The Palace of Strange Girls (2 page)

“What about ‘Little Cloud’ or ‘Laughing Waters’?” Helen suggests.

Beth looks unconvinced. She wants to be called something frightening. “Wolf Teeth” would be good. Or “Growling Bear.” Beth
needs to find another club member so that she can join their tribe instead of being by herself all the time. She’s been absent
from school for a long time and all the friends she used to know are now friends with someone else. It would be better if
Beth could join in at playtime but her mother has told the school that Beth is not allowed to swing, climb, skip or run. As
a result Beth just sits and watches at playtime. Waiting for someone to play marbles with her.

Of all the myriad rules there is one above all others that must not be broken. Beth must never, ever, for any reason take
off her wool undershirt. As a result the undershirt (Ladybird age 5) is Beth’s closest companion. It is only removed once
a week when Beth is bathed and is immediately replaced by another undershirt fresh from the airing cupboard and smelling of
Lux soapflakes. In this manner Beth’s shame is kept from the sight of all but her mother.

“For goodness’ sake, Beth! What are we going to do about your sandals?” Beth looks down at the scuffed leather. She has had
the sandals for six weeks but has only been wearing them since Saturday, the start of the holiday. It seems that only Beth
is subject to this particular rule. All Beth’s friends have been wearing their sandals since Easter and Susan Fletcher has
been wearing hers even longer. All year round, in fact. But that’s because Susan Fletcher’s mum works and she “doesn’t care
what state she sends her daughter to school in.” At least that’s what Beth’s mother says.

“I hate these,” Beth complains, kicking off her sandals. “Only boys wear brown sandals. I didn’t even get to stand on the
thing that makes your feet go all green like a skellington.”

“You mean the X-ray machine. No one will notice they’re brown. Anyway they match your hair,” says Helen, in a moment of inspiration.

They are interrupted by a sharp rapping at the door. Both girls jump.

“That’s Mum! Quick, get your sandals on or we’ll both catch it.”

Ruth Singleton, her arms full of clothes, waits in the hallway, her right foot tapping on the varnished floorboards. If her
patience is short today it’s due to her husband’s ill-starred attempt at marital intimacy this morning. Surely he can see
how she is after all these months of anxiety? But not Jack. No. Jack thinks a bit of early-morning sex is on the menu now
they’re on holiday. Ruth had tolerated his caresses until his increasing insistence had forced her to push his hand away and
say, “Don’t, Jack. I have to get up to get the girls ready.”

He hadn’t said anything, had limited himself to a drawn-out sigh. Ruth felt an answering rush of anger. Does it always have
to come down to this?

Ruth is prized from the memory by the sound of the door finally opening. None of this palaver with locks would be necessary
if it weren’t for her younger daughter’s recently acquired habit of sleepwalking. This is bad enough at home, but there’s
no telling what trouble the seven-year-old might get into in a hotel the size of the Belvedere. In a doomed attempt to allay
Mrs. Singleton’s worst fears, the hotel manager has sworn on his mother’s life (a lady much missed since her demise three
years previously) that the room locks are made by the same firm who supplied the MOD during the war. Even the “blasted Hun”
couldn’t breach the security of the Belvedere’s rooms and thus Beth’s habit of going AWOL at night has been curtailed. This
desirable state being attained not by the hoped-for Yale lock and chain, but by the effect of damp salt air on turn-of-the-century
iron locks. All of which means that Helen must use the combined strength of both hands and the leverage of her shoulder to
release the door.

Though barely topping five foot six, Ruth appears much larger. Her face is scrubbed to a shine and her brown hair (already
falling victim to the stealthy approach of gray) is brushed and fixed neatly into a Victory Roll that evokes memories of the
war years and oppressive rationing. She is an energetic woman. A woman devoted to hard work. A woman reliant upon the writings
of Elizabeth Craig to guide her through the minefield of domestic practice. Once in the room, Ruth dumps the clothes on the
nearest bed and heads straight for the window to let in the sunshine. This involves coaxing, flicking, tugging and hauling
the pea-green damask curtains to either end of a buckled and sagging wire. Halfway through this daily ordeal Ruth is distracted
by the sight of the hotel yard, four floors below. It is lined with overflowing bins and a miscellaneous collection of mops,
buckets and rusty chairs occupied by members of the hotel staff during their tea breaks. There, in full view, stands a line
of sullen gray dustbins on an island of cracked concrete; the whole amply irrigated by the backwash of overflowing kitchen
drains. Ruth’s whitewashed backyard boasts two bins, double the capacity of her terraced neighbors’. One (supplied by the
local council) for ashes, and the other (privately purchased) for household waste. Ruth always wraps potato peelings and the
like before disposal. Only by wrapping everything in fresh newspaper can Ruth ensure that the inside of her bin remains as
clean as the day she bought it.

The sight of the hotel bins is aggravated further by the appearance of two overturned buckets that roll back and forth as
the wind shifts. Surely the hotel owns more by way of cleaning equipment than that? Ruth has a whole selection of buckets
in her backyard. One for gathering up the hot ashes from the kitchen fire, one for scrubbing floors, another for washing windows
and, finally, a monstrous aluminum bucket, twice the size of its iron counterparts, for “best.” In line with its elevated
status this bucket stands in glorious isolation in the scullery, immaculately clean and gleaming with potential, waiting for
the next load of cottons that need starching.

Ruth’s ruminations on household equipment are interrupted by a cry of protest from her older daughter: “Isn’t it time I changed
my skirt, Mum?”

Ruth turns her gaze from the window. “I don’t know what you’re fussing about. That skirt will do another day. You’ve got clean
underwear. You wouldn’t have that if I hadn’t spent half an hour in the laundry room last night.”

This is not quite the irksome job it might appear. The hotel laundry room houses a brand-new Bendix Twin Tub. Under the pretext
of hand-washing the family’s underwear, Ruth has admired the top-loader lids and neat hoses on the twin tub, seen the spinner
in action. As the adverts say: “This is the future of household laundry.” Ruth has a Hotpoint Empress at home. With its built-in
“automatic” wringer and Bakelite agitator it used to be the last word in laundry. But the advent of the Bendix Twin Tub has
changed all that. Who would want the backache of hauling double sheets through the wringer if they could drop them in a spinner
and pull them out forty minutes later drip free? This is the modern world of postwar Britain. A world made familiar to Ruth
through magazines. A world she is determined to enter.

Ruth turns her attention to her younger daughter. “Have you washed your face, Elizabeth? Elizabeth!”

Beth has her head firmly in the I-Spy codebook. She is practicing stroking her cheek in the manner prescribed at the beginning
of chapter 3 “Greeting other Redskins.” Beth has been rehearsing this move for the past four days but no one has yet responded.

“Elizabeth!” Ruth says, taking her daughter firmly by the arm. “Are you listening? Have you washed your face?”

“Yes.” It is a small lie. So small that it barely deserves the name. But it affords a morsel of revenge, a minor victory in
the guerrilla war Beth has been waging since Easter, a war that Ruth is only dimly aware is being fought.

“Looks more like a lick and a promise to me,” Ruth says, scanning her daughter’s face. “You could do with using a bit of soap
next time.”

“Can I have a summer dress today? Please. I hate wearing shorts. I look like a boy in them.”

Ruth holds up the brown shorts. The weave is a right-hand twill, perfect for rough wear because it will resist snags and tears.
And it won’t wear out. “Well, if these shorts and those sandals aren’t summery I don’t know what is,” she says. “I’ve only
brought your sweater because we’ve got to keep you warm.”

“Can I wear this?” Beth asks as she pulls a smocked cotton dress from the bottom of the pile. Beth has inherited the dress
from her sister but has yet to be allowed to wear it.

Ruth holds up the dress. “It might do,” she concedes. There follow a frantic ten minutes while Ruth tries and fails to fit
the dress over Beth’s wool undershirt and fleece-lined liberty bodice. “It’s no good, Elizabeth. It’s not going to fit. Hold
your arms up while I get it off.”

Beth raises her arms as the dress is pulled up over her head, bringing the undershirt and liberty bodice with it. By the time
Beth emerges from the struggle her face is the color of the rising sun—for a minute she looks healthy. In her haste to protect
her daughter from any potential drafts Ruth yanks the undershirt back across Beth’s skin so sharply that the child flinches
with pain. In another moment she is dressed in the prescribed brown knee-length shorts, olive-green sweater and thick socks
to take up the slack in her sandals.

“There. Now you’re done.” Ruth heaves a sigh with the effort involved in arming her daughter against all the sharp winds and
torrential rain that Blackpool can offer in the middle of July.

These little animals live between the tidemarks, chiefly under stones and in the rotting seaweed at the top of the beach.
They are white with bright red eyes and five pairs of legs. Score 10 points for a bleary-eyed sandhopper.

J
ack has escaped early to buy a newspaper. With this end in mind he has made his way to the promenade in holiday mood. The
sun is still a bit fitful but the air is fresh. He is easily tempted by the sea and so wanders over the tram tracks and pink
tarmac to the edge of the promenade, takes a deep breath and gazes over the railings. The run-up to the annual Wakes Week
holiday has been hectic. The weaving shed where Jack is foreman has been buzzing with talk of closure. Jack has spent the
last week sorting out one problem after another, reorganizing shifts, dealing with strike threats and all the while continuing
the daily struggle to keep output steady. Jack takes another deep breath and, determined to relax, gazes out to the horizon.
The tide is coming in and the remaining strip of sand is empty save for a single figure, shoes in hand, making its way painfully
over sand hard rippled by the tide. It’s Dougie.

“Mornin’, Dougie! Up an’ at it already?” Jack shouts.

The figure looks up and glares. Dougie Fairbrother is knee high to a grasshopper and walks like he’s fighting a gale. When
he comes within hailing distance he yells, “What time is it, Jack?”

“Just comin’ up to twenty past.”

“What?” Receiving no immediate reply, he adds, “Twenty past what?”

“Seven.”

“That means I’ve been on this friggin’ beach for the best part of two bloody hours,” Dougie says as he makes his way slowly
up the concrete steps that separate the beach from the prom. Jack shakes his head. He has known Dougie Fairbrother all his
life. Jack was the first person Dougie went to when his wife walked out and it was Jack who got him sorted out with a solicitor.
Dougie has developed a fair thirst since his divorce back in the spring. It’s eight in the morning and he’s still drunk from
the night before. When Dougie finally reaches the top of the steps he stops to catch his breath. Dougie has worked in the
weaving shed since he was fourteen, that’s the best part of twenty years filling his lungs with lint and dust.

While he is puffing and blowing Jack remarks, “Aye, well, they say there’s no rest for the wicked. What happened to lying
in bed, Dougie? I thought your lad had booked a double room.”

“He did. But it’s otherwise occupied at the moment. The little bastard has got a lass from over yonder in with him.”

Jack follows the direction of Dougie’s thumb and sees a strip joint on the corner opposite with all the hatches battened down.
“Who’s he got in there?” he asks, hard pushed to hide his incredulity.

“One of the strippers. I didn’t stop long enough to get her name and there were no bloody point asking Doug. Pound to a penny
he wouldn’t know.”

“So where did you sleep?”

“I kipped down in the Residents’ Lounge. I was OK till the cleaners turned up at six and threw me out. I’ve been hanging around
here on the off chance one of the lads turned up. I’m chilled to the bloody bone and gasping for a drink. They won’t open
the hotel doors before nine at the earliest.”

Jack puts his hand in his pocket and gives Dougie half a crown. “That’ll be enough to get you a pot of tea and some breakfast.”

Dougie brightens immediately and says, “Thanks, Jack. E-e, but you should have come with us last night. We had a grand time.
It was a good do.”

“Looks like it,” replies Jack.

Dougie blinks his bloodshot eyes and rubs a calloused hand over his sickly face. “We started off at Yates’s but, God help
us, we ended up at the King o’ Clubs.”

“I’m surprised you went back there. I thought you’d been thrown out last time,” Jack says as they cross the tramlines.

“We were. It was Tapper’s fault. We sat through this load o’ guff about how we were going to see amazing things. Some tart
wi’ her own version of pingpong, half a dozen Egyptian dancers, that sort of thing. We’d gone in to see Sheba, the star of
the show. She was billed as ‘six foot of exotic woman, naked as God intended, from the distant reaches of deepest Africa.’
Tapper jumped up halfway through the spiel and yelled, ‘Well, bloody bring her out! I’ve summat here from Blackburn waiting
for her!’ It took three of us, mind, but we managed to get Tapper to sit down again and button his fly. Nowt would have come
of it if some lard-arse next to us hadn’t said summat smart. Tapper only got to throw three or four punches before we were
out on our ears. Never a dull moment wi’ Tapper.”