The Palace of Strange Girls

by Sallie Day

  Faced with Florrie’s comment, Ruth pushes her chair firmly back under the table. She gives Mrs. Clegg a bleak, tight-lipped look but Florrie continues, “The poor mite. She’s so thin and pale. She looks as if she could do with plenty of good food and a nice bit of sunshine, wouldn’t you say?”

  Ruth ignores the remark. She heads out into the lobby, where there is a brief exchange of views between mother and daughter before Beth drops the newly won sixpence into a collection box for the local disabled.

  Blackburn, November 1958

  The revelation of Beth’s illness came as a direct result of Mrs. Richmond having syringed her husband’s ears and thus rendered audible to him the heart whisper, the rhythmic sigh of a leaking valve and phantom echo of escaping pressure, that had accompanied the Singletons’ younger daughter throughout her six years. Beth stands before the old doctor as her mother peels off the layers of sweater and blouse, liberty bodice and undershirt. Dr. Richmond places two pallid fingers above her shoulder blade and raps them sharply with the crooked fingers of his left hand. The exercise is repeated over the child’s back, Beth alive to the uneasy vibration and flinching away from the discomfort when her chest is sounded. Dr. Richmond reaches for his stethoscope, places the steel nodes in his ear and rubs the bright circle on the palm of his hand. There is complete silence. Ruth presses her lips together, too frightened to breathe, resisting the urge to join in while Beth inhales and exhales to order. Both mother and child pant briefly when the stethoscope examination is concluded, Ruth for oxygen and Beth with pain.

  Dr. Richmond removes the stethoscope from his neck with deliberation and folds it carefully until the ancient black rubber settles into its accustomed cracks. Ruth immediately stiffens in the hardbacked chair she has been occupying since she and her younger daughter were summoned from their sojourn in the doctor’s waiting room—a two-hour wait during which Ruth had silently rehearsed all the reasons why she mistrusts the good doctor. If he’d been faster off the mark when she’d come to see him about her stomach pains back in 1950 she might have carried the child to full term.

  Of course, she doesn’t have any proof that it was a boy that she lost at thirteen weeks. But Ruth knows, as clearly as any real mother would know, that it was a boy. Sitting again in the same room waiting to see the same doctor, she had felt the old anger rising.

  Dr. Richmond sighs and says, “You can get this bonny little girl dressed again now.”

  Ruth has recognized a number of traits in Elizabeth since birth, but “bonny” is not one of them. It makes no difference how well she feeds Elizabeth, the child remains weak and tires easily. Her shoulders are permanently hunched over her chest, she sweats too easily and she still asks to be carried up hills. It is a back-breaking task for a woman over forty. Ruth has resisted seeing the doctor before now. Her relationship with old Dr. Richmond is not an easy one.

  In order to cover her impatience Ruth now busies herself with dressing the child, stretching the wool undershirt over her head and struggling with the curling rubber buttons on the Ladybird liberty bodice.

  When decency is restored Dr. Richmond ventures his professional opinion. “There might be a slight problem, Mrs. Singleton,” he says. This example of kindly understatement is characteristic of Dr. Richmond. He has had cause on many occasions, when delivering bad news to anxious mothers, to adopt a certain reassuring ignorance of fatal consequences. He has no cures for pneumoconiosis (a familiar complaint among the miners at Bank Hall Colliery) or pulmonary embolism, or parietal gliomas, or any one of the number of terminal conditions he is forced to witness within the space of a single day. The varnish of confident infallibility afforded to the newly qualified has worn away over the years to reveal his humanity in all its uncertainty and inadequacy. He spends his mornings on call. His white starched cuffs are stained brown with iodine and rasp against his wrists as he takes pulses, measures blood pressures, pinches swollen ankles and tests stubborn joints. He rubs the folds of his softening jowls as he considers prescriptions or waits for the arrival of the ambulance. By late evening he has listened to a litany of complaints and drunk his way through all manner of liquid that passes for tea in the houses of the poor.

  Only then does he return home to the silent remembrances of former patients. His house bulges with mortuary gifts: gold watches, pipe stands, copies of the Bible and amateur paintings of local landmarks. Patients leave wills that afford him war medals from battles fought in the Mediterranean or North Africa while he was busy delivering the next generation in the cold austerity of Bank Hall Maternity Home. Financial bequests from wealthier patients are spent on repairs to the roof of his surgery, coal fires in his waiting room, lollipops for his infant patients, outstanding rent for miners laid up with lung disease and weavers laid off with mill closures.

  Ruth is aware of Dr. Richmond’s reputation but, since she is not in need of charity or sympathy, she persists in her interrogation. “What is wrong with her?”

  “A slight chest irregularity. Probably minor, nothing to be anxious about. I have a colleague who might have a look at her. Mr. Tomlinson at the hospital.”

  “He’s a heart man, isn’t he? Is it her heart? What’s wrong with it?”

  “It might be a circulation problem. You yourself have noticed she’s breathless sometimes. I thought I heard a slight whisper when I listened to her chest, but I could be mistaken. We doctors aren’t infallible.”

  “What do you mean, a whisper?”

  “Let’s wait until Mr. Tomlinson has seen her, shall we? Then we’ll be sure what we’re talking about.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “I’ll have a word with him first thing tomorrow. He’s a good man. Can you take this little girl up tomorrow around two o’clock? Save all the bother of waiting for an appointment. Now I must get on, there are patients waiting to be seen.”

  Ruth quits the surgery with some reluctance. She senses that there is something seriously wrong, but can get no further with old Richmond. She is too clever to be misled by his diagnostic hesitation, or the sudden availability of a hospital appointment. There is something wrong with her daughter and only Ruth’s iron restraint in the company of strangers keeps her from crying in the queue for the bus home.

  4

  Shore Crab

  This crab often hides under the sand with just his eyes and feelers showing and so he may be difficult to spot. He can also appear unexpectedly from under a stone but beware! The green and black shore crab has two very sharp pincer claws; once he latches on to something he won’t let go! Score 20 for an unexpected appearance.

  Bloomin’ ’eck, Ruth, how much longer?” Jack has been hauling three deckchairs around the sands for all of twenty minutes while his wife searches for a suitable location. The perfect spot has to be at the furthest possible point from the pier (roughnecks), sewage outlets (polio) and any patch of sand that has even a trace of tar. It’s not an easy task. Jack’s patience, along with the muscles in his right arm, is stretched to the limit. It is only when Ruth stops, turns and begins to retrace her steps along the beach that Jack drops the three deckchairs, windbreak and bags in the sand and says, “That’s it! This’ll do, Ruth.”

  Ruth looks unconvinced. She stops and assures herself that they are still some distance from the sea. This is important if they are to get their money’s worth out of the deckchairs. But it is only when she catches sight of the hordes of holidaymakers flooding down on to the beach behind her that she nods in agreement and Jack sighs with relief.

  Jack puts up the deckchairs and windbreak, while Ruth unpacks the bags. Thus engaged, it is too late by the time they notice Mr. and Mrs. Sykes to take avoidance measures. Harry and Irene Sykes are, to quote their favorite expression, “bang up to date” as only childless couples in their thirties can ever hope to be. Harry, sporting a pair of black winkle-picker shoes and green drainpipe trousers, sidles up. He has an extravagant quiff that teeters in the wind, and sideburns a good couple of inches longer t
han is decent for a man his age. Harry is foreman at Alexandria, a mill owned by Foster Brothers, the same company that employs Jack. He and Harry Sykes have known each other since Jack joined the firm but they have rarely, if ever, seen eye to eye. Despite this, Harry Sykes puts down his deckchairs next to Jack and says, “Fancy seeing you here, Jack. Mind if we join you?”

  “Of course not, Harry,” Jack replies, suppressing the urge to bolt. Ruth meanwhile gives the interlopers the briefest of nods, then turns her back and begins to empty her gray tartan shopping bag of towels, sun cream, knitting and this week’s copy of Woman’s Own.

  Irene Sykes perches prettily on the edge of the deckchair that Harry has assembled for her with a single flick of his wrist. She puts the white stilettos she has been carrying since she reached the sands under her chair, opens her handbag and pulls out a pink enameled compact decorated with the silhouette of a black poodle. She checks her lipstick in the mirror first, using a brightly varnished nail to wipe away the inevitable smudges of matching pink lipstick from the corners of her mouth. Snapping the compact smartly shut, she flashes Jack a brilliant smile. In present company Irene may have both youth and beauty on her side, but still she regards Ruth with a careful eye. “Hello, Mrs. Singleton,” she ventures. “How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you, Mrs. Sykes.”

  “And how’s little Beth. Getting better now, is she?” Irene gives the child a look of heartfelt concern. Beth is wearing a blue mohair coat that ends just above her gray ankle socks and her head is wrapped in a yellow scarf.

  “Elizabeth is very well, thank you,” Ruth replies in a tone designed to stifle any further questions.

  “Poor little mite.” Mrs. Sykes bends down and tickles Beth under her chin. “I knew you when you were a tiny baby.”

  Beth gives Mrs. Sykes her whole attention.

  “Your mum used to bring you to Baby Clinic every Tuesday. You were so good, you never cried. I had to weigh you every week to make sure that you were putting on enough weight and then write everything down in a special file. She was very late walking, wasn’t she, Mrs. Singleton?”

  “I don’t remember,” Ruth replies.

  “Oh, but she was. I recall the doctor and I were very worried about her at one point because she was so far behind the other babies.” Ruth glares at Irene. “But of course you were ill. That’s why you were slow.”

  Beth looks disappointed and returns to carving pictures of dogs in the sand.

  Six years on and the memory of Irene Sykes writing “slow walker” in the Baby Clinic file can still raise Ruth to fury. Irene Sykes may be a nurse, but she’s no children of her own so what on earth would she know about anything?

  “But you had the sweetest nature, Beth. Like a little angel.”

  A lump rises in Irene’s throat. “How is she now, Mrs. Singleton? I heard at work that she’d had the operation.”

  “She’s very well, thank you.”

  “The physiotherapist told me that you’d canceled any further visits. I know she was quite concerned.”

  “She doesn’t need any more physiotherapy. I’m sure Miss Franks has other patients who need her attentions more than Elizabeth.”

  Irene is doubtful, but the look on Ruth’s face persuades her to let the subject drop. In the ensuing silence Ruth picks up her knitting. “And how’s Helen?” Irene asks, turning to the teenager.

  “Very well, thank you, Mrs. Sykes.”

  It is obvious that further attempts at conversation are a waste of time, so Irene leans back in her deckchair and lazily crosses one immaculately groomed leg over the other, showing off her evenly tanned legs, her white net petticoat and next week’s washing in the process. She raises both arms, arching her slender back against the striped canvas. Her breasts rise against her scoop-necked bodice. Satisfied she has attracted the glance of every man in the vicinity, Irene closes her eyes against the glare of the sun and, smiling, relaxes.

  Helen is overjoyed with her copy of the New Musical Express. There’s a big poster of Bobby Darin in this week and a two-page spread. It’s the only reason Helen bought the magazine. She flicks past the other articles (“Things Elvis Keeps Dark,” “Marty Wilde and Bert Weedon—So Much in Common” and “Jerry Keller’s ‘Here Comes Summer’ Hits the Right Note”) and turns to the poster. According to the article Bobby has “a flashing personality, golden-brown skin, expressive eyebrows and dazzling white teeth.” The photo is only in black and white, but Helen can tell the description is all true. Bobby is wearing a tight shiny suit and he’s dancing. His left arm is raised while the fingers of his right hand curl round the blunt bulk of the microphone. He must be dancing, because Helen can see his legs are bent and one knee is twisted out to reveal his shiny winkle-picker shoes. It’s enough to make Helen feel dizzy. She’s looked in her Collins School Atlas more than once to see where Bobby lives. She knows it’s a long way to America, but when she puts her thumb on Lancashire and her forefinger on New York it isn’t far at all. In her dreams it’s barely the distance of a breath and she’s there in Hollywood, slow-dancing with Bobby. Even now, in broad daylight, she’s irresistibly drawn to his photograph—the expression on his face when he looks directly into her eyes is enough to make her feel light-headed. Eventually she tears her eyes away from the poster and moves on to the columns of small print. Bobby, it says, was brought up in a rough neighborhood where there were drunken fights and stabbings. Helen’s mouth falls open as she reads that Bobby grew up surrounded by cheats, thieves, drunks, armed Mafia gangs and prostitution (whatever that is) on every corner. The family was very poor, but Bobby says, “You could walk in our house and not see any furniture or anything, but love would hit you square in the mouth.”

  Helen is deeply moved. It is terrible to think that her idol was brought up in a slum. Helen sometimes comes home from school with a bit of ink on her cuff and her mother always shouts, “Take that blouse off this minute. Anybody would think you’d been brought up in a slum.”

  Helen’s Grandma Catlow lives on Bird Street and her mother says the house is no better than a slum. This is why Helen only ever sees her grandma once a year at Christmas when Mum brings her up on the bus from Bird Street to visit. Still, it’s nice that Bobby has such a close, loving family. The only thing that hits Helen square in the mouth when she walks in after school is the smell of polish and the sound of her mother scrubbing.

  Bobby doesn’t think school is up to much. He says, “You don’t know people or life through books. You learn by living and doing. You gotta go out in the world.”

  Helen couldn’t agree more. Bobby says that when he told his mother he wasn’t going back to school she was disappointed, but she didn’t try to stop him. He told her, “Mom, it’s time I got out to see what makes it tick.” Helen wishes she could leave school and get a job like Connie, but she doubts that her mother will let her. She looks again at the picture of Bobby. She caught sight of him yesterday on the television at the hotel. He was singing his hit song “Splish Splash” followed by his new record, “Dream Lover.” Bobby Darin has been Helen’s dream lover ever since the moment she saw his photo on the front of Boyfriend magazine. He’s half Italian and you can tell. He’s got dark wavy hair and a brilliant smile. He’s a great dancer too. Not like the boys at school.

  The memory of her last school soirée is still fresh in Helen’s mind. Not that it was any different from usual—the girls sitting on bleachers at one side of the gym and all the boys standing around at the other side. There was the usual mad rush when the music started, the thunder of pumps across the wooden floor as the boys raced across to grab the best girls. Helen had hoped that David Cooper, with his shock of strawberry-blond hair and black winkle-picker boots, might ask her to dance, but Hanson had got to her first. It happens every year—Hanson runs for East Lancs Schoolboys. Helen was refusing to dance even as Hanson was dragging her into the center of the gym. As a result Helen spent the first part of the evening limping around the floor in the clutches of
Hanson and the latter part watching in despair as her best friend Susan monopolized David Cooper. It would have been so different if Bobby had been there.

  “I hear the bastards are looking for a new manager at your place.”

  Jack is familiar with Harry’s habit of referring to the mill owners as bastards and, under normal circumstances, barely bats an eyelid. But Ruth is easily offended and has a bee in her bonnet about bad language, especially in front of the girls. Jack looks pointedly at his daughters before giving Harry a warning glance and saying, “Aye. Tom Brierley finished last Friday.”

  “Irreplaceable, that one,” Harry mutters, “they’ll not find another crawler that fast.”

  Jack sighs and shakes his head. It was Brierley who refused to have Harry back as foreman after the war, so the company shifted Sykes to Alexandria Mill. Harry took it badly. Alexandria still has the old looms and as a result weaves tea towels rather than the fancy work that’s done in the weaving shed where Jack works. Even promotion to head foreman at Alexandria Mill failed to sweeten the pill where Harry was concerned—he was, as he was always at pains to point out, still being paid less than what he would have got if he’d stayed put. Worse, Jack replaced him as foreman at Prospect. All this has resulted in the relationship between Jack and Harry Sykes being strained, to say the least. If there’s a smile on Harry’s face at the moment it’s because he’s after something. “Any idea who’s taking over?” he asks.

  “No idea,” Jack replies, squinting at the sea and opening his paper.

  “I suppose we’ll find out when the bosses are good and ready.”

  “Aye.”

  “It’s a puzzle, though,” Harry persists. “I’ve been keeping my eyes open ever since I heard Brierley was finishing, but there’s been nothing in the paper. I asked that Union bloke… what’s his name? Tom Bell. I asked him, but he’s keeping his mouth shut. Claims he’s no idea who’ll get the job. I wouldn’t mind a shot at it myself. A damn sight more money than Alexandria. Bastards must have it sewn up. I reckon one of the family will take over, what do you think? There must be a useless uncle or idiot cousin somewhere who’s after a slice of the cake.” Harry throws the question casually, but he’s watching for Jack’s reaction.