The Palace of Strange Girls (15 page)

“What do you think? I said no.”

“Why?”

“Have you seen him? He’s a right creep, that one. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”

“Why not?” Helen is amazed. Alan Clegg is nicely dressed and he works for an accountant.

“He’s a bit too handy, if you ask me. Too fast for his own good. Won’t take no for an answer. Got a touch of desert disease.”

“What’s desert disease?” Beth asks and both sisters give Connie their full attention.

“You know.” Connie nudges Helen. “The old wandering palms.”

Neither sister is any the wiser, but at least Helen manages to hide her ignorance. “You’re too young to understand,” she tells
Beth.

“I’ll bet that knocked the smile off his face when you turned him down,” Helen tells Connie. There’s still a chance Alan might
ask her out if Connie has given him the elbow.

“Oh, I’m not too sure about that. I’ve heard that he’s wangled an invitation to join the porters for a drink tonight. I’ll
probably end up seeing him whether I like it or not. The pillock.”

Beth, whose attention has wandered back to the postcards, is suddenly alert, eyes open wide in surprise. “Piddock? Did she
say piddock?” she asks Helen.

“Be quiet, Beth. And don’t swear.”

Beth riffles through her I-Spy book until she finds the right page. “It’s not swearing. A piddock is a boring…” Beth hesitates
over the strange word. “A boring molly something. Anyway it’s worth seventy-five points!”

Both the older girls burst into laughter. Connie takes the book and glances at the page. “I said he was a pillock,” Connie
replies. “Not a flippin’ piddock.”

“Oh, I don’t know. A boring mollusc,” says Helen, looking over her friend’s shoulder. “Sounds like a fair description to me,”
she adds.

“Either way he’s a nuisance. I’ve a good mind to complain to Andy about him. Andy would sort him out fast enough.”

“Who’s Andy?” Beth asks.

“The chef at the hotel. Now shut up,” Helen tells her sister. “So why don’t you go out with Andy?” she asks, turning to Connie.

“I’ve told you before,” Connie replies. “He’s already breathing down my neck every hour God sends. It would be even worse
if I went out with him. He’s so possessive. I wouldn’t get a minute to myself. Why can’t I ever get a bloke like that one
over there?” Connie points to afigure approaching them through the crowd. “God! He’s gorgeous.”

“Who?” asks Helen, turning round to follow Connie’s glance.

“The one with the leather jacket. Looks like James Dean. He’s bloody gorgeous. I’d kill to get a date with him.”

Helen spots a tall muscular figure dressed in tight jeans, a white T-shirt and black winkle-pickers. His brown hair is brushed
into a DA at the back and coaxed into a shiny quiff at the front. “Him with the studded jacket? Oh, I know him. That’s Doug
Fairbrother. His dad knows my dad.”

“Well, be quick and introduce me,” Connie whispers but there’s no need.

Doug has spotted them and is making his way over. It’s obvious he’s going to speak. “It’s Helen, isn’t it? I’ve seen you at
Prospect, haven’t I? I took you to your dad when you came to the mill one day.”

Doug gives Helen an admiring glance and watches with some satisfaction as she blushes.

It is raining when Helen reaches the mill yard. Her mother is down in Liverpool visiting Beth in hospital and, as a result,
there is a change in routine. Helen has to meet her dad at the mill rather than going straight home after school to an empty
house. She does have an umbrella, but not one that she’s prepared to take to school and risk losing. There’s a hood on her
school raincoat but there’s no way she’s going to use that. Not when she can see a really nice-looking bloke watching her
from the high hatch in the gable end of the mill. There’s two of them up there guiding in the bales of raw cotton from the
winch. Helen can see they’re laughing and waving at her, but she’s too shy to acknowledge their shouted greetings and enthusiastic
arm waving. “I’ll be down in a minute, luv,” one of them shouts. Helen bites her lip and looks at her feet, scanning the cobbles
as if the cure for her embarrassment lies there.

“Hi! So what brings you here?”

“I’m supposed to be meeting my dad.”

“Who’s he, then?”

“Jack Singleton. He works in…”

“I know where he works. I should do. You must be Helen.” Helen looks blank. “I’m Doug—Dougie Fairbrother’s son.”

“Oh! Your dad comes over to our house every now and again.”

“Yeah.”

There is a brief silence.

“Anyway, I’ll take you to your dad, shall I?”

“He said to wait for him in the yard.”

“Not when it’s pouring down! C’mon. At least let’s get out of the rain.”

Doug guides Helen across the yard to a vast sliding wooden door painted green and padlocked top and bottom. There appears
to be no way forward until Doug opens a small hatchway set in the woodwork. He bows his head and steps through the door into
semidarkness. Doug holds the door back, signaling her forward and Helen follows.

It is the sound that hits her first, before she has even taken a second step across the threshold. A demonic hum and crash
that makes her want to scream in terror, fall to her knees and curl up, press her hands against the throbbing in her ears.
It is the loudest sound she has ever heard, the wild whistling roar of a thousand steel-tipped shuttles as they shoot back
and forth, and the titanic clash of iron-trimmed weaving beams as they shift and change the warp threads. And below all these
sounds is the steady rumble of hundreds of giant leather drive belts that revolve from floor to ceiling, powering looms that
glisten with oil and grime. And the heat. The imprisoned air burns the back of Helen’s throat as her nose fills with the damp,
rich smell of cotton and oil. Above her daylight filters through the north windows and illuminates a scene of frenetic industry
and chaotic haste. And everywhere, everywhere, the air is alive with floating lint.

Helen turns back to the hatchway in search of a way out of the chaos and noise, but the exit is lost in the shadows. Doug
turns and beckons her forward, so she follows. Her feet slip on the mixture of black machine oil and settled lint that covers
the floor, and sweat pours down the back of her shirt beneath her school uniform. As she passes, weavers appear from the tangle
of machinery and nod or stand with their backs to their loom and openly stare. Others talk to each other in a pantomime of
silent speech in order to be understood through the constant thwack of picking sticks that drive the shuttles back and forth.
And still the narrow corridor continues through section after section of looms that stretch as far as the eye can see. At
last Doug turns back to Helen and indicates a doorway at the top of some steps set into a small glass half-partitioned wall.
There’s a peeling wood sign on the door that says “Foreman.” Helen rushes forward, eager to escape the shed.

Once inside, Doug closes the door behind them and shouts in her ear with a laugh, “First time in a weaving shed?”

Helen nods in reply, light-headed with the heat and not trusting her voice to be heard over the uproar.

“This is your dad’s office—he’ll be out on the floor somewhere now, but he’ll be back in a minute. I can’t stop. I’ll have
to leave you…”

“Don’t!” Helen shouts and grabs his arm.

Doug laughs again. “I’ve got t’get back. You’ll be OK here. Stop ’ere an’ wait for your dad or we’ll all get hell.”

Doug has cause to remember the day Helen turned up at the mill for more than one reason. He’d paid a high price for the pleasure
of parading through the shed with a pretty girl at his heels. Once Jack Singleton had learned about it he’d dragged Doug across
the tiles. Doug Fairbrother was employed in delivery and dispatch—he shouldn’t have been in the shed in the first place. Still,
looking at Helen now, Doug is convinced that the upset was worth it. If her face is anything to go by she won’t forget him
in a while.

He is still basking in the notoriety when the redhead breaks in: “Hi, I’m Connie. Helen’s friend from the hotel.”

“Which one?”

“The Belvedere.”

“Oh, I’d heard that you were staying there,” Doug says, looking at Helen. “Dougie says you stay there every year.” Doug’s
habit of referring to his father by his first name makes Helen want to laugh.

“I work there. Just for the summer, like,” Connie says, re-directing Doug’s attention to herself. “I’m surprised I haven’t
seen you before. I get off most nights by eight and then we’re straight down to Yates’s for a drink and a bit of fun.” Connie’s
smile is an open invitation.

“Yates’s, is it? I might see you and Helen down there some time,” Doug says.

“Make sure you do,” Connie adds.

The left side of Beth’s face is aching, forcing her to shift the gobstopper to her other cheek. It tumbles out of her mouth
in the process and all three girls watch fascinated as it rolls to a sticky halt between Doug’s winkle-pickers.

Helen aches with embarrassment. “Don’t you dare!” she hisses when Beth bends to retrieve the sweet. “Anyway, we’d better be
going.”

“See you around, Helen. Nice meeting you, Connie.” And with that Doug is gone, leaving Connie staring dreamily after him.

If you look carefully you’ll find lots of things on the beach that have been stranded by the tide. You might even find a message
in a bottle that has come across the sea from far away! Score 30.

W
ith his daughters gone and Ruth still in town shopping, Jack is left to his own devices. He folds up his newspaper, wedges
it in the wooden frame of his deckchair and stares out to sea. Out on the horizon a packed pleasure boat inches across the
bay. Jack takes several deep breaths, but still he can’t settle. The moment he tries to relax, his thoughts return to the
same old subject. Jack sighs and, casting a surreptitious glance around him, reaches into his pocket and pulls out the letter.

He has had it since last Thursday when he’d called round to see the old man. Jack was there alone—Ruth hasn’t accompanied
him on these visits since they were newly married. Jack had spotted the letter as soon as he’d walked in. It was propped up
behind the one-eyed pot dog on the kitchen mantelpiece where his mother had always put important paperwork. Everything went
there, from her current Co-operative Society Stamp Book to her Last Will and Testament and the latest crumpled receipt from
the coal man, a known rogue who waits until there’s no one at home and then charges for a couple of bags more than he delivers.
Jack’s mother died last year but the pot dog remains, still guarding vital communications. Jack saw what he reckoned were
foreign stamps on the letter but he’d smothered his curiosity, knowing that the old man would get round to telling him in
his own good time.

Father and son had sat at the green baize card table in front of the fire and shared a plate of cream crackers with a wedge
of Tasty Lancashire. Conversation was punctuated by next door’s dog howling its head off in the backyard. The meal finished,
Jack had gone into the scullery with the dirty plates, and while waiting for the kettle to boil, he’d seen the dog stick its
head over the high backyard wall. Jack had nipped out and given the poor bugger a scratch behind the ears. When he came back
in his father was shaking his head.

“Dickie picked up that beggar for a couple of quid last spring in the Cat and Sardine on Mill Street. He’d been after a lapdog
for Winnie, now she’s stuck in a wheelchair with the arthritis. The bloke in the Sardine swore through a nine-inch wall that
the dog was a fully grown pedigree and it was only for sale because it was too soft to go ratting. Dickie carried it back
home under one arm. He’d be hard pushed to even lift it nowadays, let alone carry it.”

Jack has heard the story many times but recognizes it would be churlish to deny his father the pleasure of telling it. “I’ll
bet Winnie was pleased,” he volunteers. “She’s a soft spot for dogs, hasn’t she?”

“She was suited to death. The minute that dog set eyes on her it knew she was soft in the head. It crawled straight up on
her knee and curled up as good as gold. She called it Totty. They hadn’t had it a month before they cottoned on. Not only
was it a keen forager with a rare talent for thievery, it could eat like a mad horse. It’ll chew anything—from backyard weeds
and clothes on the washing line to pantry leftovers and bicycle tires. Listen on it whining —they’ve put it out just so they
can eat their tea in peace.”

“Well, it’s a fair size for a dog.”

“Last time I saw Dickie I told him straight. I said, ‘You want to get a saddle on that bugger.’”

“It’s a shame.”

“Well, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. He was daft buying a dog in a pub and she was dafter still nursing it.
It doesn’t matter how big that dog gets it’s still after being nursed. If it’s not trying to climb on her knee it’s sat beside
her wheelchair with its chin on her shoulder and a daft grin on its face. The big galoot. Winnie can’t get on with her knitting
without him snuffling around the back of her ears and dribbling on her wool. For two pins Dickie would have taken it back,
but Winnie won’t hear of it. She says that dog is the nearest thing they’ve had to family since the day they were married.”
The old man heaved a sigh and said, “You couldn’t make it up, could you?”

It was only after they’d finished off the Lincoln biscuits and were drinking their mugs of tea that the old man tilted his
head at the mantelpiece and said, “That turned up a couple of days ago.”

“Oh, aye?” Jack replied, wandering over to the mantelpiece and retrieving the letter.

“Aren’t you going to open it? Might be important. From the looks of it it’s come a fair distance.”

“Has it?” Jack had said, but seeing the expression on his dad’s face he’d added, “I’ll open it later. I’m about ready for
another mug of tea, aren’t you? I’ll put the kettle on.”