The Palace of Strange Girls Read online

  “Aye, probably you’re right.”

  “They’ve always kept management in the family. Up until Brierley. And Brierley wouldn’t have got the job if both Foster brothers hadn’t jumped ship when war was declared. They viewed World War II from the comfort of their London club along with the rest of the fireside fusiliers. And Brierley wasn’t slow to cash in. God knows how much he made in bribes from cowards keen to be designated ‘reserved occupation.’”

  Jack has heard all this before. Some people haven’t moved on since the war—instead of looking ahead to the sixties they seem to be still stuck in the forties. Jack is usually optimistic, always looking to the future but things have changed. The letter in his back pocket has drawn him back into the past so effectively that he struggles even to remain in the present moment, let alone consider the future. Jack suppresses a sigh and says, “Weather’s not bad, is it?”

  “Looks to me as if it’s spoiling for rain later. I hear you had a rough do last week. Little bird told me that you very nearly had a walk-out.”

  “It was nothing. Just a few troublemakers.”

  “Well, you can’t say you weren’t warned. You were bound to get trouble the minute you brought those Pakis in.”

  “The Pakistanis are doing the jobs that no one else wants, so they’re not taking anyone’s job. They’re working the night shift because no one else will.”

  “Well, I warned you. I said you’d regret the day you let foreigners in. They don’t know the first thing about weaving. You’ve got your regular weavers coming in of a morning and not able to do a decent day’s work. Those Pakis on night shift leave their looms in a right state. They’re either broken or choked with muck. How are the day shift ever going to make a decent wage if half their looms are out of action? They’re standing around waiting for a tackler to fix the mess. It’s why I won’t take on Pakis, I wouldn’t even let them sweep the mill yard. They’re all the same. More trouble than they’re worth.”

  “They’re not all the same.”

  “Well, they look it. Can you tell the difference between one Paki and another? It’s beyond me.”

  “They’re not all Pakistanis. Some of them are Sikhs from the Punjab or Muslims from Bangladesh.”

  “There’s no difference. They were all swinging in trees before they came here and made a beeline for the National Assistance. Fuckin’ Fosters—they draft in all these wogs and expect the British workers to lay out the welcoming mat. Buggers that were happy to work all hours for a bowl of rice back in India—no wonder they think they’re well off when they get here. And once they are here, this bloody country will keep them for the rest of their lives, one way or another. No wonder the minute they get here they’re filling in the forms to bring across their whole bloody tribe.”

  Jack has heard this argument countless times and it never fails to annoy him. “There’s nothing wrong with the Pakistanis. I’ve not had any bother with them. They’re quiet, they work hard and keep themselves to themselves. Our weavers aren’t beyond sabotaging their looms before the night shift comes on and they don’t complain. And I’ve yet to see a Pakistani turn up to work still drunk from the night before.”

  “But that’s just it. They don’t kick up. Management can do anything it likes, and that bunch will roll over and ask for more. Seven quid nine and ten a week and they aren’t complaining. It’s a fortune to them.”

  “Aye, and how long does it last when landlords are charging them the earth just for a roof over their heads? And any money they do manage to save is sent back abroad to feed their families. They’re no different from you and me—they’re trying to do their best for their families just like us.”

  Jack has firsthand experience of the sort of squalor that immigrants have to cope with. There’s so much prejudice locally that the only accommodation they can find is in houses that should have been pulled down years ago in the worst part of town. Last month there’d been a mix-up with the wages and Jack had ended up going round to drop off Ahmed Khan’s overtime money. He’d found Ahmed along with a dozen fellow Pakistanis sharing the same house. No furniture—just mattresses on the floor of every room. No curtains, just blankets flapping with the draft. They’d had a bunch of local lads round a couple of nights before shouting abuse and smashing the windows. The landlord was charging them twenty-five bob each a week. Despite this he refused to get the windows repaired. Claimed it was a waste of time—they’d just get broken again. No heating whatsoever and the back gate had been kicked in. Jack has read about the West Indian riots in London a year ago and he reckons that Lancashire’s Asian community won’t be far behind.

  “I blame the government,” Harry says. “They’re saying there’ll be another election before the end of the year. The Tories have been a bloody waste of time. They behave as if we still had an empire. It’s not two minutes since they were showing bloody Gandhi around the Lancashire mill towns. They should have kicked his chocolate arse and sent him home. No sooner have we given these darkies their independence than the buggers are getting on the nearest banana boat and coming here. And it’s not just these wogs turning up on our doorstep; there are thousands of them brown bastards back in India flooding our markets with cheap, coarse staple cotton.”

  Jack sighs with frustration. Lancashire cotton has been threatened by foreign competition before, but it has always risen to the challenge. The industry has invented new fabrics like Fabriflex—a combed cotton weave bonded to a plastic backing—and special luxury finishes on cotton shoe linings that make them feel like finest kid. There’s even talk now of producing fake fur fabric, if the Cotton Board can sell the idea to the clothing industry. Once the car trade had been sold the idea of replacing leather seats with cotton-backed plastic Leathercloth they couldn’t get enough of it. Leathercloth is wipe-clean, lasts a good deal longer and resists the stains that ruin leather. It’s a nuisance that Leathercloth smells of plastic rather than rich leather, but appearancewise there’s not a lot to choose between them. With the invention of all these new British fabrics foreign competition really shouldn’t be the worry that it is. Jack turns to Harry and says, “Give it a rest, Harry. I don’t want to spend my holiday arguing the toss with you about work.”

  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.”

  5

  Ice Cream

  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!

  Haven�
��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?”