The Palace of Strange Girls (31 page)

“So that must be Ireland,” Helen says, pointing west.

“Yes, and the Isle of Man. And there, behind all the mist, is north Wales.”

Helen follows her dad’s pointing finger—all these places she’s never been. Helen sighs and turns away.

The fresh air has given everyone an appetite. The Singletons have dinner in a café, and make their way back to the hotel for
a wash and change. The whole family is in high spirits; even Ruth and Helen appear to have reached a truce.

It’s two o’clock before Jack and Ruth set off for St. Anne’s. There’s a queue for the tram, and although this isn’t unusual
in Blackpool at the height of the season, there’s still a sense of expectation in the crowd. When the bloke at the head of
the queue announces, “It’s comin’!” the whole crowd murmurs and leans forward across the tracks to catch its first glimpse
of the tram. It’s the “Blackpool Belle,” a standard, run-of-the-mill olive and yellow tram transformed into a replica of a
Mississippi paddle steamer complete with wheel, or at least the closest any weaver this side of the Atlantic is going to get
to one. Seeing the surge of the crowd when the doors open, Jack takes Ruth’s arm and they step back and wait.

The next tram goes the long way round. Only half full, it threads its way inland through a long sprawl of redbrick semis,
built before the war. To Ruth’s eye, familiar only with endless streets of modest terraced houses, these semis look palatial.
The patterned brickwork carries with it a sense of solid authority. The entrances are flanked by redbrick pillars topped with
huge cream balls carved with the house name. Heavy wrought-iron gates open on to wide graveled drives. The gardens consist
of verdant lawns fringed by ornamental borders filled with roses. These semis, with their coach lights and fancily carved
barge boards, exude a private superiority from their high trimmed hedges to their polished and leaded windows that flash like
diamonds against the white paintwork. And no two are exactly the same. Not like terraced houses where you could go in any
one and find your way blindfold into the scullery or up to the attic. Residents of St. Anne’s wouldn’t know what a donkey
stone was if it hit them in the face.

The Links Hotel is heralded by a string of company flags that line the drive leading to the front entrance. It’s an impressive
sight. Jack and Ruth step through the entrance into a cool reception area that’s all Ionic columns. Their ears are assaulted
by the sound of violins from loudspeakers hidden behind gigantic flower arrangements. They approach a reception desk that
is the size of Ruth’s kitchen at home and, having given their names, a supercilious bellboy in green and gold livery escorts
them through to a rambling Edwardian conservatory complete with buttonback couches and wrought-iron tables.

Cora spots them as soon as they walk in and waves them over. She is heavily made up, powder lies thickly on her cheeks and
there is a gash of bright red lipstick across her mouth. She looks unsteady in her white canvas wedge shoes as she stands
up to greet them. Cora is wearing a dramatically tight-waisted dress with a full red polka-dot skirt. The white feathers on
her cocktail hat waft in the air as she embraces Ruth. Sunglasses cover her eyes but, as ever, her smile is sufficient to
disarm the most critical look. Ronald, every inch the assistant bank manager, lounges back in his chair with a proprietorial
air, as if the whole building belongs to him. Ronald has dark-brown hair that is parted thickly on the left and held in place
by generous amounts of hair oil. His wide face and blunt nose distract attention away from small blue eyes that constantly
shift, taking in everything. His body gives every indication of having escaped the worst deprivations of the postwar economy.
He is a man writ large. He exudes from the open pores of his skin an aura of complacent wealth, of gravitas in a world of
lesser mortals. His feet alone have resisted the onslaught of middle-aged expansion. They remain small, dainty to the point
of absurdity, and encased in diamond-patterned golfing socks and black lace-up shoes.

“Look who’s here, Ronnie. It’s Ruth and Jack. I told you I’d invited them over.”

Ronald gives Ruth a thick-lipped smile that disappears from his mouth the moment it arrives. He fails to acknowledge Jack
other than by pointing to the seats opposite and indicating the visitors should sit. This gesture never fails to intimidate
both social inferiors and bank customers called in to explain their overdrafts. Jack, alive to Ronald’s calculated superiority,
ignores the indicated seating and chooses instead to sit at the other side of Cora.

Cora softens at his approach, pats his knee and says, “Did you find the hotel OK, Jack? I’m afraid the directions I gave Ruth
were a bit vague. I’m not a driver, you see. I don’t really pay much attention to the roads.”

“We were fine,” Jack replies, folding his arms. “We came over by tram.”

“Why, that’ll have dropped you some distance away,” Ronald smirks.

“Yes,” Ruth concedes, “but it was a nice walk. We wouldn’t have seen the avenue of limes… well, not properly, if we’d come
by car. The gardens here are beautiful, aren’t they?”

“It took us half the time to get here that it usually does,” Ronald tells Jack, “what with my new Rover. There’s some real
power under the bonnet. And the acceleration—nought to sixty in no time. You don’t drive, do you, Jack?” Jack opens his mouth
to say that he drove during the war, but Ronald breezily continues, “Still, Cora tells me you’re on the waiting list for a
secondhand car. A Ford Popular, is it? Small but cheap to run. Thirty brake horsepower. You’ll not have to let him get carried
away with the speed, Ruth. Anyway, let me order something. What would you want, Ruth? Cora has been drinking pink gin—can
I order one for you?”

Ruth shakes her head. “No, thank you, Ronald. A cup of tea would be nice though.”

Ruth had told Cora about the car (£390 + tax) in the strictest confidence. About how excited Jack was. About it having chrome
bumpers and hubcaps. And a spare wheel and even a boot. Jack looks irritated already and they’ve not been there five minutes.

“And you, Jack?”

“Tea is fine. I make a point of not drinking during the day.”

Ronald raises a lazy paw. A steward hurries up, pad and pencil at the ready, and is dispatched with an order for a pink gin,
a whisky sour and a pot of tea for two. Ronald is a heavy tipper. But only in public. Women who weekly provide private services
of a personal nature never see this beneficent side of Mr. Lloyd.

“Do any gardening, Jack?” Ronald asks.

“No. Not really.”

“Oh, you should. I find it very relaxing. It’s the coming thing. You wouldn’t recognize The Hallows now. Shrubbery, bedding
schemes, herbaceous borders—I’ve ditched the lot. They’re very old hat nowadays. Got a man in to lay the concrete. He made
me laugh. Wanted paying in advance, didn’t he, Cora?” Cora nods dutifully. “In case I changed my mind once the concrete was
down. No fear of that I told him. I left the beech hedge in though—I don’t mind forking out for a new-look garden but I’m
blowed if I’ll have passersby gawping. I like my privacy. Not that there’s been much of that since the railings went to the
war effort. Once I’d got rid of the flowers I got my gardener to lay a lawn along the front. It’s immaculate, even though
I say it myself. Best lawn I’ve ever seen. Of course, it takes a lot of care to get it to that standard. My man uses sulphate
of ammonia for weeds and iron sulphate for the moss—all mixed with sand, of course. You need a good dose of chemicals to get
a lawn looking as good as mine. And plenty of DDT—best pesticide there is. Gardener watched all the concrete being put down
at the back and said, ‘You’ll be putting me out of a job, Mr. Lloyd; there’ll be no flowers to look after at this rate.’ But
he changed his tune when I put in the raised beds and concrete pots. A block of French yellow marigolds just like the ones
we saw at the latest Ideal Homes Exhibition, all crammed tight between the concrete walls, and another block of roses, twelve
foot by six, at right angles to it. I don’t hold with a mishmash of different varieties—you don’t get the same uniform color.
All the paths are solid concrete, of course—you can walk round my garden all day and not get a bit of soil on your shoes.
Cora’s delighted. We’re planning a garden party next week to show it all off. I don’t suppose you have much of a garden where
you are, Jack?”

“No.”

“Still, Cora tells me that you have one of those allotments across the road from where you live. How convenient. I bet you
escape out there every Saturday to read your newspaper. You run a couple of dozen hens on the allotment, don’t you? They’ll
be keeping you busy, I expect.”

Jack barely nods. The waiter arrives with afternoon tea and performs a series of deft moves in order to fit the feast on the
table.

“Oh, I should let Ruth be mother,” Ronald says when Cora reaches for the teapot. “I’d say she was altogether better qualified,
wouldn’t you?”

There is an uneasy silence. Cora pushes her sunglasses further up the bridge of her nose and says in a voice that is brittle
enough to break, “I’ll bet the girls are enjoying Blackpool, aren’t they? We’ve been lucky with the weather, haven’t we? You’re
staying at the Belvedere, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s not like this.”

Jack leans forward and interrupts. “It’s good enough,” he says, shooting Ruth a glance.

“Well, yes,” Ruth agrees, “but this looks to be a lovely hotel.”

“This place?” Ronald asks, his tone incredulous. “It isn’t a patch on our usual hotel. But there again, this isn’t the Costa
Brava, is it? I wish the bank could afford to give me a Wakes Week every year, but we’re too busy. It’s pure chance that I
managed to get these days off.”

Jack leans back in his chair, folds his arms and peers up at the glass roof. There’s a four-piece string quartet started up
somewhere and the piano accompaniment isn’t all it should be. Jack has an ear for music and the occasional flat note from
the piano makes him wince. That and the proximity of Ronald bloody Lloyd is enough to make him sick. Jack and Cora had knocked
around together a lot before the war. He liked the way her hair curled and fell through his fingers, the perfume she wore
that made her smell of wild violets. Never on time, daft as a brush, hopelessly clumsy, Cora had been the perfect complement
to Jack. He’d be up on the stage blowing his trombone and she’d be down on the dance floor with all comers. It was only flirting,
but Jack had ended up punching one or two of the more persistent bastards. His eye strays across to Cora but she’s difficult
to decipher—especially behind those sunglasses.

“How’s your daughter getting on, Ruth?” Ronald asks.

“Oh, she’s getting better from her operation quickly now.”

“No, you misunderstand. I mean the other one. Helen, isn’t it? The blonde one. She whose face launched a thousand ships.”
The look that passes across Ronald’s face prevents both Jack and Ruth from feeling flattered. “Is she still working at the
dress shop?”

“She works Saturdays—that’s enough. I won’t let her work full time. Next term she’ll be starting A-Levels and there’ll be
plenty of school work to keep on top of.”

“Well, your girl could do a lot worse than work for Blanche,” Ronald says. “She’d get to know one or two things about the
way the world works that she won’t learn at school,” he goes on with a smirk.

Cora sees the expression on Ruth’s face and hurriedly interrupts: “I shouldn’t be surprised if Helen ends up going to university.
The shop may be all right for a Saturday job but the shine would soon wear off if she had to sell dresses for the rest of
her life.”

“Well, you don’t know. She might catch herself a husband,” Ronald persists.

“Over my dead body. She needs a proper career first. There’s plenty of time for boys after she’s finished university,” Ruth
counters.

“I don’t know about you but I’ve always thought education is a waste of time for women. No man wants a clever-sticks for a
wife. You don’t need A-Levels to look after a husband. Look at Blanche—now there’s a woman who’s made the best use of her
assets. Anyway, Helen’s pretty enough not to need paper qualifications. You never did, Cora, and you’ve done very well for
yourself—you signed on for a life of luxury the moment you married me.” He turns to Jack and says pointedly, “Cora wasted
time with the odd loser before she married me. But she’s smart enough to know which side her bread is buttered on. Aren’t
you, darling? She made the right move when she married me.” Ronald pauses, watches, dares Jack to react.

Jack had been in Italy when he’d heard Cora had got married: a big do, by all accounts. assistant bank manager weds cotton
queen: the local paper gave it a full page. Jack’s sister said it had been the talk of the town—a slice of rich fruitcake
for every customer who walked into the bank on the day. The cake was nothing short of a miracle when you considered how ordinary
people were struggling with rationing. The effort to remain civil to Ronald has Jack shifting in his seat, crossing his arms
and taking deep breaths. He is about to suggest that he and Ruth leave when Cora jumps up and says she’s off to powder her
nose. Ruth gets up as well and the two of them are off without a backward glance.

“Now that the ladies have left us, let me get you a proper drink, Jack.” Ronald hails a passing waiter and orders a couple
of whiskies. The waiter is all over him like a rash: yes, sir, no, sir, thank you very much indeed, Mr. Lloyd.

“What happened to your eye, man?” Ronald asks with apparent concern as the steward appears with their whiskies. “Ruth’s not
been letting you out at night, has she? Oh, no offense intended! Doubtless you were defending a lady’s honor when you got
it. I suppose it’s only to be expected with our local war hero.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Well, Jack, we couldn’t all be swanning around the Mediterranean picking up medals. Some of us had to stay at home and take
the responsibility for keeping things going. You can’t expect a bank to look after itself.”