The Palace of Strange Girls Read online

  “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.

  Prospect Mill Yard, Blackburn, April 16, 1959

  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.”

  Blackpool, Wednesday, July 13, 1959

  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.

  9

  Stranded Objects

  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.

  With 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 hi
s 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.”

  The rest of the visit passed off quietly until it was time for Jack to make tracks.

  “Well, enjoy yourself in Blackpool, lad. Here’s a bit of something for the girls.”

  “You don’t have to, Dad. I’d rather you kept the money.”

  “No. Take it. I’ve nowt to spend it on here.”

  “You’ll be going to the Pot Fair next week though, won’t you?”

  “Oh aye, I’ll have a look around. But I’ve more sense than to buy owt from that bunch of rogues. You see these poor beggars walking away with cardboard boxes packed up with tea sets and the like. It’s only when they get home and open the blessed thing that they find out it’s full of chipped plates and cracked cups. And no way to get their money back. Bloomin’ fair has already moved on. Still, it’s a sight to see, the fair, and I could listen to the salesmen’s patter all day. There were one bloke there last year sellin’ glassware and he had folks rolling with laughter. You’ll tell me if it’s something serious?”

  The abrupt change of subject had floored Jack for a moment. It was only when the old man pointed at the trouser pocket where he’d hastily stuffed the letter that Jack had cottoned on. “It’ll be something and nothing, Dad. I made a few pals in Crete, that’s all. I’d not have got out in one piece if I hadn’t.”

  That was last Thursday and Jack hasn’t had a moment’s peace since. At first he’d been shocked that the letter had found him at all. But that’s the Red Cross for you—or maybe it was the army that had handed out Jack’s prewar address. Either way, the letter had found him. On the way home he’d taken a detour through Victoria Park, the letter burning a hole in his pocket and his head full of memories of Crete. He stopped when he got to his favorite spot. Hidden behind a laurel hedge and sheltered from sight by the curve of a rhododendron, he sat down on a bench. This was where he’d done most of his courting before the war. He hadn’t been back there for the best part of twenty years. It was there that he’d ripped open the letter. He found the photograph first and the shock had nearly killed him. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. There she was, leaning against the back of the taverna, a lacy sweater tight across her breasts and the curve of her hips dark against the whitewashed stone; a broad sash belt round her waist and her hair spread in a black halo. Eleni; Eleni with her wide eyes and full lips; Eleni whom he’d believed dead these last eighteen years. He jerked his eyes away in an attempt to pull himself together.

  The park’s ornamental flower beds blurred out of focus. He wiped his eyes and looked again at the photograph. At the time he barely registered the pale figure who stood beside her. All his attention was focused on Eleni and still, after all these years, the familiar sensation, the way his breath stops short when he sees her face. In his memories she was always dancing—the embroidered hem of her skirt in one hand and a cup of wine in the other. Or she was sitting with her back against the trunk of the judas tree, laughing out loud and kissing his face as he tried to eat the picnic she had brought.

  The news of her death had come the day after he’d been evacuated from Crete. He’d been sitting around with a bunch of soldiers who’d come through the village on their way to the coast. They said that the taverna had taken a direct hit. One of them had seen Eleni’s body laid out by the roadside. Jack had cried openly. Later he had lain on the deck while the ship took them through to Egypt and willed himself to die of the pneumonia that was already sweeping through his lungs. To know that she was alive now was almost beyond belief.

  That was a week ago and since then the letter has exercised his mind every waking moment. Now, in the absence of his wife and the relative anonymity of Blackpool beach, Jack runs his finger over the stamps and indecipherable postmarks and, setting aside the photograph, pulls out a single sheet of paper from the thin faded envelope.

  Kalivis

  Hello to you my old friend Jack,

  I send greetings to you and hopes for good health. It is a long time since you and Nibs were here. Taverna bombed the night you left but walls and roof made good after war ended. My father died a few years back and now I run the taverna alone. Same customers but all a little older than we were. We often remember good times we had when the British were here. I heard what had happened to you from a soldier the monks were hiding at Preveli. Here is a photograph of me and my only child, Ioanis, seventeen. If you ever come back to Crete we would be very happy to see you.

  Yours with love and remembrance,

  Eleni Korakis.

  Jack runs his finger over her signature—as if it would bring her closer. Of course, the truth had only dawned on him in stages. When he looks at the photograph now, however, it is glaringly obvious. The figure standing next to Eleni is her son… their son. True, he’d barely believed it at first. It made no sense. If Eleni had found his address now, why hadn’t she found it seventeen years ago when the child was born? The
boy is looking away from the camera, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a newly lit cigarette. An air of angry reluctance informs every muscle in his body. As if he would wish to be anywhere other than caught in such close proximity to his mother. The closer Jack looks, the more the photo hides as much as it reveals. The boy has pale hair that looks paler still against his obvious tan. His eyes, partially hidden under a heavy fringe, are fixed on the ground at his feet. If Jack doubted the color of the boy’s hair on the black-and-white photo, the appearance of his right hand is irrefutable evidence. Ioanis has the same broad hands and square fingers, the same shrug to his shoulders that characterized Jack’s teenage years.

  Even after examining the photo countless times, Jack is still in shock. He rereads the letter. His heart aches for Eleni. As the last line of her letter reminds him, he had promised to return. A bitter smile passes across his face when he reads this. He’d been on the last ship leaving the island. He was ferried on board by stretcher along with the other wounded. If things had been different he might have stayed in Crete. Plenty had. Hundreds of Allied troops hadn’t made it to the beach fast enough and the rescue ships were long gone by the time they’d arrived. Things could have been so different.

  It is apparent from the photograph that Eleni hasn’t changed at all. She was little more than a girl back then and even now she barely looks thirty. Jack tries to concentrate on Eleni’s smile, but his eyes are constantly drawn to the boy: Ioanis, his son. Times when his thoughts should be with Ruth and the girls the image of the boy will rise in his mind and bring a lump to his throat. Whether the emotion is one of pride or grief or even anger is unclear. Even now he cannot tell whether what he feels is joy or regret. It is odd to ache for the loss of Eleni after all these years. The sadness he felt at the time has now multiplied a hundredfold. He feels torn to shreds. When he is not elated that Eleni is still alive, still beautiful, still remembers him, he yearns to see the son he has never known or even supported. Jack longs to tell someone. Anyone. He longs to hear another person confirm the truth that he suspects—that the boy is indeed his son. He has tried in the long hours of sleepless nights to reconstruct the last conversation he had with Eleni, the last words they exchanged before he kissed her and left. But it is hopeless.