Tressa was rendered speechless by the ring and Lizzie let her breath out in a sigh. ‘Oh, Tressa, it’s gorgeous,’ and it was gorgeous, for the large diamond in the centre was surrounded by smaller diamonds that shone and sparkled in the lights of the pub.
‘Do you like it?’ Mike asked, made self-conscious by Tressa’s silence.
‘Like it? Oh, Mike, I haven’t words…Oh, thank you. I never dreamed you’d buy me something so exquisite.’
‘Nothing in the world is too good for you,’ Mike said, and he leant across the table and the two kissed.
‘Ain’t love grand,’ Steve said sarcastically and then added quietly, ‘You only have to say the word, Lizzie, and I’ll buy you a diamond twice the size of that.’
Lizzie’s heart skipped a beat at the hopeful look in Steve’s eyes, and so though she shook her head she smiled as she did, and leant across and squeezed his hand as he turned to Mike and said, ‘I’ll not congratulate, but commiserate. Another good man down. There’s few of us bachelors left, you know.’
He was putting on a good act for his friend, Lizzie thought. Making the best of it.
I wish I could make his day now, by agreeing to be his girl, but I’d be fooling myself and not being fair to him.
Some of the hotel staff used the pub and insisted on buying rounds of drinks when they heard the news of Tressa’s engagement, but Lizzie insisted on drinking only orange. She felt she needed her wits about her for what she must say to Steve, and neither her nor Tressa had eaten since about eleven o’clock. They’d hoped to grab a bite after the lunchtime rush, but hadn’t had time, and she was feeling decidedly peckish.
Eventually, Mike and Tressa got up to go and Lizzie noticed Tressa was none too steady. Not to worry, she thought, we’re not on duty till three tomorrow.
‘What d’you want to do?’ Steve asked, for he knew Lizzie didn’t like staying in the pub all evening.
Lizzie ran her tongue over her lips, which had become unaccountably dry, and said, ‘I need to talk to you, Steve.’
He was unaware of the undercurrent, totally
unprepared. ‘Talk away, then. Shall I get us another drink in?’
‘No,’ Lizzie said, grasping his arm. She looked around the noisy pub, with a good number of the hotel staff already there, and knew it wasn’t the place to tell anyone anything important. ‘Not here. Can we walk? It’s a fine evening and quite warm.’
‘It that’s what you want.’
Once in the street, Steve pulled Lizzie close, and as she didn’t protest his heart beat faster. Women were a funny breed. Maybe Mike was right. Maybe an engagement ring on the finger of one woman was a powerful inducement for another. Was that what Lizzie was going to tell him tonight?
He had always had remarkable success with women. In that, Neil had spoken the truth, and Steve had often had trouble shaking them off in the past, though until he’d met Lizzie he’d never been properly in love. However, he was assured of his attractiveness to the opposite sex, and when he’d claimed Lizzie would love him too after a few weeks he’d truly believed she’d be unable to hold out against his charms indefinitely.
‘Come on, darling girl,’ he said. ‘The night is young and you can talk till your heart is content.’
Lizzie knew the centre of the town would probably still have people on the streets, couples like themselves, many of them entwined together, planning their night out or making their way to one of the many entertainment venues, and the Bull Ring would be full of people for a few hours yet. What she had to say needed as much privacy as she could get and so she led the way across St Phillip’s churchyard to Temple Row, and from there into a deserted and semi-dark Needless Alley.
There she stopped and faced Steve, and he smiled to himself. In his book there was only one reason a girl stopped in a dark and quiet place. He was right, Lizzie had fallen for him good and proper, and he decided he’d not go home tonight too frustrated to sleep. Desire, fuelled by the beer he’d consumed, rose in him. A man could only stand so much, he told himself, and by God Lizzie had had things her own way for long enough. He reached for her, pulling her into an entry, and was quite surprised when she twisted out of his grasp.
‘Steve, please. I need you to listen.’
‘Listen be damned,’ Steve cried. ‘The time for talking is past,’ and he grabbed her again roughly, holding her so tight she was unable to move, her chest so crushed she had trouble drawing breath, let alone crying out. Steve was kissing Lizzie madly, forcing her lips apart, his tongue darting in and out, and she wriggled and fought, tossing her head from side to side.
Eventually, she freed one of her hands and was able to push Steve away from her. She realised he’d misconstrued her actions in bringing him here, and so she forgave him his frantic lunge and said gently, ‘Steve, I came here tonight to tell you it’s over between us. I did what you asked and gave the relationship more time, but my feelings haven’t changed. I can’t go out with you any more. It wouldn’t be fair.’
Steve was knocked for six. It was the very last thing he’d expected Lizzie to say and he felt the hurt of it flow through his body. ‘What have I done?’ he asked in an effort to understand. ‘What’s the matter? I love you with all my heart, you know that. Christ, Lizzie, you only have to say what you want, anything, and I’ll get it for you. I love you; I adore you.’
Tears squeezed out of Lizzie’s eyes, for she knew her words had affected Steve deeply. Although it was too dark to see his face, the pain was apparent in his voice. She was angry for allowing herself to be coaxed into continuing to see this man when she knew she felt nothing for him but friendship, and she shook her head sadly. ‘It isn’t you, Steve, it’s me. I’m sorry.’
Steve had never begged, he’d never had need to, but he begged now. ‘Please, Lizzie. You don’t know what
you are doing to me. I don’t think I can bear not to ever see you again.’
Lizzie shut her eyes and let the tears trickle down her cheeks.
‘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?’
‘Tressa,’ Lizzie said, ‘I must go down.’
‘There is no way you are going near that mad man in the state he’s in,’ Tressa said firmly.
‘Tressa, I’ll lose my job if the manager finds out.’
‘He won’t know it’s you,’ Tressa said. ‘How many staff do you think the boss can name?’
‘He’ll tumble to it eventually. He’s not stupid.’
However, the manager was tired and longing for his bed and had no patience with any drunk that the waiter said was screaming abuse in St Phillip’s churchyard. The whole incident would probably disturb his guests, who’d come to him in the morning with a list of complaints. It was not to be borne. ‘Phone the police,’
he told the head waiter. ‘It’s their business, so let them deal with it.’
Within minutes, the watching girls saw two policemen approach Mike and Steve. ‘Now, now,’ said the younger one. ‘What’s all this about?’
Steve, staggering on his feet, said, ‘She’s a bitch, a bloody bitch.’
‘I’m sure she is, sir,’ said the older man, ‘but I think it would be best to discuss it in the morning.’
‘It’s all right,’ Mike said, stepping forward. ‘I’ll see to him.’ He’d seldom seen Steve as drunk as this. He could handle his drink, could Steve, but then he’d been drinking nearly all day.
Mike had had no idea Lizzie was to finish with Steve the previous evening, and when Steve told him at The Bell that lunchtime he was shocked and felt sorry for him. Getting drunk had seemed a damned good idea. It was only when Steve started muttering about going into the town and what he’d do, both to Lizzie and the bloody hotel she worked in, that Mike had decided he’d better go with him.
‘Come on, mate,’ he said now, his arms around Steve.
‘Get off me.’
Steve’s hefty swing nearly had Mike on his back and the young policeman said, ‘Steady, sir.’
‘Steady, sir. Steady, sir,’ Steve mocked. ‘Why don’t the pair of you fuck off.’
‘We can’t do that, sir,’ the older policeman said firmly. ‘You either go home now, or you cool your heels in a cell.’
‘Look, there’s no need for this,’ Mike remonstrated. ‘I’ve told you I’ll see to him,’ and he tried again to put
his arm about his friend. ‘Come on, mate, let’s go home, eh?’
Home.
The word registered in Steve’s befuddled brain. He wasn’t going home. He wanted to speak with Lizzie; make her see she couldn’t just finish with him like that.
Again, Mike was sent reeling. ‘I’ll go home when I’m bloody well ready to go. After I’ve talked to Lizzie. I’ve got to see her.’
The policemen had decided enough was enough. ‘Come along, sir,’ the older one said. ‘You can’t see people at this time of night. Leave it to the morning, eh?’
‘Get your hands off me.’ Steve’s flailing fist caught the younger policeman’s helmet and it rolled into the road.
‘That’s it,’ the older man said. ‘You’re coming with us.’
‘There’s no need for this,’ Mike protested again.
The younger man retrieved his helmet and said warningly, ‘If you don’t want to accompany him, I’d get yourself home and tell those he lives with he’ll likely be out in the morning.’
And that’s all it would have been, if Steve hadn’t reacted so badly to the older policeman’s efforts trying to put his hands behind his back to put cuffs on. In the fist that slammed into the policeman’s face was the pent-up rage that had been building all day, fuelled by alcohol, and the policeman was knocked clean out.