The Palace of Strange Girls Read online

  He is strangely subdued. “You’re not cleaning again, are you? For goodness’ sake, Ruth, it’s gone midnight. Why don’t you leave it for the chambermaid?”

  “They don’t do it properly.”

  Jack sighs and takes off his jacket.

  “Anyway,” she continues, “I’ve been waiting for you to come back. I thought you weren’t going to stay out late.”

  When her husband fails to reply she stops scrubbing the washbasin and turns to look at him. He looks disheveled. When she crosses the room he steers round her, snatches the towel from the rail under the sink and says, “I think I’ll go and have a shower, Ruth. Don’t you wait up. I’ll try not to wake you when I get back.”

  “What? Are you daft? Having a shower at this time of night? The water was only lukewarm when I put Elizabeth to bed at seven—it’ll be stone cold by now.”

  “Well, it’ll clear my head if nothing else, won’t it?” Jack is out of the door before she can reply.

  The Belvedere Hotel boasts some superior fixtures. Each of its six bathrooms is fitted with an independent shower as well as a full-sized iron bath with giant taps and claw feet. At the apex of some complicated and rusty pipe work is a single shower head. It is the size of an imperial dinner plate. Hotel guests unfamiliar with its workings force open its central tap and experience an ejaculation of water sufficiently fierce to floor them. Jack, however, is aware of the unique quality of the Belvedere’s ablutions and is fully prepared. He stands rigid under the blast of icy water that robs him of breath, as if the force of water alone is sufficient to wash away more than just the smell of Connie’s perfume. He grabs a rectangle of green soap stamped with the hotel crest and rubs his hands together vigorously. It might as well be a piece of stone for all the lather it produces. Frustrated, Jack spots an ancient loofah hanging dustily from a hook—a long tubular network of gray fibers that initially resists the lure of water. Jack attacks his skin with the loofah, intent upon scrubbing away every trace of her lipstick from his neck, every particle of her from under his fingertips, every memory of her from his skin. It is a long exercise. He cannot face Ruth until the job is done properly, until he is scrubbed clean.

  She is hanging up his discarded jacket when he returns. “This jacket will need a good airing. It stinks of beer and cigarettes. Have you been celebrating?” she asks, her voice full of hope.

  Jack shakes his head, refusing to meet her smile.

  “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What happened? Did he offer you the job?”

  “I’ve decided against it, Ruth. It’s not the right move.”

  “You’ve turned it down?”

  Jack nods, pulling on his pajamas with an uncharacteristic modesty and getting into bed. “It’s for the best.”

  “You’ve turned it down? Without even asking me?”

  “Don’t start, Ruth. It’s too late to get into an argument. We’re both tired. We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”

  Ruth could weep with disappointment. She gets into bed and, to Jack’s relief, turns her back on him. She has been sitting by herself all night waiting for him to come back and when he finally turns up he won’t even look her in the eye, let alone tell her what has happened. Jack shuts his eyes and falls into a deep sleep of exhaustion. But Ruth is left awake, staring into the darkness.

  13

  Queen Scallop

  This pretty shell is easy to find. It’s two to three inches wide and it has striped ribs that are colored from the palest pink to almost red. These shells are sometimes called “Queenies.” Score 5 points for some pretty pink stripes.

  Belvedere Hotel, Thursday, July 14, 1959

  “I’ve been wearing this skirt for ages now. Can’t I have a change?”

  Ruth is becoming weary of the constant struggle with Helen about clothes. Not a day passes without some argument or other.

  “I look awful in it,” Helen continues. “It’s all pink and stripy. I look like a stick of flippin’ rock.”

  “Less of the ‘flippin’.’ Speak properly,” Ruth replies.

  “But just look!” Helen holds out her arms, the better to demonstrate the effect of the candy-striped material that hangs in depressed gathers from her waist. Ruth has recently spent an evening letting down the hem of the skirt in the hope of camouflaging her daughter’s knees. Needless to say this “improvement” was greeted by a howl of despair when Helen woke up the next morning and saw the end result.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ruth replies, undoing the buttons on Beth’s nightie. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” she adds as she tugs the nightie up over the child’s head. “That’s a new skirt. Give over mithering. It’ll do.”

  “It’ll do for a flippin’ deckchair,” Helen mutters.

  Despite her mother’s intransigence Helen knows that there is still hope for the candy-striped skirt, if only she can persuade her to stretch to a proper underskirt. To this end she begins again. “But this skirt is creased all over the place. I can’t go out looking like this.”

  “It wouldn’t be creased in the first place if you weren’t forever fiddling with it.”

  “It’s supposed to stick out. That’s the way they wear it.” Helen fluffs out the sides of her skirt to demonstrate.

  “I don’t know what all the fuss is about. There’s the best part of six yards in that skirt. It couldn’t do anything other than stick out.”

  “But not like it’s supposed to. The skirts that Blanche sells are right. They’re stiff with lots of layers of white net so that when you twirl round people can see them. If I had a proper underskirt like that, this skirt wouldn’t droop around my ankles.”

  “I’ve told you before, a cotton underskirt does just as well and it’s better for you. It lets your skin breathe. It’s called an underskirt because that’s what it is. It’s for under your skirt. Nobody is supposed to see it. I’m not having you walking around with your underskirt showing. And I won’t buy nylon.”

  “But that’s the fashion. It’s the way people wear them. Blanche says—”

  But Ruth interrupts: “I’m sick to death of hearing what Blanche thinks, or Blanche does, or Blanche sells. I’ll decide what’s best for you and I don’t need some miserable trollop, who’s no better than she ought to be, telling me any different. Now be quiet and finish getting dressed.”

  “I can’t. I can’t wear this skirt—it’s missing a button.”

  “Let me see.” Ruth takes the skirt by the waistband and squints at the site of the missing button. “Where is it?”

  “How should I know?” Helen replies, anger overcoming her attempt at innocence. This is not quite the truth. The button is in the backyard four floors below where Helen threw it earlier this morning after she’d managed to pull it off with her teeth.

  Ruth sighs and reaches into her pocket. “We’re going to be late for breakfast at this rate. Here, you’ll have to use this safety pin. You can look for the button later. Watch out! If you pull the waistband too tight that safety pin will rip the material and then there’ll be some darning to do as well as sewing the button back on. Are you listening?”

  Frustration and anger get the better of Helen. She glares at her mother for a moment and says, “Mrs. Sykes says that Cora’s husband is knocking her around.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t know what you’re talking about. And don’t go repeating gossip—especially gossip from Irene Sykes. She’s forever sticking her shovel in where there’s no muck.”

  “Cora told Blanche that she’d fallen downstairs at home.”

  “That sounds nearer the truth.”

  “But Blanche thinks…”

  “How many more times? I don’t want to know what Blanche thinks. It’s all nonsense and anyway she shouldn’t be saying things like that in front of a schoolgirl. I’m glad now I didn’t agree to you working there over the holidays. She’s got the morals of an alley cat and a mouth to match.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway.”
r />   “What?”

  “I told Blanche I’m not going back to school in September and she offered me a full-time job. She says she’ll train me to manage the shop.”

  “She’ll do no such thing. I’ve never agreed to you finishing school. A-Levels start in September.”

  “If you don’t let me leave school I’ll leave home anyway.”

  Ruth raises her right hand and slaps Helen across the back of the head. “You’ll do as you’re told.” Helen glares at her mother, her eyes filling with tears. “Now finish getting dressed and remember to lock the door behind you.” Ruth takes Beth by the hand and makes her way downstairs.

  Victor, the hotel manager, spots Jack while the latter is idling in the hotel lobby. Jack looks as if he could do with a sympathetic ear. He’d barely woken up this morning before Ruth had demanded to be told all the details of the Union job. The discussion had degenerated into a full-scale argument. It had finished only when Ruth stormed out of the room. Jack is keen to escape further questioning from his wife concerning last night and equally desperate to avoid seeing Connie. The hangover that woke him this morning continues to make his head throb. There’s an unwelcome whistling in his ears and the edges of his vision flicker like Blackpool lights. He must have slept heavily because he’s woken up with a dry throat and a tongue that feels too big for his mouth.

  “Mornin’, Jack,” Victor proffers.

  “Mornin’,” Jack replies.

  “You look a bit worse for wear. You should do your supping in my bar—there’s less distance to stagger to your bed. Want me to get you a hair of the dog?” Jack groans by way of reply and shakes his head. “Still, if you can’t get pie-eyed on holiday when can you?”

  Jack raises his chin and, with some visible effort, focuses on Victor’s face and says, “Well, at least you look in fine fettle.”

  “I don’t know why. It’s nothing but bad news at the moment. I took a day off last week and went over to see my cousin. I went by train from North station. They were advertising it as the last steam engine journey on the Blackpool–Leeds line. They’re switching over to diesel this weekend, you know. Anyway, we chugged along through Preston and then on straight through Blackburn, Accrington, Burnley, Brierfield and Nelson before going up the valley to Colne. What a mess!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the bloody mills. It was a sight to see. Every other one was closed down. Mile after mile of weaving sheds all shut up and deserted. Half-demolished mills silent as the bloody grave and not a single sound window between them. Half the mill chimneys were gone. Smith Brothers was still standing, but not for long if what I hear is right.”

  Jack nods in agreement. He too has remarked on the devastation apparent from the train window during the trip through the cotton towns. The rising feeling of despair was curtailed by Beth climbing into his lap to escape the burgundy pile on the seats that was irritating the backs of her legs. Together father and daughter stared out at the passing scenery, the railway sidings littered with discarded rubbish, the banks of dirty pink willow herb, chickweed and nettles. Wright’s Spinning Mill had already been demolished, though cynics might argue that it was next to derelict anyway and had been for the past decade. All that was left was an open empty space, punctuated by a single pile of rotten plaster, broken bricks and shattered north lights. The weaving-shed door alone had survived the carnage and lay discarded among the rubble. It was a sad, hopeless sight and one that made Jack hold his daughter tighter. In an effort to lift his mood Jack had looked away and focused on the faded sepia prints of holiday resorts that flanked the mirror screwed to the carriage wall opposite, but his eyes were continually drawn back to the window. In the finish he was driven to pulling down the leather blind to prevent any further sight of the devastation. Jack slides back out of memory and listens again to Victor’s lament.

  “I mean, what future do people like me have in the hotel trade when half our customers are thrown out of work? I haven’t met a man yet who could afford to take a holiday on what he gets from the dole. I’ve had one booking after another canceled. And it’s not just the weavers and spinners, it’s every other business that relies on the mills—from loom makers to corner shops. Everyone is suffering.”

  Victor is a slim, angular man with soft gray eyes, a mobile face and a love of hard work. The Belvedere is his sole focus and he takes any threat of failure personally.

  Jack inwardly groans; fond as he is of Victor, he’s sick to death of hearing from the prophets of doom.

  “You mark my words, Jack. It’s the beginning of the end for Blackpool. The town won’t stand it.”

  “Never! You look full enough to me, Victor.”

  “Full? Don’t make me laugh. This isn’t full. Not full like the place used to be when my old dad ran it. He was cramming them up to the rafters every year. They were lined up there like ruddy bats. One year he even filled the staff quarters with guests.”

  “And where did you sleep?”

  “Residents’ Lounge and, failing that, kitchen floor. Now that’s being full.”

  Jack has known Victor the best part of twenty years. They are as close as two men can be who see each other for one week out of fifty-two. Victor took over the management of the Belvedere when his dad died just before the war. If his mother had hoped to cash in on billeting troops, thereby persuading the powers that be that Victor, her only son, was essential to the war effort at home, she was disappointed. Hostilities had barely started when Victor announced that he’d joined the RAF and was due to start his pilot training the following week. He met his wife, Elsie, a WAAF with legs like Rita Hayworth, a ready laugh and a sex drive that matched his own, while he was on leave in London. He survived the Battle of Britain by the skin of his teeth, only for Elsie to be killed during the Blitz while she was cycling back to her flat near the docks. She’d swapped duties with a fellow WAAF whose boyfriend had managed to get theater tickets. Jack had caught up with Victor briefly in 1942 when he’d brought Ruth to the Belvedere for their honeymoon. It was 1946 before they met again and Victor was running the hotel full time.

  It is a lonely job, ensuring that the shifting population of the Belvedere’s one hundred guests are well fed, comfortably accommodated and constantly entertained every day from March to November. Marginally less miserable is Victor’s job of running the Residents’ Bar every night. It is here that he has cemented his friendship with Jack and a few dozen other hotel regulars. The atmosphere is relaxed; the notice advising guests that ties are necessary has long since become obsolete. So too is the notice informing drinkers that management reserves the right to refuse to serve certain customers. Victor Titherington has never once found the need to refuse alcohol to any of the Belvedere’s guests, although he has, on occasion, had to enlist the help of the night porter to ensure the safe passage of certain guests to their rooms.

  “I mean, is your job safe, Jack?”

  “Aye, safe enough for the time being. Things aren’t as bad as they look.”

  “How can you say that when the papers are full of mill closures? If it goes on like this there’ll be nothing left.”

  “But it won’t. Closures will slow down and stop altogether in another six months or so.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “The government is handing out grants to cotton manufacturers to shut down. But the owners have to apply before next March. If they shut before this August they can claim an extra five percent premium. That’s why so many mills are toppling over themselves to shut before the end of the summer. Once the trade has been modernized and updated the mills that are left will be looking for workers. Things will improve.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get the Belvedere back to full capacity. I reckon if cotton finishes then Blackpool will finish soon after. We’ll have to rely on the Scots and bloody southerners for business. It’s not just the mills closing, you know. It’s these new travel companies offering a week in Majorca for thirty-nine guineas each,
all included. I reckon the real future in the hotel trade is there or in Spain. They’re planning to build new hotels all along the coast in the south and they’re looking to British hoteliers to move out there so that our holidaymakers can have a bit of home from home. They reckon these new resorts could be as popular as Blackpool but without the rain. I’ll look at my takings this season, but if they’re down I’m minded to start over again in Spain.”

  “Do you speak the lingo?”

  “Do I hell! A pint is a pint wherever you are, isn’t it?”

  “Well, in the meantime your dining room looks to be filling up nicely.”

  “That’s due to casuals. That’s what I’m down to. Accepting any passing trade in order to keep the hotel looking full. It’s a case of keep up or go under. Stop by the bar tonight and we’ll have a drink.”

  “I take it it’ll be on the house.”

  “Go on, then. Seeing as it’s you.”

  Jack makes his way to the dining room. He sits down at the usual table and hides behind a copy of the Daily Herald. Every time a waitress passes he slides lower in his chair, anxious at all costs to avoid Connie. When she does appear she comes up on him from behind and places her hands over his eyes. “Guess who, lover,” she whispers as she kisses the back of his neck.

  Jack pulls her hands away from his eyes and turns in his seat. “Stop it, Connie! Are you mad?”

  “I was only teasing,” she protests. “Anyway, what can I get for you this morning, lover.”

  “Nothing. I don’t want anything. I’m waiting for Ruth and the girls.”

  “OK, keep your hair on! We can always talk later.”

  Connie pulls her order pad and pencil out of her pocket and moves on to the next table. As the dining room fills Jack sinks further into his paper, keen to escape the attentions of his fellow guests. When she finally appears, his wife is accompanied by Beth and she’s in no mood to exchange pleasantries. Jack looks at Ruth and reflects that he may have had sex for the first time in over a year but last night with Connie is neither adequate comfort nor suitable revenge for the present state of his marriage. They might as well be on different planets for the difficulty he has trying to reason with his wife. “Where’s your sister, Sputnik?” he asks. He is unsure whether or not Ruth is prepared to speak to him following their argument.