The Palace of Strange Girls (8 page)

Beth has been sitting cross-legged at her mother’s feet during this exchange of views. She turns now and taps her mother’s
knee. “What’s a wog?” she asks in a stage whisper. Ruth appears not to hear. She is apparently immersed in her
Woman’s Own.

“Mummy! What’s a wog?”

“What?”

“What’s a wog? Is it like a golliwog? Like one of those golliwogs on the jam jar?”

“Shut up and play quietly.”

“But what is it? What does it mean?”

“It’s what ignorant people call other people with different-colored skin. It’s very rude. Don’t ever let me hear you using
that word.”

“But Mr. Sykes does. Mr. Sykes says there are loads of wogs at the mill.”

“Do you want a slap?”

Beth shakes her head and moves out of range of her mother’s hand.

Jack returns to the relative safety of his newspaper and Harry, keen to make amends, says, “Aye, well. How are your lasses
getting on, Jack?” Sykes’s eye lingers overlong on the figure of Helen sitting in a deckchair at the other side of her father,
her head still buried in the
NME.
“Would they like an ice cream?”

“Well…” Jack hesitates; he is anxious not to reject this peace offering but aware of Ruth’s silent fury.

“Come on, Jack. They’re on holiday. Irene! Here’s a couple of bob. Go and get the kids some ice cream.”

“All by myself?” Irene objects.

Jack nudges Helen. “Give Mrs. Sykes a hand with the ices. Small ones, mind.”

Everyone loves ice cream, especially on a hot day. Where did you buy your ice cream? From a shop or from an ice-cream van
parked on the sands? Score 5 points for a big ice cream!

H
aven’t I seen you working at the dress shop on Penny Street?” Irene asks when they’re out of earshot. “Do you like it?”

“Oh, yes. I love it. I just work Saturdays, but Blanche has offered me full time over the summer.”

“I thought you were still at school.”

“I am,” Helen admits, “but I want to leave this summer.”

“I’ll bet that hasn’t gone down too well with your mother.”

“No,” agrees Helen. “She goes mad every time I mention it.”

Helen looks closely at her confidante. Mrs. Sykes has a look of Debbie Reynolds. Her hair is newly bleached and permed. A
professional perm—nothing like the frizzy Toni Home Perm that her mother uses every few months. Mrs. Sykes is the last word
in style and not a hair out of place, despite the breeze.

“I got this dress from Kendal’s in Manchester and I bought the hat at the same time. What do you think?” Mrs. Sykes raises
a hand to the white feathers that curl round the crown of her head.

“It’s a lovely dress,” breathes Helen, “and the hat looks nice against your hair.”

Helen knows that the dress alone will have cost the best part of ten guineas. It’s pink with three-quarter-length sleeves
and white turnback cuffs.

“Thank you.” Mrs. Sykes smiles. “That’s quite a compliment from someone who works for Blanche.”

It is Helen’s turn to be flattered. “Oh, I’m just the Saturday girl but you’d be surprised how many customers we get in to
buy last-minute dresses for their holidays. And lots of them ask me what I think. We’ve barely a rail of summer dresses left.
Blanche has had to order more from the suppliers. She’ll have been busy with all the work pressing and pricing up…”

Helen’s voice trails off in disappointment. It is not merely the money she could be earning; she misses the excitement of
all the new dresses and the crush of customers all wanting her attention. Helen is treated like an adult from the moment she
starts work until the shop shuts and she reluctantly returns home.

“You must be worth your weight in gold to Blanche.” Helen smiles and a blush of pleasure advances up her cheeks. “Do you get
paid a bonus for all the dresses you sell?” Irene asks.

It is common to discuss money and terribly impolite to ask about anything as personal as wages. Helen would love to tell Mrs.
Sykes that she gets five percent on every dress she sells but years of conditioning prevent her.

Helen has a natural aptitude for sales. It is to Helen that Blanche turns for an “up-to-date opinion” when a customer can’t
make up her mind between a shot satin décolletage and a backless velvet cocktail dress. It is an unwritten rule that Helen
recommends the more expensive gown, thereby maximizing Blanche’s profit margin and Helen’s percentage. There has only ever
been one exception to the rule. Mrs. Taylor came in shortly after Helen started working in the shop. She was in search of
an outfit for her daughter’s wedding and was very taken with a bright-blue suit that drew attention to her varicose veins
and drained her face of color. Helen managed to persuade Mrs. Taylor into a cheaper floral dress in peach with matching jacket.
It was only when she was ringing up the sale that she noticed Blanche looking daggers from the entrance to the dressing rooms.
A sharp exchange between owner and assistant followed Mrs. Taylor’s triumphant exit from the shop. Despite Helen’s hopes that
the customer, content with her purchase, might return to the shop on future occasions Blanche was adamant. “That beggar won’t
come in again this side of Preston Guild. Eileen Taylor’s a cheapskate. She buys mail order.”

This is the worst insult Blanche can ever bestow. Mail order sells mass-produced ill-fitting summer dresses for a fraction
of the price. A thirty-five-shilling dress from Gammage’s Mail Order Catalogue retails at nearer four guineas in the front
window of Blanche Fashions. Customers at the shop are provided with a personal fitting service undertaken by a qualified member
of staff (Eva during the week and Helen on Saturdays). Their purchases are lovingly folded in tissue paper to prevent undue
creasing and placed reverentially in a candy-striped box with pink rope carrier handles. Certain clients, due to their longstanding
custom or the professional nature of their husbands’ work, are deemed worthy of the personal attention of Blanche herself.
Such was Blanche’s fury following Mrs. Taylor’s purchase that Helen was forced to stay late to sponge face-powder stains off
necklines and press various garments before returning them to their hangers. Helen would have had to stay longer had she not
pricked her finger while mending a hem ripped earlier by a careless stiletto. It wouldn’t have mattered if the dress had been
black, but Blanche, terrified of getting blood on the cream crêpe de Chine, snatched the dress out of Helen’s weary grasp
and dismissed her with a wave.

“What do you spend your wages on? Do you get cut-price dresses?” Mrs. Sykes asks.

“No. I mean I could if I asked, but Mum thinks the sort of dresses Blanche sells are too old for me. Anyway, I’m saving up
for a Dansette record player.”

“Oh, do you like Cliff?”

“He’s OK, but I like Bobby Darin better. He’s gorgeous. I wish I could see him.”

“It was rock and roll night at the Mechanics’ Institute last Friday. You should have gone. They were playing all the hit parade.
Tommy Steele, Cliff Richards, Billy Fury.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be allowed to go to the Mechanics’—there’s a bar on Fridays, isn’t there?”

“They wouldn’t throw you out, you know. It’s mostly teenagers that go there.”

“Oh, well, I normally go to the Methodist youth club on Fridays.”

Irene Sykes bursts out laughing. “Oh, poor you! I don’t suppose they allow any dancing there, do they?”

“Well, you couldn’t anyway. There’s no record player. But there’s table tennis and the only reason they don’t allow darts
is in case someone gets hurt.”

“They’re a po-faced lot, the Methodists. Don’t crack a smile from one year’s end to the next. I’ll bet they have you hymn
singing every five minutes, don’t they?”

Helen shakes her head. “We don’t sing hymns but there’s a prayer at the end. After we’ve said the Lord’s Prayer, that is.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake! Anyway, I heard Bobby Darin is coming to do a concert in Manchester next year. It’ll be expensive.
You’ll have to get your dad to buy tickets. You’ll have loads of money if your dad is made manager at Prospect. I expect he’s
up for the job, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know. Dad never talks about work.”

Mrs. Sykes looks into the wide innocence of Helen’s face and changes tack. “I’ll bet you have a lot of fun working at the
shop. You must hear all the gossip.”

Helen smiles. “No. Not really.” It has been drummed into Helen that it is common to gossip. This is a source of frustration
to her since there is nothing more intimately satisfying than information shared with another woman. Confusingly, Helen is
invited to retell gossip at home to her mother, but only when her sister and father are absent. Even when she tells her mother
what has been happening in the shop Ruth, having listened carefully, doesn’t react as she should. Helen’s stories fail to
elicit a single gasp or squeal of amusement from her mother. Ruth will only shake her head and say “It’s a disgrace,” and
carry on washing up. Mrs. Sykes, on the other hand, looks like a woman who would appreciate stories garnered from the shop.
It’s a temptation.

“I hear Mrs. Booth is spending like it’s going out of fashion. I saw her last Wednesday coming out of that fancy hairdresser’s
on Scotland Road and carrying four bags from Blanche’s. She must have spent a fortune.” Mrs. Sykes pauses in the hope of Helen
volunteering further information.

“I don’t know. I’m not there during the week.”

“Haven’t you heard? She’s only come up on the pools! Her husband was too drunk to do it on Tuesday, so she filled the coupon
herself—and she won! When he’d sobered up he was furious. Demanded all the money because it was his name on the coupon. When
she refused he tried to get her drunk and steal it.”

Mrs. Booth, thin as a stick and a committed member of both the Methodist Mothers’ Club and the Temperance Society, is known
locally for her aversion to all the sins and vices that afflict her fellow man. When Mrs. Booth is on youth club duty she
won’t even let them mess about on the piano in case they play the boogie woogie or, worse, rock and roll. The idea of Mrs.
Booth filling in a pools coupon of all things is too much for Helen who, despite her best efforts, starts to laugh.

“And that woman who lives on Reedley Road… what’s her name? Irishwoman—smokes like a chimney. Donahue. Mrs. Donahue. She got
into a fight in the chip shop and laid out the assistant. Talk about ‘fryin’ tonight.’” Irene winks, nudges Helen in the ribs
and both of them burst out laughing.

Helen watches as Mrs. Sykes opens her white leather handbag and takes out a Stratton compact. She flips the lid open and powders
her nose while Helen looks on, filled with admiration and envy in equal amounts. Mrs. Sykes’s handbag overflows with sophistication.
Besides a well-filled floral makeup bag, there’s a packet of tipped cigarettes, a special back combing brush, nail clippers
and a bottle of Soir de Paris perfume. Mrs. Sykes takes her appearance seriously.

When they reach the head of the queue Helen, mindful of her complexion, refuses the offer of an ice cream. Mrs. Sykes orders
and pays for the most expensive ice cream available for Beth before Helen can stop her. Purchase completed, Irene and Helen
head back. It is 11:30 and the beach is packed. Helen has read in the paper that a quarter of a million visitors have arrived
in the resort this week and, by the look of it, they’ve all headed for the beach. There isn’t a clear patch of sand to be
seen between the striped deckchairs, windbreaks, sunburnt bodies and discarded clothes. Irene and Helen thread their way through
a cheerful, noisy crowd of mill workers and their families breathing in boisterous lungfuls of ozone instead of coal dust
and cotton lint. Progress is slow. Both women are forced to step over bags and towels, inch round windbreaks and skirt a confusion
of deckchairs and sunbathers. Frustrated, Irene guides Helen to the water’s edge where the only obstacles are paddlers and
the odd sandcastle. Once they are free of the crowd Irene asks, “Do you see anything of Cora Lloyd? She’s a friend of your
mother’s, isn’t she? Or is Cora too posh nowadays for Blanche’s shop?”

“Oh no, she comes in a lot.” Helen is anxious to defend Cora, whom she has known and loved since she was a child.

“You’re lucky to see her. I sometimes wonder where she’s hiding herself; I see so little of her nowadays.”

This is not quite true. Such is Irene’s fascination with Cora that she tries to bump into her as often as possible. If there
were any justice, Irene would see her every Tuesday at the Baby Clinic. Cora Lloyd has flattened enough grass in her time
for it to be suspicious that she never falls pregnant. Irene’s special interest in Cora dates back to before the war. Harry
and Irene hadn’t been courting very long when Cora made a play for him one night at the Red Lion. Irene was forced to confront
Cora in the ladies’ lavatory. She had, Irene argued, no right to be flirting with Harry when everybody knew he was “spoken
for.” Cora didn’t bat an eyelid. She carried on powdering her nose and fixing her lipstick until Irene felt a fool standing
there waiting for a reply. When at last Cora did speak it was to tell Irene that she wouldn’t touch Harry with a bargepole.
Cora could “do a damn sight better than Harry Sykes.”

True to her word, Cora had married Ronald Lloyd—deputy manager at Barclays Bank—before the war was over. She thereby gained
entry into an exclusive social circle that Irene would kill to be a part of. However, all attempts to get on to genial terms
with Cora following her marriage have been marked by failure. Cora is not forthcoming. Irene is painfully aware that Ruth
Singleton is always invited to Cora’s parties, but it’s like getting blood out of a stone trying to get anything out of Ruth.
Irene thinks she stands a better chance with Helen.

“I remember when Cora was Cotton Queen,” Irene begins. “Oh, long before you were born.”

“I didn’t know she was a Cotton Queen.”

“Oh, yes. She was the talk of the town. All the men thought she was a real catch. It’s amazing she stayed single as long as
she did. Do you know her husband?”