden, Lizzie remembered little Phillip, the perfectness of him, and she knew she yearned for a baby and the decision was made.
The wedding was in Ballintra on 18th June 1933, just three weeks short of Lizzie’s twenty-first birthday, and her family pulled out all the stops to accommodate Steve’s family, who came over for it.
Lizzie herself was consumed by excitement as the wedding drew near. She’d bought the dress in Birmingham, though her parents had paid for it, and it was the talk of the place for days. It was pure white, the shimmering satin of the skirt held out with six lace petticoats, caught up at intervals with white rosebuds. The bodice fitted her slender figure to perfection and the entire dress was covered with beads that caught the light in the room as Lizzie spun round to admire herself in the mirror.
It brought a lump to Catherine’s throat to see this, her youngest daughter, and one who had been dangerously ill not so long ago, looking so radiant, so happy. She was thrilled that the man she had chosen was honest and respectable and that he had shown Catherine that he loved Lizzie to distraction. She was also glad that Lizzie had respected herself, that she had earned the right to wear the white dress.
However, it wasn’t in Catherine’s nature to praise her children, and so now she said chidingly, ‘How can I get this headdress on with you spinning around like a dervish? Be still now.’
Lizzie obediently stayed still, though her insides continued to perform somersaults as her mother fastened the veil in place, pinning it securely to the plait she had in a coronet around her head. The effect of it all caused Eileen, coming into the room at that moment, to catch her breath. ‘God, Lizzie,’ she said. ‘You look just fantastic. Doesn’t she, Mammy?’
Catherine blinked away the tears from her own eyes and said almost brusquely, ‘Aye. You chose well, Lizzie.
