The Palace of Strange Girls Read online

  “Connie,” she says. “I’m Connie.”

  12

  Brittle-Star

  Brittle-stars look like starfish. They have five thin arms which readily break off if they are grabbed by a predator. The miracle is that the brittle-star doesn’t die when it is badly injured—it forms a scar and will grow another arm to replace the one it has lost. So the brittle-star isn’t brittle at all! Score 30 points for a miraculous recovery.

  Ward 4, Liverpool Children’s Hospital, April 16, 1959

  Ruth is encouraged to accompany her daughter into the operating theater. The surgeon explains that there are certain procedures (the insertion of a tube, nothing more) that have to be undertaken while her daughter is still awake. Prior to anesthesia, that is. It is likely the child will be a little uncomfortable. The presence of her mother in these circumstances will reassure the child. The prospect provokes panic in Ruth. Providing reassurance to the child is a task best left to others. Ruth is keenly aware that the surgeon hasn’t stopped for a moment to consider how distressing it might be for her to witness her daughter on an operating table. The surgeon listens carefully as Ruth outlines the difficulties that the bus timetable imposes, the overwhelming demands of family and, finally, the imminence of an unexpected but vital dental appointment. The subject is dropped. The surgeon is a man of few words. He steeples his fingers when he speaks of heart surgery techniques perfected on the battlefield. Three or four hours at most. A fifty/fifty chance of success. They must hope for the best.

  It is dark when the nurse wakes Beth. The child smiles, thinking that she is at home in the attic bedroom, believing that the figure leaning over her is Helen, come to say “night-night.” But it’s not Helen. It is a nurse she hasn’t seen before.

  A man lifts Beth on to a steel trolley and buckles the leather restraining straps over her chest and knees with practiced ease. “Don’t struggle,” he says. “We’re going to take you on a ride. It’ll be fun!”

  Beth turns her head and watches as the nurse riffles through the bedside locker belonging to the boy in the next bed. “There’s no need to be afraid. Nobody is going to hurt you,” the nurse says. “Have you got a book?”

  “Yes,” replies Beth. “I’ve got Sleeping Beauty.” She tries to point to her locker but the leather straps are too tight to allow her to move her arms.

  The nurse darts over to the ward toy box and grabs the nearest book: The Big Book of Adventure Stories. “This will have to do,” she says.

  Beth is now fully awake and wide-eyed with anxiety.

  “You’re not afraid, are you? You’re a brave girl.”

  “I don’t want the straps. I can’t breathe.”

  “They’re there to keep you safe. If you keep still and quiet I’ll take them off the minute we get to theater,” the nurse says.

  They enter the lift. The steel doors close and the nurse and porter wait in silence while Beth struggles to stay quiet, swallowing back her fear, gasping for her next breath. The lift goes down, the steel doors open.

  “Now,” the man says, “we’re going through the tunnel. It’s exciting, isn’t it?”

  The nurse agrees enthusiastically.

  “Heart, is it?” the man asks in an undertone. Beth watches as the nurse nods her head and puts her finger over her lips. “Oh, well, you’ll fall asleep and it’ll all be over in a jiffy. You won’t feel a thing. Do you want to go fast? My trolley is the fastest in the whole hospital. I can make it race. Hang on!”

  There is a blast of cold night air and then they’re in a tunnel. There are lights in metal cages set into the ceiling. Beth is forced to close her eyes against the glare. But the lights still register behind her eyelids, flashing by faster and faster. At the end of the tunnel they emerge into a rat-run of dark corridors swinging this way and that until they reach another set of double doors. Once through the doors, Beth is immediately blinded by light and surrounded by figures swathed in green. If these are people they are devoid of any recognizable features. They have no hair or mouths or noses, only eyes—unfamiliar eyes that peer out from the narrow slit between green hat and white mask. Eyes that frown and wrinkle while disembodied hands strip away her nightie and retighten the straps.

  Above her, huge white lights angle and turn. Beth can feel their heat across her skin. Silent eyes that watch, eyes that flick towards her and then away. Other figures flit in and out of sight in a blur of movement. Beth clenches her teeth against the rattle of instrument trolleys and the clash of metal bowls. Her ears are assaulted by a cacophony of strange, unfamiliar noises: the thud of black rubber tubes, the urgent hiss of taps, the tapping of dials, the tearing of packages, gas tanks shaped like bombs on wheels that squeak, squeak, squeak. The background murmuring stills to a whisper. Everything stops, as if awaiting a signal.

  A face bends close to her. “Hello, Elizabeth. There’s no need to be frightened. We just have to do one or two little things before we put you to sleep. Just a couple of little nicks. The nurse is going to read to you. Oh good, it’s an adventure book. We’re all going to be very quiet and listen.”

  The nurse begins to read as the surgeon engineers the first cut in his patient’s ankle and moves on, heedless of the answering scream. Within seconds the nurse’s voice begins to rise and rise until she is shouting in order to be heard over the patient’s sobs. The child is hysterical with fear and pain. She is wild, fighting against the hold of the leather straps, tears coursing down her cheeks, stinging against the corners of her open mouth. The surgeon is a compassionate man. He is familiar with the sound and appearance of pain. Still, the child’s screams are piteous and the straps are not wide enough to ensure she is perfectly still. Words are exchanged. The straps are unbuckled and three sets of hands continue the job of restraint. Beth’s legs are held rigid, soothing words are uttered but still the child fights and screams. The nurse at her head raises her voice, bringing the book up to Beth’s face. “See,” she offers. “Look at the picture!”

  A man dressed in a beige shirt and shorts, long gray socks and a pith helmet is walking through the jungle. A tiger, half emerged from undergrowth, springs on the explorer’s back. The animal has already clawed open the explorer’s shoulder blade and the force of its attack has caused the man to drop his shotgun. The tiger’s eyes burn bright red, his jaws open to reveal a set of vicious fangs. In the background three native bearers in bracelets and feathers throw down their loads and, arms waving, run for their lives. It is an action-packed picture that promises the sort of thrilling distraction sadly absent from the lives of most six-year-olds. But Beth cannot be distracted. She has no interest in the man’s survival. At a sign from the surgeon, the nurse abandons the adventure book. She places her arm across Beth’s chest to prevent the child from rearing up while her other hand strokes a cotton towel across the patient’s face. Beth’s nose streams; her cheeks run with sweat and tears, her mouth open like a wound.

  Thursday, July 14, 1959

  It is past midnight when Beth wakes from her nightmare. She wriggles beneath the weight of the eiderdown and turns over. It is slightly less painful if she lies on her right side; the scar is on the other side of her chest. In the next bed Beth can just make out the comforting shape of her sister. Responsibility for Beth’s present sleepless state lies firmly at the door of the Palace of Strange Girls, in particular with the Tiger Woman (“See her Scars! Hear her Snarl!!”). Beth has been able to think of little else since yesterday afternoon. Inspired by the Tiger Woman, she has spent hours playing shadow tigers on the bedroom wall with the help of the pink bedside lamp. Beth is not allowed to touch the lamp itself in case she breaks it or electrocutes herself, but nothing has been said about the on/off switch. After an hour spent practicing the crouch and low crawl, Beth is convinced that she would make a good Tiger Woman. But she will need to grow her nails.

  Beth has come out of hospital with several things she didn’t take in. A propensity for nightmares, a knack of sleepwalking and a habit of biting her nails
. This last trait is obviously the most serious since it impinges upon outward appearance. Ruth has attempted to dissuade Beth from this nasty, unhygienic habit by painting her nails with green aloes. Beth continues to bite her nails but, as a result of the bitter aloes, she has now taken to pulling a face while she’s doing it, thus increasing her mother’s despair. Tiger Woman has long scarlet nails filed to vicious points. Beth is determined to have the same. Beth already has the required scars. The raw gleam of cuts in her ankle, her knee and her hip. They aren’t as large as Tiger Woman’s but they might increase in size as Beth grows. As to the big wound across her back, Beth hasn’t seen it, but other people have. In Beth’s experience once people have seen her scar they don’t want to look at it again. Dr. Richmond visited before they came away on holiday and said, “The little one is healing up nicely, isn’t she?”

  And her mother had replied, “It looks no better to me. It’s such a mess… disfiguring. I don’t know how she’s going to cope when she’s older. Because it’ll always be there, won’t it? There’ll be no hiding a scar that size, will there? Who is going to want her looking like that?”

  Dr. Richmond shook his head and shot Beth’s mother a sharp look. “What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve, Mrs. Singleton.”

  Since that day Beth has tried to twist herself into a position where she can see the scar. But it is hopeless. There are only two mirrors in the house. One inside her parents’ bedroom, where she is strictly forbidden, and one in the bathroom above the washbasin, which she is too short to reach. In the end, of course, it doesn’t matter that Beth can’t see the scar that stretches across her back and curls under her left armpit—she can see the disgust in her mother’s eyes and feel the revulsion in her touch. That alone is enough to persuade her that the scar looks as bad as it feels. If only she were pretty like the Tiger Woman at the Palace of Strange Girls. Beth has experienced only limited success with Dr. Coffin’s tooth powder. She needs something more permanent to redden her cheeks. She wouldn’t be odd at all if she was a Tiger Woman at the Palace of Strange Girls. She’d fit in perfectly. She wouldn’t mind having to scratch and snarl. She wouldn’t mind it at all.

  Beth hears the sound of muffled sobs from the other side of the room. “Helen? You’re crying! What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. Shut up, Beth. You’re supposed to be asleep.”

  “But I’m not,” Beth replies, twisting from side to side in an attempt to struggle free of her tucked-in sheets and blankets. Eventually she tears her way free and, Houdini-like, stretches her arms up into the air before jumping the short distance to Helen’s bed.

  “Get off! Go away!”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are. I heard you. Is it because Mum won’t let you go out with Connie tonight?”

  “If Connie doesn’t see Doug she’ll meet someone else. She’s really popular, she’s had loads of boyfriends. I’m older than her and I haven’t had a single one. And she’s got a room full of clothes. She buys something new every week when she’s paid.”

  “But you’re a lot prettier.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care about anything anymore. I wish I were dead.”

  “Don’t say that! I don’t want you to die, it’s horrible. Horrible.” Beth sobs.

  Helen sits up in bed, shocked by Beth’s distress. She pulls her sister close and wraps her arms round Beth’s skinny frame. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it,” she says. “Nobody is going to die.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise, now get back into bed. You should be asleep.”

  “I’m not tired,” Beth replies. “I know. Let’s look out of the window like we do at home. We might spy some tipsy.”

  Tipsy is the word given to men and women who stagger out of the Four Lane Ends pub every Friday and Saturday night. Tipsies do a lot of laughing, even when they’re sick over the Singletons’ front garden wall, which is surprising. Beth has been sick more than once over the previous few months and she hasn’t laughed once. Beth pulls back the curtain and peers down through the open window into the yard below. There isn’t a lot to see. Minutes pass and Beth’s feet begin to get cold. She is about to give up when there are signs of movement in the yard. “Helen! Look! Come quick! I think I can see Connie. Just look! She’s got a boyfriend. She’s holding his hand!”

  “Liar.”

  “She is. I’ll prove it. Come and look.”

  Helen gets up and pulls the curtain wider. There’s very little light down in the yard, but she can see the outline of two figures and hear the sound of Connie’s unmistakable throaty laughter. Helen strains to try and make out who Connie is with. It certainly isn’t Doug, he’s got the wrong-colored hair. Has she ended up with Alan Clegg after all? The man looks faintly familiar, he’s wearing a jacket like her dad’s, but in a moment both figures have disappeared. The sisters stay by the window for a while. There is a fish and chip shop round the corner and the aroma of hot batter and sharp vinegar makes their mouths water.

  “I’m hungry,” Beth complains.

  “You’ll have to wait for breakfast.”

  “But I can’t!”

  “If you promise to get straight into bed you can have a spoonful of rosehip syrup. Mum left it on the washbasin this morning by mistake.”

  Beth scrambles back into bed, her mouth open wide like a fledgling.

  Ruth has spent the whole evening sitting in a faded pink wicker chair by the window in their hotel room worrying about her daughters. Helen is a pain in the neck with her constant demands. She wants everything too soon. And then there’s Elizabeth—a constant source of worry. Ruth believes that her daughter’s illness is a judgment from God. Divine retribution for what she calls her “disappointment” when the child was born. Ruth’s God is an Old Testament God. A vengeful God. A judgmental God. Ruth barely expects her to last out the week. God, she suspects, has only allowed her daughter to live this long in order to make her final demise all the more bitter. Not that Ruth is going to give up without a fight. Elizabeth suffered a collapsed lung after the operation, forcing her mother, in the hope of outwitting the Almighty, to institute a regime of comprehensive care. No child alive is subject to the same pack drill of health-giving home remedies. Although she recognizes that she can’t mend Elizabeth’s heart, Ruth has left no stone unturned in her search for a cure for her daughter’s weak chest. To this end Beth faces a bowl of porridge every morning (“sticks to your chest and keeps you warm”) prior to spending the morning either traipsing around after any passing tar wagon (“Big breaths, Elizabeth!”) or suffocating over a bowl of steaming water intended to “clear her tubes.” After her weekly bath Beth’s chest is rubbed vigorously with Vick (“fights respiratory infection”) before she is squeezed into her wool undershirt, her fleece liberty bodice and her cotton nightie.

  Under the onslaught of Ruth’s capacity to worry the evening has flown by. It is past midnight and contemplation of the perils of infant mortality raises Ruth into such a frenzy that she begins to pace the room. There is nothing for it but to distract herself with housework—but the cleaning options available at the Belvedere are limited. Not that the grime is not present—anyone with half an eye could spot it—but she is handicapped by the absence of a bucket and anything approaching a scrubbing brush or mop.

  This attachment to cleaning began some seventeen years previously with the shifting of her few spinster belongings from her parents’ house on Bird Street and into her first (and so far only) marital home—a terrace on St. Cuthbert’s Street that Jack had bought prior to their wedding. With the move Ruth set her foot on the road to her own personal Damascus with her blinding revelation occurring in the form of a desire to clean. As a result Ruth has the tiny two up two down in a state of constant chaos. Items are shifted, cleaned and replaced on a daily basis. Everything she touches is transformed—polished brighter, ironed smoother, washed cleaner. Polish is applied, sheets are str
ipped, windows are washed. The house is a hive of activity from dawn to dusk. It is an uphill struggle. Even while the family sleep dust is settling, pajamas are being creased, pillows stained with spittle and flakes of skin shed. The house demands the whole of Ruth’s attention and energy to complete the innumerable tasks. Ruth has read the statistics. A full eighty-five percent of the dirt in a house is lodged in the carpets. There are five different kinds of ground-in dirt, all of which really require the use of a proper Hoover vacuum cleaner to remove.

  And still the house is not perfect. It seems to Ruth that the sofa is in the wrong place, the kitchen chairs stand at an awkward angle, the vase needs replacing, the photos dusting. There isn’t time enough in the day to do all she must accomplish. As a result Jack must drink his cup of tea immediately his fist closes round the handle. Ruth has no time to waste. The sweet liquid burns his throat while Ruth stands beside him to snatch the empty mug from his grasp. Anxious to run it under the tap, polish it dry and hang it back on the hook. There is no peace of mind for Ruth until her household chores are completed. Instead of the stay in a hotel being a welcome rest, Ruth finds that her anxiety levels rise by the day. Her only recourse is to clean. She is leaning over the washbasin, handkerchief in hand, scrubbing at the tidemark of soap scum and whiskers when Jack returns.