eyes and they smiled at one another across the room.
‘Thank you, Mammy,’ Lizzie said, suddenly overcome with it all. ‘Thank you for making it so special for me, the dress, the flowers, the cake, and for arranging it all. No one could ask for more, or better parents.’
And then, mindful not to crush the dress, Catherine took Lizzie in her arms and kissed her lightly. ‘And why would we not want it special for you?’ she said. ‘Aren’t you the last daughter to see to, and one I love dearly.’
Seldom had Catherine used such gentle tones and never could Lizzie ever remember her mother saying she loved her and it brought a lump to her throat.
‘Don’t be blubbing now,’ Catherine warned, seeing her daughter’s eyes brimming, ‘or your face will puff up and your man will go for me for upsetting you. Go on now with Eileen. Your daddy will be waiting on you.’
Later, when Lizzie stood at the church door, one arm through her father’s and the other holding the beautiful array of flowers, her three little nieces who her sister Susan had got ready in place behind her, the strains of the wedding march filling that familiar church, she felt she could burst with happiness.
She kept her eyes averted from the malicious glare of Flo as they began the slow walk down the aisle and instead fixed them on her man waiting for her before the altar, with Mike his best man beside him. As she drew closer, Steve risked a peep at her and he felt for a moment as if his heart had stopped beating. At the look on his face, Lizzie’s own heart turned over and she stepped forward to be joined to Steve until death would part them.
Margaret confided to Catherine that she wished Tressa’s wedding could have been in the village too, but in the circumstances it was better done in Birmingham where none knew them. Even now, she’d had a few with knowing glances and nudges saying that the baby had made a great turn-out, seeing as he was so premature.
Lizzie knew this, for the same had been said to her, and she knew her mother was puffed up with pride that she hadn’t been in the same condition as Tressa when she married. In Catherine’s opinion, Lizzie had done well for herself. She was marrying a fine strapping man in a well-paid job and the only haste to the wedding at all was because they had a house waiting for them.
Margaret would know the manner of house it would be. She’d seen the streets of them when she had gone over for her daughter’s wedding. The pub where the reception had been held was actually in Bell Barn Road, but when Catherine had been over when Lizzie had been so ill, she went only from the hospital and out to Longbridge each day and had no idea. Margaret was glad, at any rate, that her own daughter was out of those crowded, disease-ridden streets. She couldn’t really describe it: you had to see the place, smell the stink in the air and hear the noise to understand it at all. But she didn’t say any of this and Catherine was only worried about one thing, as far as her daughter was concerned, and that was Flo.
‘You may have trouble there, Lizzie, for she thinks Steve can do no wrong.’
‘Oh, you’ve noticed then?’ Lizzie commented dryly, for Flo’s obsession with her son was obvious even to the most casual observer.
‘Does she live far from you?’
Lizzie wrinkled her nose. ‘Not far enough!’ Then she added, ‘In fairness, Steve did his best. Housing is at a premium and some have to make a start in a couple of rooms.’
‘Aye, you have a good man there,’ Catherine said. ‘And God knows, he can’t help his mother. Eileen’s chap, young Murray O’Shea, doesn’t treat her half so well as Steve does you, but nothing would do her than marry the man.’
And Lizzie knew Steve was good. Even after she’d agreed to marry him, he’d not urged her to go further in their lovemaking than fondling and kissing her. She didn’t know what it cost Steve, and Lizzie hadn’t admitted to him that she often wanted things to go further, nor told him how she longed for fulfilment on their wedding night.
And when it came, it was wondrous, rapturous, a feeling that superseded the sudden sharp pain, and afterwards she cried with joy, glad she’d waited and that her wedding night was all she’d wanted. Steve lay curled beside her, delighted he’d pleased her. He’d taken his time because he’d wanted her to enjoy it. It was a long time since he’d slept with a young, tight virgin and he’d also wanted to savour the moment.
There were many things about Steve that Lizzie hadn’t been aware of, and many a woman could have warned her that you never know a man fully until you marry him.
She didn’t know he drank so much, for instance, nor that he wanted to drink almost every night. He could carry his beer well most nights at least, and though he was not sober when he came home and sometimes a little unsteady on his feet, their lovemaking, which Steve wanted often, was almost as good as it had been on their wedding night. However, on the fairly rare occasions that Steve was really drunk it was a different story. He’d be so unpredictable; Lizzie would be afraid to say anything much in case he took it the wrong way, for he could be aggressive and belligerent and he’d be rough and unfeeling later in bed and often hurt her.
She didn’t bother complaining for she knew this was the lot of many women. She met her neighbours: Violet, who lived beside her with her husband Barry and their two teenagers, Colin and Carol, and the others down the yard: Ada Smith, Gloria Havering, Minnie Monahan and Sadie Miller, who she met at the tap and in the brew house, where they helped her with the weekly wash in the early days of her marriage.
Between herself and Violet there was a special bond. Violet felt sorry for the girl with none of her own beside her and became quite motherly towards her, and Lizzie was glad of it, of all the women’s company. All the women complained about their husbands and only Violet’s and Gloria’s besides Lizzie’s were in work. Quite a few also complained about the amount the men drank. ‘He’s always down the boozer and I’m always down the pawnshop,’ Ada would say.
‘Yeah, and when they comes home bottled, they can’t think of owt but getting their leg over,’ Minnie put in.
‘Mine don’t get owt if he comes home bottled,’ Gloria said with a sniff. ‘Told him I’d brain him with the frying pan if he comes home again in that state. I’m having no drunken pig in my bed.’
‘Mine wouldn’t stand for that,’ Sadie said, and there was a murmur of agreement.
‘He had to stand it,’ Gloria retorted. ‘He has to tie a knot in it some nights when I’m not in the mood, anyroad. I’ve told him, I’m not a brood mare.’
‘Jesus,’ Minnie cried. ‘My Charlie would have the priest up to me so quick his feet wouldn’t touch the floor.’
‘That’s the trouble with you papists, hidebound by the priests,’ Gloria said witheringly.
Lizzie knew that for most of them sex was a duty and done for their husbands’ sake. They never spoke of enjoying it themselves and when Lizzie mentioned it to Violet, she’d said, ‘It’s not done to say you enjoy it, Lizzie. Most women don’t, or else say they don’t. If you enjoy it, you’re lucky, but keep it to yourself.’
So Lizzie kept to herself the times she enjoyed sex, and put up with the bad times. Sometimes she was able to encourage Steve to do something other than drink himself stupid every night and entice him for a walk, or even to go to the nearby Broadway Cinema on Bristol Street.
Flo had been scathing of that when she got to hear. ‘You’re a married woman now,’
