Читать книгу The Palace of Strange Girls - Sallie Day - Страница 7

GANNETS

These are large seabirds with white feathers and black tips to their wings. They feed by plunging into the sea and catching fish with their long pointed bills. This habit of diving upon their food has led to their hungry reputation! Score 20 points for some greedy gannets.

Connie is run off her feet this morning. She has already seated an extra four families in the packed dining room when the Clegg family, six in total, turn up. ‘There’s a whole bloody tribe of them,’ she complains to Andy, the chef, ‘and I’ve only got a table for two left.’

Connie hasn’t worked as a silver service waitress before, but the manager of the Belvedere knows a crowd pleaser when he sees one. Connie turned up on his doorstep a couple of weeks earlier and was offered the job on the spot. The Belvedere is very classy, a dream come true for Connie. Her last job was at Stan’s Café, where she worked every weekend. She served behind the counter mostly, but she had to cook as well on Sundays if Stan wasn’t feeling up to it. It was Stan who taught her how to carry seven plates at once. She’d got the knack eventually, but not before she’d turned up at school on a fair few Monday mornings with a giant plaster on the inside of her left wrist. Connie is a cracker, in more ways than one. She’d caused such a sensation at the café that the place was packed with lads every weekend waiting for her to lean over the counter or drop a fork. Connie is just that sort of girl. Her scarlet overall looked decent enough on the hanger when Stan gave it to her, but when she put it on there was something about her curves that resisted confinement. And what with the hotplates and ovens going full blast behind her, it was only natural that she should loosen the collar. Connie sees no problem in the degree of male attention she excites despite, or perhaps because of, the ladders in her stockings and the buttons missing from her bodice. Stan offered her full-time work when she left school, but Connie had bigger fish to fry. She’d heard that you could pick up seasonal work in Blackpool. What could be better than spending the whole summer in Blackpool and being paid for it to boot? Stan was sad to see her go. Still, Stan’s loss is the Belvedere’s gain.

The hotel supplies its waitresses with a black uniform and a white frilly apron with a delicate pin-tucked front fixed at nipple level with tiny gold safety pins. Black stilettos and seamed stockings complete the outfit, along with a wisp of lace that passes for a hat, which is secured to the back of the head with white kirby grips. Connie is friendly and easygoing by nature, and has already proved a big hit with the head chef, Andy. It is Andy who yells at the deputy manager to put up another table and find an extra couple of chairs sharpish, and Andy who advises Connie to put the Cleggs in the alcove. If Connie hesitates it’s because her new friend Helen’s family usually sit there. But Andy is adamant. He has her best interests at heart.

When she arrives in the palatial dining room Mrs Singleton is at first confused and then annoyed to see that the large table in its own private alcove (where the family has sat every day since their arrival last Saturday) is no longer available. Far from it. A family of six is occupying their table, leaving the Singletons no other option but to cram themselves round a tiny table inched in between the alcove and walkway. This new location not only affords them unwelcome glimpses into the kitchen with its blasts of steam and bad language, but, worse still, forces them into close proximity with the very people who stole their table in the first place. Jack sizes up the situation and, accepting that there is no alternative, indicates that they should all sit at the new table.

Ruth remains standing, staring furiously at the interlopers. The family appear not to have noticed but the moment Ruth finally relents and sits, the wife, a large florid woman with broad capable hands, pipes up, ‘Have we got your table? It was the waitress what put us here. She said it were the only way what with there being so many of us and needing two high chairs for the twins. Do you want us to move?’ All this said with the confidence of a woman who, once settled, even the H bomb wouldn’t shift.

Ruth turns her head away and it is left to Jack to reply. ‘No, no. It doesn’t matter. We’ll sit here instead. There’s room for everyone,’ he says, raising his voice to cover the rustle of the letter in his trouser pocket when he sits down. ‘It’s Full English Breakfast wherever you sit!’

‘You’re right there,’ replies the husband. He turns halfway round in his chair and offers Jack his hand. ‘Fred Clegg,’ he says and tilts his head in the direction of the florid woman. ‘And that’s the wife, Florrie.’

Jack nods at Florrie and shakes hands with Fred.

‘We got here last night. We’re still finding our feet,’ continues Fred.

‘Well, it looks as if you’ve brought the sunshine with you,’ Jack says as he turns his attention to the breakfast menu.

‘From over Blackburn way, are you?’ Fred asks.

‘Aye.’

‘I thought I’d seen you around. I never forget a face. Where do you…?’

But Jack, aware that the next question will be about work, interrupts: ‘You’re from the town then, are you?’

‘Aye.’

During this exchange Ruth has had a good look at the Clegg family. The husband looks dishevelled, from the worn elbows of his brown cardigan to his nylon shirt that strains across a lovingly maintained beer belly. Ruth wouldn’t dream of buying a nylon shirt. There’s no need for nylon unless you’re too lazy to iron. And as for all this craze for drip-dry – anybody with any sense knows that a good cotton twill will resist wrinkling and barely needs ironing. But Mrs Clegg doesn’t look as if she’d care. She’s wearing a faded blue dress with white polka dots. The dress is deliberately shapeless yet its generous gathers struggle to disguise her overwhelming bulk. The material stretches over unwanted curves and catches between rolls of excess. Only the eldest boy is decently dressed, the twins and the younger lad are in little better than rags. All her worst fears confirmed, Ruth turns and looks out of the window. High winds laden with salt spray have eaten away at the exterior paintwork. Ruth suspects it would only take a single swipe from a scrubbing brush to remove the lot but you’d risk removing the window at the same time. There isn’t an ounce of decent putty left on the frame. No wonder it’s draughty.

‘We’ve not stayed here before,’ Fred volunteers. ‘We usually stay at Mrs Thornber’s boarding house down at South Shore. Nearer for the Pleasure Beach. Three meals a day and less than half the price of this place. But what with one thing and another, we’d left it too late for Mrs Thornber’s. So we thought we’d have a couple of days here instead. Makes a change.’

‘Oh, you’ll like it here. It’s good plain food at the Belvedere and there’s a bar every night,’ replies Jack, who is momentarily distracted by the quality of the damask tablecloth. He turns the material over and back a few times remarking the precision of the surface pattern in reverse, speculating as to the thread count. He runs his nail across the grain of the fabric to assess how much of the stiffness of the cloth is due to the weave and how much to the application of starch. Jack learned long ago that once you start looking at weaves it’s difficult to break the habit.

Fred sits back in his chair and looks around the dining room. The walls are covered in flock wallpaper: deep burgundy acanthus leaves against a pale plum background. The room itself is bisected by a series of white pillars that support a ceiling heavy with ornate plasterwork and oversized ceiling roses. It’s what holidaymakers come to the Belvedere for – a bit of luxury. The hotel is fully booked and the room hums with the sound of mill workers and their families tucking into a three-course breakfast and making the best of an English summer.

Florrie Clegg beams at Ruth and says, ‘It looks a nice place, this.’

Ruth looks unconvinced. She has noticed a slow but irreversible decline in standards over the years. Still, any hotel that can entertain that couple in room sixty-nine – the salesman and his ‘wife’ – is already well on its way to perdition without any further help from the Cleggs. And as for the ‘good plain food’ – that’s a matter of opinion.

Shortly after they were married Ruth made Eggs Florentine. Jack stared at the eggs and spinach lavishly topped with a classic cheese sauce (made properly, mind you, with a flour and butter roux) and said, ‘What sort of concoction is this? You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble, Ruth. What’s wrong with broth on a Tuesday?’

Ruth may have crossed Eggs Florentine off the menu but she is still determined to use some of the fancy recipes she and her best friend Cora collected at night school. Cora always said that the French names alone were enough to make her mouth water (Poulet Bonne Femme, Moules Marinières, Boeuf Bourguignon). They’d both had a good laugh about the pronunciation. Cora had a talent for making French sound suggestive. She’d thought up a whole list of things that ‘Moules Marinières’ might possibly mean – including sailors’ balls – until Ruth had blushed and covered her mouth with her hand. Despite her attachment to French cuisine Ruth is quite happy to leave out the garlic and downright glad to substitute water for wine. She has learned that it is no good putting Jack’s tea in front of him and saying ‘This is Quiche Lorraine’ – he is a sight less suspicious if she says, ‘I thought we’d have egg and bacon pie today.’ Or ‘I’ve picked up some fresh mussels from the market. I thought they’d make a change, boiled with a bit of onion.’ He will set to and eat the lot until the bowl rattles with the scrape of empty shells and his fingers glisten with butter and flakes of fresh parsley. Ruth is running culinary circles around Jack. And as long as she only does it once or twice a week, Jack is prepared to let her.

Further conversation is abandoned as the two families order breakfast. Connie scribbles the orders down in her pad and disappears through the swing doors into the kitchen. Ruth has a set of rules garnered for the most part from Good Housekeeping and the writings of Elizabeth Craig. Rules are Ruth’s sheet anchor in the troubled seas of marriage and child rearing. Over the years she has developed an encyclopedic knowledge of how to behave – table manners and etiquette being foremost in her present considerations. A glance down the table confirms that her daughters are behaving as she would expect in a public place. Their voices are suitably moderated, their spoons half filled from the far edge of the cereal bowls, their elbows well in and their movements slow. Ruth watches Connie clearing the cereal plates from the Cleggs’ table minutes after having served them.

‘Just look at that family. Have you seen how they eat?’ Ruth whispers to Jack. ‘They’re like a bunch of gannets. I’m surprised they bother with knives and forks. I’ve never seen anyone eat that fast.’

Beth taps her mother’s hand. ‘Can I have a drink, Mummy? I’m thirsty. Can I have orange juice like the other people?’ Beth pokes a pale finger at the Cleggs.

Ruth shakes her head. There is nothing to drink other than a pot of tea. It is Ruth’s first job, when she reaches the table every morning, to hand the jug of orange juice back to the waitress. Ruth does not hold with tinned juice, be it orange, grapefruit, or apple. Whole fresh fruit is to be preferred at all times. Water is not an acceptable alternative. Elizabeth is so clumsy she’d spill it.

‘You’ll have to wait until you get back to the room. I can’t be having you making a mess,’ Ruth replies.

The Cleggs appear to have no such qualms; their jug of juice disappears within minutes of their arrival and is refilled. This is promptly followed by demands for tea, toast and marmalade to keep the family going while they wait for the main course. The Full English arrives with another pot of tea and extra toast. Fred Clegg sighs and says to his sons, ‘Wire in, lads.’ As if they needed telling.

Fred and Jack go on to chat about the weather forecast and Florrie turns to Ruth. ‘What a pretty daughter you have,’ she says, casting her eye over Helen. ‘And how old is your little boy?’

Ruth feigns deafness and Florrie has to raise her voice in order to be heard over the noise of the twins nudging and pushing each other, and stealing food from each other’s plates.

Ruth gives her a frosty look. ‘Are you referring to my daughters?’

‘Oh, it’s a little girl! I’m such a fool. I should have known. It was the brown shorts that threw me. What’s your name, pet?’

Beth is not allowed to speak to strangers. She looks to her mother for permission. Ruth inclines her head – a nod imperceptible to outsiders – and Beth replies, ‘Beth.’

‘Elizabeth,’ her mother interrupts. ‘I don’t hold with all this shortening of names. It’s lazy.’

‘Well, long or short, it’s a pretty name. And how old are you?’

‘Seven. And my sister is sixteen.’

‘Well,’ says Florrie, turning to Ruth, ‘aren’t they grand? You must be very proud of them. There’s the same gap between my lads as there is between your girls. ‘Rob’ – she points to a sallow-skinned boy who is wearing an Indian headdress with three feathers – ’is nine.’

The boy pulls a packet of Barrett’s Sweet Cigarettes from the pocket of his grey shorts and, extracting a cigarette, he taps the end on the front of the packet and lodges it in the side of his mouth. When he is assured that he has Beth’s shocked attention he inhales deeply, glares at his mother and says, ‘I’m called Red Hawk.’

Florrie ignores him and continues, ‘There’s the twins, of course. And my eldest, Alan. He’s eighteen. Training as a clerk,’ Florrie remarks with some pride.

Helen glances sideways at Alan. He is leaning back in his chair drinking his tea and flicking the ash from his tipped cigarette into the saucer. He is a remarkably sharp dresser, from his wide-checked blue gingham shirt to his white socks and shiny slip-on shoes. His hands are small but clean, the nails well manicured. He is shaved and scrubbed to such an extent that his neck glows red against his collar. His ginger hair is parted precisely on the left and combed into a solid quiff. Helen is impressed. Aware of her attention, Alan pulls out a large leather wallet and flicks it open to reveal serried ranks of fivers, pounds and ten-shilling notes. Helen immediately looks away, but this calculated display of wealth earns a wink from the passing Connie.

The Cleggs have finished their breakfast but seem unwilling to leave the dining room. Their table looks like a bombsite. The cloth is crumpled and smeared with butter, and there’s dirty cutlery everywhere but on the plate, while only the folded napkins remain pristine. The Singletons’ table is an oasis of order and calm in comparison.

Florrie relaxes and pours herself another cup of tea. After a few moments she arches her back against the wooden chair and addresses Ruth. ‘How long are you here for, Ruth?’

‘We leave on Saturday,’ Ruth replies and busies herself with collecting the used napkins. She is relieved when Red Hawk’s demand for some spending money interrupts the conversation. Florrie takes two sixpences out of her purse. She gives them both to the boy and whispers in his ear. Red Hawk nods and, before Ruth can put a stop to it, he has given Beth a sixpence.

‘There’s really no need, Mrs Clegg,’ Ruth says. ‘Elizabeth already has some spending money.’

‘Oh, call me Florrie,’ Mrs Clegg insists. ‘Well, it’s the least I could do after my silly mistake. It’s only a sixpence. I’m sure you’ll be able to find something to spend it on, won’t you, pet?’

Beth looks at the sixpence in disbelief – this is twice as much as the spending money she gets every Saturday. Aware of the extravagance, she holds her breath, awaiting her mother’s intervention, but there is silence. When Beth finally tears her eyes away from the sixpence and looks up, her mother glares at her and says, ‘What do you say, Elizabeth?’

‘Thank you,’ she whispers and wraps the coin carefully in her best handkerchief. Sixpence will buy a Range Rider Lucky Bag, a tuppenny sherbet fountain and a liquorice Catherine wheel with a pink sweet in the middle. Besides the usual sweets and cards all Lucky Bags have a toy inside – with a bit of luck Beth might get a monkey on a stick instead of the usual whistle.

Outflanked by Florrie’s generosity, Ruth is reduced to tightening her lips and watching, with mounting disapproval, as Red Hawk slides up and down the varnished walkway in his stocking feet. Beth is transfixed by his misbehaviour. He is wearing three feathers stuck in a rubber band round his head. His thick grey school shorts are ripped at the pocket and worn to a greasy shine on the bottom. Round his waist is a red and blue elastic belt that fastens at the front with a snake clasp, though it is not much use keeping his shorts up since the waistband is missing two of the belt holders. Beth is impressed. Red Hawk has several club badges pinned to his jumper. Beth has been trying to join clubs for the past year. All she’s managed so far is the Golliwog Club, and she isn’t really a member of that until her mother has finished sufficient jars of jam to send off for a badge. Beth has been campaigning for a golliwog pirate badge – much more exciting than the golly bus conductor or, worse still, the golly golfer. Red Hawk is wearing a Cub badge. Beth had harboured hopes of joining the Brownies but Brown Owl only wants Brownies who can join in the various activities like dancing in a circle round a papier-mâché owl on a toadstool and going away to Brownie camp. There’s the Girl Adventurers’ Club, but it’s not very adventurous. Unless you count always being polite to adults and kind to sick animals exciting. There’s Uncle Mac’s Children’s Favourites Club, but that’s hardly exclusive; anyone can join just by switching on the wireless.

Red Hawk has already bumped into one table and got tomato ketchup down his front, and now he’s shooting a bow and arrow at the ceiling. When he knocks over and smashes a couple of side plates his mother gives him a fond look and says, by way of explanation, ‘You have to let them have their heads. It’s only once a year. Holidays are holidays, aren’t they?’

Breakfast is finished by the time the couple from room sixty-nine appear. Jack has spoken to him in the bar once or twice. He’s a travelling salesman and Ruth reckons his ‘wife’ is out to get what she can – which will be a fair amount if you look at the way she’s dressed. All she ever has for breakfast is dry toast and straight black coffee. Not, Ruth notes, that it stays straight for long. He’s forever pulling out a hip flask of whisky to put a kick in it. ‘Hair of the dog,’ he says with a wide grin.

There’s some winking and groping under the table before she says, ‘Behave yourself, Harry. What will people think?’ It’s obvious from his reply that he couldn’t care less. He has a laugh like Sid James.

Breakfast complete, Jack and Fred Clegg wander into the Residents’ Lounge for a cigarette, deep in conversation about whether or not Blackburn will make the cup final next season. The eldest boy, Alan, remains seated next to his mother but his attention is concentrated on the other side of the dining room where Connie and Helen are standing.

‘Our Alan works for an accountant,’ Florrie tells Ruth.

‘Turf?’

‘Oh no, a proper accountant. With a fancy office and everything. Our Alan has been there for the past couple of years since he left school. It’s a responsible job. They rely on our Alan to do the local deliveries in the morning. It’s very serious. Some of those letters have statements, bonds, or even cheques inside. The senior partner, Mr Tyson, calls our Alan his right-hand man. And he’s a smasher at home. So good with the twins. They listen to every word he says.’

Florrie lifts the occupants of the two high chairs – a couple of heavy, flat-faced three-year-olds with matching sagging lower lips and dull grey eyes. Freed from restraint, the twins immediately fall into a fight, which progresses out of the dining room, through the lobby and looks set to continue into the street. It only stops when one twin cracks his skull against the sign that reads: ‘Guests are requested to ensure that their footwear is free of sand before entering the hotel.’ The infant bursts into tears and howls with such ferocity that his twin feels compelled to join in.

Deaf to the uproar, Beth watches entranced as Red Hawk continues to crawl around the dining room. When he disappears into the lobby Beth asks to be excused from the table and gets down from her chair. She moves to the doorway of the dining room and peeps into the lobby. Red Hawk is still shooting arrows. When one falls at her feet she picks it up. Close to she can see that he has a green and white I-Spy badge pinned to his collar. Beth solemnly strokes her cheek three times. Red Hawk signals back. A friendship is formed.

‘Are you a proper Red Indian brave?’ the boy asks. Beth nods eagerly. ‘Where are your flippin’ feathers then?’ Beth looks blank. ‘Look.’ The boy points to his headband. ‘I’ve got three feathers.’ He points to each of them in turn and says, ‘This one’s for I-Spy Birds, the middle one’s for I-Spy in the Street, and this one at the end is for I-Spy Car Numbers. I’m on my fourth now. And I’m head of the Wild Jaguars tribe. What tribe do you belong to?’

‘I haven’t got a tribe yet, but I’ve got this.’ Beth extracts I-Spy at the Seaside from her pocket and pushes it under his nose.

He barely glances at it before he hands it back. ‘That one looks too easy – I’m doing I-Spy Buses and Coaches now. They’re more difficult but I bet I finish the whole book by Saturday.’

Beth is unable to give Red Hawk’s achievements her full attention since she has spotted Gunner relieving himself against one of the impressive magnolia pillars at the hotel entrance. She has spent hours trying to make friends with Gunner. Beth is not allowed a dog of her own. She has asked her mother for one countless times, but the answer is always the same. Dogs are far too dirty to keep, they carry fleas and ticks, along with all sorts of diseases and they don’t care where they make a mess. There being no hope of acquiring a dog of her own, Beth is therefore on permanent lookout for a dog she can adopt. She is fearless in her pursuit, despite having once been bitten by a poodle on Halifax Road. Beth is convinced that Gunner can be persuaded into allowing her to stroke him if she is persistent enough. But Gunner is not amenable to approach. His tolerance for children as a subspecies is substantially below zero and remains so despite having been severely tested by Beth’s persistent kindness and relentless affection.

Beth, ignorant of the dog’s pathological hatred of children, still believes that she can make friends with Gunner. ‘Here, Gunner. You’d like a stroke, wouldn’t you?’ Gunner doesn’t look convinced. Beth, hand outstretched, creeps forward. Unable to whistle like the boy in Lassie, Beth is reduced to making clicking noises with her tongue and purring, ‘Here, Gunner. There’s a good boy. Here, Gunner. Here, boy.’

Beth and Red Hawk watch as Gunner bolts past them in the direction of the hotel kitchens. ‘I’ll get him for you,’ says Red Hawk, loading his bow with the remaining arrow and aiming at the dog’s retreating backside.

‘No,’ shouts Beth, grabbing the arrow. ‘I’ll never make friends with him if you hurt him.’

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ volunteers Red Hawk. ‘That bugger bloody bit me when I pulled his tail. I wouldn’t care but it were only a joke.’

Back in the dining room, Connie is clearing the tables. She and Helen have become good friends over the past few days. They can be found giggling together in a corner somewhere most mornings once the dining room empties. Connie sneaks a swift cigarette and a milky coffee, while Helen listens open-mouthed to the waitress’s salacious account of the previous evening’s activities. Connie is forever encouraging Helen to accompany her on these soirées but so far she has drawn a blank. She may be a couple of months younger but she has a wealth of experience hitherto denied Helen. Even Helen’s Saturday job in a dress shop can’t compete with Connie’s obvious experience.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ whispers Connie at her most confidential. ‘Kitchen and dining-room staff get two hours off every afternoon. We all go out together. Why don’t you come with us? We usually meet up at the pier for a drink and a laugh. It’s a scream. Andy bought me four Babychams yesterday afternoon and I was seeing double by the time I got back.’

‘I can’t,’ Helen says. ‘I’m not allowed on the pier.’

‘What? Even during the day? Hellfire! My dad’s in Strangeways and even he gets let out every now and again.’

Helen is embarrassed. Not just because her parents treat her like a child but also for her friend having a dad in prison, but it doesn’t seem to bother Connie.

‘You’re lucky to have a dad like yours. He’s great, isn’t he?’ Connie sighs and casts a glance over at Jack.

‘He’s OK, I suppose. He’s not as strict as my mother.’

‘She’s like bloody Hitler. However did she get her claws into your dad? I mean, he’s good-looking enough to get anyone he wanted. He doesn’t even look old, does he?’ Connie changes the subject when she sees the look of disbelief on Helen’s face. ‘Anyway, what’s the gossip about that new bloke?’

‘Who?’

‘Mr Wonderful in the check shirt on your old table. Go on, what’s the gossip? Spill the beans, Helen.’

‘I don’t know a lot – he’s called Alan and he works for an accountant.’

‘Oh, very fancy! Did you see him flashing his wallet around?’

‘Yes.’ Helen is awestruck by such a display of wealth.

‘I saw him. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.’

Helen blushes. ‘Well, I’m not interested in him. Well, I mean, he’s all right.’

‘Would you go out with him if he asked?’

‘I might.’

‘I thought you said you had a boyfriend at home?’

‘I have,’ Helen replies, trying to sound casual. She has been forced to invent a boyfriend with whom she is ‘going steady’ in order to deflect Connie’s constant queries as to why she doesn’t go out at night.

‘Ah, well, a bit on the side won’t do any harm. What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve over. That’s what my mum always says when she’s out with a new bloke. I’ll bet Mr Wonderful over there would give his right arm to take you out. Oh, God! He’s looking this way.’

Helen is forced to put her hand over her mouth to muffle the laughter. Far away, at the other end of the dining room, Alan looks on.

‘I know what! If you can’t come on the pier with me why don’t we go to that new coffee bar?’

‘Where?’ Helen asks.

‘Rico’s. That one on Victoria Street, just behind the Tower. I went there with Andy last week – he’d fixed it so that we both had the same day off. There’s a great jukebox and they serve that frothy coffee. Your mum can’t object to you having a cup of coffee, can she? Let’s go this afternoon.’

‘Where shall I meet you?’

‘You know where my room is, don’t you? Through the Staff door in the lobby, down the stairs and it’s on the right. I’ll see you there at half past two.’

‘I know Blackburn like the back of my hand,’ Florrie says. ‘Which part of the town do you come from?’

‘Oh, we’re on the outskirts,’ Ruth replies as she hurries to finish her tea.

‘Oh?’ Florrie thinks she might have cottoned on to something. The silence that follows is deafening. When it’s obvious that Ruth has no intention of supplying further details Florrie starts again: ‘You’re a long way out of the centre, are you? A terrace, is it?’

Ruth nods by way of reply. She neglects to mention that the house is an end terrace. It is not in Ruth’s nature to be boastful, particularly with strangers. Both women know perfectly well that there’s a class hierarchy in terraced life. The further out of town, the better the terrace. The Singletons own an end terrace. It might as well be a semi. Ruth has only one immediate neighbour – although with the noise the Kerkleys make it sometimes sounds as if she’s got more. The Singletons’ end terrace is situated at the tree-lined town boundary, overlooking the town below and the moors beyond. It is, to quote the estate agent Ruth has had round recently, ‘a little gem’.

‘I lived on Le-banon Street before I was wed,’ Florrie volunteers. Ruth’s face is a picture of restraint. ‘They’re a good crowd on Lebanon,’ Florrie continues.

Ruth bites her lip. She is not only capable of pronouncing the name Lebanon correctly, she could point to the country on a map and quote freely from the Bible on the subject.

‘So, whereabouts on the tops are you? Anywhere near the Black Bull?’

It is a common habit locally to tie the location of anything in the town to the nearest pub. Ruth is not prey to this habit. She allows herself a vague ‘m-m-m’ as she replaces her cup in the saucer.

‘Oh, they’re all pastry forks and bay windows up there, aren’t they? Wouldn’t suit me. No, I like to be in the thick of things. I like to know what’s going on. Don’t you find it a nuisance being so far out of town? It means a lot of travelling,’ Florrie says as she’s sweetening her Alan’s second cup of tea for him.

‘It’s nice and quiet on the tops,’ Ruth replies, biting back the urge to say that it’s worth a six-penny bus journey to be away from dirty backstreets and the stink of mill chimneys.

‘There,’ Florrie says after she’s taken an exploratory sip, ‘that’s just nice.’ She passes the sweetened cup of tea over to Alan. Ruth can sense her nose turning up. She’s seen her mother do it countless times for her father; indeed, Ruth might have sweetened and sipped Jack’s tea herself had she not seen the light at night school. Quite apart from what constitutes good table manners, the practice is unhealthy and encourages the migration of germs. Elizabeth Craig is adamant about this.

‘They’re building some new houses up there, aren’t they?’ Florrie remarks casually.

‘Where?’

‘Up on the Boundary. Three-bedroom semis. I told Fred, I said, “They’ll never sell them! Who’d pay a fortune to live that far out of town?” It’s not even a local builder, is it?’

‘No, I don’t think it is.’

Florrie gives Ruth a shrewd look and says, ‘Got your eye on one of them, have you?’

This is an understatement. Ruth has not only got an eye on one of the new semis, she’s got a copy of the plans and the deposit as well. Not that she would ever admit to this. Talk of the semi involves two forbidden subjects: family and money. Ruth gets up from the table, anxious to make her escape.

‘She’s small for seven, your little girl. You did say she was seven, didn’t you? She looks nearer five to me. Very quiet, isn’t she?’

Ruth has heard the same from Beth’s teacher at school. ‘You know, Mrs Singleton,’ the teacher had ventured, ‘Beth, er, I mean Elizabeth is a bit too quiet, if you see what I mean. I’ve known children who appear quiet. But they’re not really. They’re hiding for some reason. They imagine if they’re quiet no one will notice them. Someone or something has frightened them. Have you noticed anything?’

‘Nothing,’ Ruth had replied with a firm shake of the head.

‘Well, she may not be breaking her toys or screaming, but this doesn’t mean she hasn’t got problems. She’s likely to tell you if you find the time to ask and listen to what she says.’ Seeing the expression on Ruth’s face, the teacher had added, ‘Well, perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe all she needs is a good cuddle and some reassurance. All of us could do with that, couldn’t we?’

The teacher had said all this in such a caring and reasonable tone that Ruth had been quite worried about it. Until, that is, she sat down and thought about it. Then she realised that it was all nonsense. Elizabeth is obedient because that’s the way she’s been brought up. Ruth expects her to be quiet and polite at all times. Who wants a cheeky daughter who’s forever shouting and misbehaving? Ruth stopped calling in at school after that. But the accusation still makes her angry.

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 jumper and blouse, liberty bodice and vest. 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 hard-backed 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 recognised 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 vest 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.