‘Think about what?’
‘Being head over heels, besotted by someone?’ Tressa said. ‘And sex and things.’
‘Sometimes,’ Lizzie admitted. ‘I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. But I don’t dwell on it. Sex an’ all verges on impure thoughts, anyway.’
‘You don’t confess it?’ Tressa said incredulously.
‘Aye, sometimes.’
‘You’re mad. No one can help their thoughts and I’m telling no priest what I’ve been thinking about. It might turn his hair white, or else give him a heart attack.’
‘And then he’d fall out of the confessional and roll down the aisle,’ Lizzie said, and the two girls collapsed helpless with laughter at the thought, and then, when the laughter had abated somewhat, Lizzie continued, ‘I wonder what penance he’d give you when he recovered himself?’ and that started them off again.
Through all the hilarity, though, Lizzie realised Tressa’s religion sat very easily on her, while she worried about every mortal thing. Maybe she’d fare better if she could view life in the same way as her cousin. But then she’d always thought Tressa had her life well sorted, and that had been the way of it throughout all of their growing up.
They’d been born within two days of each other: Lizzie on the 5th July 1912 on her father Seamus’ farm in Rossnowlagh, Donegal, and Tressa two days later above the grocery store in the nearby village of Ballintra, that had become Eamon’s when he married the grocer’s daughter Margaret. She was an only child and so had inherited the whole business on her father’s death.
Lizzie and Tressa had always been the best of friends, but even before they’d begun the national school together in Ballintra, Tressa had been the boss. The point was, Tressa was the youngest in her home. She had two brothers, Will and Jim, followed by two sisters, Peggy and Moira, but then her mother had suffered two miscarriages before Tressa’s birth and so much was made of Tressa when she was born hale and hearty. But, as there were no other children after her, she’d been petted and spoilt in a way Lizzie’s mother Catherine never approved of. Catherine believed that to spare the rod was to spoil the child and her children were taught to do as they were told and promptly, or they’d know the consequences.
That was the problem. Lizzie had learnt quickly to do as she was told and Tressa had learnt, just as quickly, how to get her own way. Her parents, and certainly her older sisters, had always given in to her and she expected everyone else, and certainly her cousin Lizzie, to do the same. She’d lay plans before her in such a way and coax and even bully until Lizzie would find herself wavering and finally giving in to whatever Tressa wanted.
By the time they’d left school, this was firmly ingrained. But although Lizzie had plenty to do at home, for her mother believed Satan made work for idle hands, Tressa had a different life altogether, for there was no opening in the shop for her. Since she’d left school at fourteen she’d hung about the house, only helping the odd times when they had a rush on.
Her father wasn’t keen on her taking on any other sort of job either. ‘You’d shame me,’ he’d said. ‘People will say I can’t afford to keep my own daughter at home.’
‘Quite right,’ Margaret nodded in agreement. She didn’t really want this child, this true gift from God, to leave her side. She wanted her near all the days of her life, and when she eventually married Margaret wanted her to marry in the village, where Margaret could take pleasure in helping rear any grandchildren, like she had with the others.
But Tressa had been bored and wanted to go to England. She didn’t really care where, she just wanted to sample city life, the sort of life Clara Dunne described that sounded so much more exciting than Tressa’s own. Clara was from the village and had got a job in one of the hotels in Birmingham, and Tressa had soon decided that that would suit her just fine and dandy.
‘Oh, Lizzie, you should hear her,’ Tressa had enthused to her cousin. ‘She said you wouldn’t believe the shops, and there’s a big market called the Bull Ring where you can pick things up for next to nothing. And that’s not all,’ she went on, seeing that Lizzie was unimpressed so far. ‘There’s picture houses, with proper moving pictures, and dances, and something called a Variety Hall where there are all manner of acts on. Oh, Lizzie, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be part of it?’
‘It would, right enough,’ Lizzie had said and then had promptly forgotten about it, for she was wise enough not to yearn for things she couldn’t have.
However, Tressa wasn’t used to having her wishes thwarted, but for once Margaret stood firm and said that she wouldn’t countenance the idea of her leaving, and certainly not by herself.
Tressa had no intention of going by herself. She’d automatically assumed that Lizzie would go with her and had said, ‘I wouldn’t be alone, Mammy. Lizzie would be coming with me.’
‘Does she want to go too?’
‘Of course she does,’ Tressa had said airily. ‘She just doesn’t know it yet.’ But she added this last comment under her breath. All she had to do was convince Lizzie it was a great idea. She’d done it many times before.
But Lizzie had proved to be unusually difficult. ‘Don’t give in to her this time,’ her elder sister Eileen had warned her. ‘You’re making yourself a rubbing rag.’
Lizzie thought Eileen had a cheek. How many times had she come begging, ‘Could you do that pile of ironing for me, Lizzie,’ or ‘churn the butter,’ or ‘wash the pots,’ or whatever it was. Eileen would always have a good reason for not being able to do it right then. ‘I’ll pay you back,’ she’d promise, but she never did. Even though Lizzie might resent it, she always did it and usually without a word of complaint.
But it was one thing scouring pots, ironing the family wash and making butter. It was quite another to go to a strange country she’d never had a yen to go to, because of a whim her cousin had to see the place. ‘I don’t know, Tressa,’ she’d said.
Tressa hadn’t been too worried. Lizzie often had to be persuaded to do things and eventually Lizzie had said, ‘If I was to come, and I’m not saying I will, mind, how d’you know there would be jobs for us both?’
Tressa allowed herself a little smile of triumph. ‘Clara said that in the New Year two of the waitresses are leaving, one to get married and one to look after her ailing mother, and of course she is getting married herself later. She says the boss likes Irish girls and so do the Americans, and the tips they give are legion. She said she’ll miss that when she is married herself,’ for Clara was sporting an engagement ring with a huge diamond in the centre of it. ‘She’s getting married in the spring and moving down south somewhere,’ Tressa said. ‘We really need to go while she’s there to speak for us.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ Lizzie had promised.
A couple of days later, Tressa watched Lizzie working in the dairy, pummelling the poss stick up and down in the churn. Lizzie’s arms throbbed with pain and her back ached, and despite the raw, black day she was sweating so much she felt it dampening under her arms and running down her back. It wasn’t even her turn to do the churning, she thought resentfully. It was Eileen’s, but she had had to mend the tear in the hem of her skirt for the dance she was going to that night.
Lizzie was also going to the dance and she had yet to have a wash and then iron her own clothes, but it was no good asking Eileen. She’d say she’d do them and then forget.
Tressa, knowing her cousin well, guessed what she was thinking about and so she said, ‘They’d manage without you here, you know. Your problem is you allow yourself to be put upon.’
And by you too, Lizzie might have said, but she knew Tressa had a point for there was Peter and Owen to help her father and even Johnnie, at eleven years old, was making a fine turn-out too. Her eldest sister Susan