The Palace of Strange Girls (17 page)

And then there’s Ruth. What has his wife done to warrant his desertion? Jack’s view of Ruth has changed over the course of
their marriage. At first he was flattered by her faith in him, drawn by the reassurance of normality that she seemed to offer.
He used to smile and shake his head when she said that he was tied on for success. “After all,” she would argue, “why be a
weaver when you could be an overlooker? Why be an overlooker when you could be a foreman? The sky’s the limit, Jack.”

As always, Ruth draws her inspiration from the Bible. The parable of the talents. After the war she persuaded Jack to attend
night school classes to learn more about textiles. When he brought home his diploma she framed it and displayed it prominently
in their front room. And it’s been nonstop push since then. Ruth’s constant striving for more success is wearing him out.
She is never satisfied. It’s all a long way from the life Jack had visualized back in Egypt when he wrote proposing marriage.
He’d believed then that together they would create a stable life, an antidote to the terrifying flux of his years of fighting
abroad. But seventeen years have passed and with them any notion of partnership.

In the headlong rush that is Ruth’s ambition there are casualties. Intimate conversation being one and physical affection
another. He is at first frustrated, disappointed by the lack of physical union, then troubled by guilt. He suspects that he
is being unreasonable to expect Ruth (a woman permanently distracted by what she views as the fatal illness of her younger
child) to find time for sex. In her silent rejection of his advances Ruth gathers a certain martyrdom to herself. And it would
have continued that way had her demands for a new house not suddenly increased in intensity. Thus reduced to only two topics
of marital conversation, imminent infant death and financing the purchase of a semi, Jack has taken avoidance measures. He
seeks distraction in work, completing eighteen-hour days only to discover, when he finally collapses into the marital bed,
that he has the energy to be angry. Nevertheless he continues, working all the overtime he can get. On Saturday mornings he
brings home parts of faulty loom drives to mend over the weekend. He already earns more than all his friends, but a weaving
shed wage will never buy his wife all the things she wants. Living with Ruth is hard work and Jack’s life had looked set to
continue that way until a week ago when the letter arrived and everything changed.

Every night since, Jack has dreamed of Crete. Sleep has allowed him entry to the happy illusion that he is back in the inn,
drinking and dancing, that Eleni is once more so close that he can feel her pulse. Despite the bitter knowledge when he wakes
that it is not reality but imagination, he can’t stop thinking about her. He wakes immersed in a past that he had hoped to
forget and now can only partially remember. He bears the daylight despair of a man fully alive only in his dreams. A man impatient
for the privacy of sleep that brings with it the prospect of seeing her again. And still he feels cheated, as if he had reached
out for the dancing figure of Eleni and, when the music stopped, found Ruth in his arms. As if his life is stranded here,
on Blackpool beach, when he should be in Kalivis running a taverna, looking after Eleni and bringing up his son.

Ruth finds him staring into space when she returns and she is forced to nudge him with her foot in order to get his attention.
“Here, Jack. Give me a hand with this tea before I drop the lot.”

Jack gets up and, taking the battered tin tray from her hands, places it on the sand while she disentangles her shopping bag
and the brown-paper parcel from her wrist. “There was a right crowd at the tea van. I must have queued for at least twenty
minutes. I’m gasping.”

Ruth unbuttons her raincoat and pours a stream of milky tea from the chipped white pottery jug into the two similarly battered
mugs. Sugar is added separately with an outsize teaspoon from a green egg cup. Taking tea on Blackpool sands is a bit rough
and ready. The proprietors of the tea van ensure the return of their crockery and trays by sticking a shilling on the price,
refundable with the return of the tray. This has proved to be something of a money spinner since the majority of carefree
holidaymakers are not prepared to queue again with the loaded tray for the sake of a bob. Thus the sands are dotted with abandoned
trays harvested at the end of the day by local lads at sixpence a time. This is business Blackpool style.

“Where are the girls?”

“Oh, they’re on the prom. I gave Helen a couple of bob for the slot machines.”

“How long have they been gone? You know that Elizabeth shouldn’t walk too far.”

“Around ten minutes,” Jack replies, keen to avoid an argument. “I’ve barely had a chance to look at the local paper.”

Ruth passes him a mug of tea. “Well, you should see the prices of semis they’re advertising in there. They’re sky high. Best
part of £2,000. Anyone would be hard pushed to afford a prewar semi let alone a new one.”

“There’s plenty of money in Blackpool. Still, you wouldn’t have all the shops if there wasn’t,” Jack remarks, eyeing his wife’s
shopping bag.

But Ruth persists: “You could buy a semi at home for the cost of a terraced house here.” Jack presses his lips closed and
turns to the cricket scores. Ruth tries another tack: “You’ll never guess who I saw in town. Cora!”

“Hmm.”

“You know, Cora Lloyd.”

“Ah.”

“She was supposed to be having a fortnight in Spain, but they’ve had to cancel. They’re staying in St. Anne’s for the week.
Anyway we went for a cup of tea and she was telling me that Ronald has been up to his ears at work arranging mortgages for
couples wanting to buy one of those new semis they’re building at the Boundary. You know, the ones we’re interested in.”

This is wishful thinking. Jack is resolutely not interested in either taking on a mortgage or buying a semi. Their terraced
house was bought outright for cash. Jack fires Ruth a warning glance. He has made his feelings known in the past and will
do so again if she doesn’t let the subject drop.

Ruth meets his gaze with studied indifference. “Cora says at this rate there’ll be none left by the time we get round to looking.”
Jack refuses to rise to the bait. He takes another mouthful of tea and returns to his perusal of the cricket scores. “I mean,
it’s not as if we don’t have the deposit, is it?… Jack? Are you listening?”

“What?”

“I said we have enough to put down for a deposit.”

“It’s got nothing to do with the deposit. It’s the fact we’d be taking on a loan and interest that it would take twenty-five
years to repay. I’ve told you what I think and I’m not going to get into another argument now.” From the look on his face
it is obvious that he is in no mood for further discussion.

Ruth is unaware that Beth has stolen one of the comics from the Residents’ Lounge. Beth has hidden the comic up her dress
and only the elastic in the ruched bodice lies between her and immediate discovery. Mother and daughter have climbed the stairs
to the second floor before the comic begins to slip. Beth is forced to fold one arm against her chest in order to prevent
the paper from continuing its downward slide past her knickers and on to the floor.

“What’s the matter with you, Elizabeth?” her mother asks. “What’s the matter with your arm? Are you hurting?” Beth nods. “Is
it your chest?” Ruth tries to keep her voice calm but when Beth nods her head again she is filled with anxiety. “Do you want
to stop and rest, or shall I carry you?”

Beth shakes her head and carries on climbing. This secrecy is vital. Ruth disapproves of children’s comics. She will be angry
if she discovers the contraband inching its way towards Beth’s knickers.

Progress up to the girls’ room is slow as many of their fellow guests are on their way down for afternoon tea. Mother and
daughter regularly pause and stand aside to let people pass. Hotel guests invariably say hello and smile at Beth, but she
refuses to speak or even meet their eyes. Mrs. Clegg’s pity for the child has translated itself into the urge to share her
concerns with other guests. Adults now watch Beth with either a lurid fascination or outright pity. The salesman’s “wife”
has bought her a little Welsh doll to play with. Beth dislikes dolls in general, but she reserves a special hatred for this
particular doll, for its red lips and rosy cheeks that mock her. Beth’s privacy is daily invaded by bending adults who stroke
her hair, or big men who boom and push sixpences into her hand. Sadly, her mother, who invariably witnesses these monetary
exchanges, collects the sixpences. Every time they pass the statue of the crippled boy outside the post office they stop and
press the latest sixpence into the slot at the top of the boy’s head. Beth is drawn to the statue. The boy has leg irons,
but this is of little interest. The real excitement is the big brown dog sitting at his side. The dog has friendly eyes, his
mouth is open and she can see a big pink tongue that might lick her hand if he were real.

Eventually they reach the room. Ruth walks over to the window and closes the curtains. Beth pulls out the comic from its hiding
place and pushes it under her pillow. When Ruth turns back from wrestling with the curtains she sees that Elizabeth is already
out of her dress and lying in bed, still as a corpse, with the covers pulled up to her chin. Ruth is gratified by the sight.
This proves that she is right about Elizabeth needing rest. Ruth checks her daughter’s forehead for signs of fever (the first
sign of polio and thus of constant concern to Ruth). Satisfied that Elizabeth’s temperature is normal, she kisses her daughter,
tucks her in as tightly as possible between the thin white sheets and lavishly darned gray Utility blankets, and switches
off the light before leaving the room.

Beth waits for some minutes before moving, listening to her mother’s retreating footsteps. Once the sound has died away she
begins the struggle to free herself from the binding of bedclothes. This involves a degree of wriggling before she can worm
her shoulders free, followed by some sharp twisting and turning. Once her arms are released it’s relatively easy to pull aside
the sheet and blankets. Despite this Beth is gasping for breath when she finally sits up and puts her feet on the floor. Triumphant,
she reaches for the comic.

Her favorite story is about an orphan who is adopted by a cruel family who ignore her and are unkind. The orphan doesn’t realize
it, but really she’s a princess who has been hidden away to keep her safe. One day a prince comes to the door and claims her,
and she leaves the nasty house and moves to the palace where she belongs. Beth is entranced by the story. She reads it again
and again, and traces the pictures with her finger. She is interested in becoming an orphan. More exciting still is the prospect
of living in a palace like the Tiger Woman. But the Tiger Woman is pretty. Beth sits and mulls the problem over. She is already
growing her nails into claws, but Beth’s lips aren’t as red as they ought to be. In fact, they’re not red at all. Mrs. Clegg
said she thought they looked a bit blue at breakfast. Beth sighs and bites her lips hard, the way she has seen Helen do before
she walks into the hotel dining room. But there may be a better solution. Beth opens the drawer in her bedside table and takes
out a circular box. The label says,

Dr. C. R. Coffin’s American Dentifrice

prepared by Darling of Manchester. An excellent
preparation for the preservation of Teeth

Beth opens the cardboard box and sees it is still half full of pink powder. First of all she tries patting the powder on to
her cheeks. Anxious to see the effect, she drags the chair over to the washbasin. Climbing up, she can just about see her
face in the mirror. But Dr. Coffin’s powder hasn’t worked. It is nowhere near dark enough and it falls off her cheeks the
minute she pats it on. Beth stops and considers the problem. A solution occurs to her. She empties some of the powder into
her hand and kneels down on the chair to reach the taps. With the addition of a trickle of cold water the powder not only
turns dark pink but also stays put when she applies it to her lips. Beth stands on tiptoe to see her reflection. Her lips
look a little lumpy but this is a small price to pay. All that remains now is to practice tiger leaps.

Have you ever had your fortune told by a gypsy at the seaside? Did you cross her palm with silver? Did she have a crystal
ball? Score 20 points.

T
he Singletons are late for the evening meal. The corridors and stairs are deserted as they make their way downstairs. There’s
a queue for the dining room and when the family finally get there it’s like a cattle market. The room is hot and noisy, the
tables crowded, the air vibrating with the clatter of Sheffield steel against hotel china and the rumble of conversation.
Florrie waves across the room at them and yells, “Coo-ee, Ruth. Over here! I’ve saved your table for you.”

Ruth is torn between relief and annoyance. The last thing she wants is to be beholden to the Cleggs, but with the dining room
as crowded as it is it’s a relief to sit down. The meal starts with brown Windsor soup thick enough to stand a spoon up in.
What it lacks in meat, Ruth observes, is more than made up for with pepper. The main course consists of a couple of lamb chops
reared up against a mountain of mash, peas the color and texture of spent shells and gravy that solidifies on contact. It’s
an approximation of lemon meringue for afters. Ruth bakes the pudding according to Elizabeth Craig. The lemon base should
be clear and sharp to the taste in contrast with the sweet crispness of the meringue. Ruth bakes the pastry blind and allows
the lemon to cool fully before she fills the case. Haste at any point in the baking of a lemon meringue is asking for trouble.
Sadly, the chef at the Belvedere has made the basic mistake of oversweetening the lemon. It runs from the pastry case like
jam. And the rest? The meringue is chewy, the topping hasn’t been sealed properly and the pastry is waterlogged. Despite this
Ruth’s daughters eat enthusiastically—as if they’d never tasted better. Probably it’s the sea air, Ruth reasons, that has
made them so hungry. The meal is consumed in record time and the families disperse, leaving Ruth alone with Florrie.