The Palace of Strange Girls (20 page)

“I can’t really say. It’s difficult over the phone.”

“Well, why don’t you come over here? Jack’s out with his Union pal. You could get a taxi.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t like me going out. Certainly not at night. If I want to go out I have to agree it with him in advance.”

“But you’re not doing anything dangerous—you’d be nipping out to see me. We were friends long before you even knew Ronald.”

“It’s no good. I can’t ask him. He’s downstairs in the bar with his golfing friends. He’ll be furious if I interrupt.” Cora
hears Ruth’s impatient sigh over the phone and adds, “It’s not just golf they talk about, you know. It’s business as well.
Oh, can’t you come over here instead? Helen won’t mind babysitting, will she?”

Ruth hesitates but at last she says, “No, Cora. I can’t leave the girls. Not with Jack being out as well. I’m not keen to
leave Elizabeth—she’s barely out of hospital.”

“Of course. I didn’t think. Well, why don’t you and Jack come over to the Links on Friday?”

“If you want to talk I’d be better coming by myself.”

“No, don’t do that. Ronnie will think I’m talking about him behind his back.”

“He’s a big lad. He’ll cope, I’m sure.”

“Promise you’ll come over on Friday, Ruth. I really want to see you, and Jack of course. Both of you.”

Ruth considers all the good news she might have to tell Cora if Jack is offered the Union job. It could be a real celebration.
“All right then,” she replies. “We’ll see you at three on Friday.”

“Thanks, Ruth. I’m really… Oh, God, he’s coming back. I have to go. ’Bye.”

And she is gone. Ruth can’t settle after the phone call. Cora sounded upset, almost frightened, when she said Ronnie had come
back. Ruth suspects that Cora’s husband, for all his apparent generosity, is really a bully. Ruth is uneasy, worried about
Cora. She wanders around the hotel room looking for things to do. At last she sits down and starts writing the postcards she’s
been carrying around in her bag for the past three days. At this rate she’s going to be on her way back before they’re posted.

Yates’s wine lodge is a popular venue for Blackpool fun seekers. A wide Victorian portico welcomes customers into luxurious
surroundings where they can sample the delights of its cellar. It’s only eight o’clock but the place is already packed with
evening drinkers jockeying for position at the highly polished brass and mahogany bar. The fine stucco ceiling complete with
cherubs toasting each other’s health is rendered virtually invisible by a pall of tobacco smoke. The floor is awash with spilled
drinks. Drinkers in their “kiss-me-quick” hats, drape jackets and winkle-picker shoes are engaged in a nightly attempt to
drink Blackpool dry. There’s a noticeable spreading of masculine chests and an exchange of friendly blows among the single
men as the women look on, bright in their polka-dot dresses, their gathered skirts rising to reveal layer after layer of nylon
net and the occasional stocking top. Yates’s isn’t licensed for dancing but this matters little to the revelers. Chairs are
pulled back in a surge of excitement when the jukebox is switched on and couples rock to and fro in sweaty congress on the
makeshift dance floor. Bra straps fail and suspenders snap under eager male embraces, but the dance continues regardless.
There’s some muttering from the older drinkers, but some bright spark has located the volume switch on the jukebox and Lonnie
Donegan’s “Rock Island Line” effectively drowns out all opposition. All in all it promises to be a lively night.

Jack spots Tom at a table in the corner, a half-finished pint in front of him, and signals across to see if he wants another.
Tom nods in agreement and Jack makes his way to the bar. He’s not been there for more than a couple of minutes when a woman
taps him on the shoulder and says, “Here, let me. I’ll get served faster.” He turns and sees that it’s the waitress from the
hotel—Helen’s friend. He is still struggling to remember her name when she pulls the pound note from his fingers and whistles
to the barman.

“It’s all right,” Jack says. “There’s no hurry. I’m only after a couple of pints.”

But Connie has her back to him and is already pushing her way to the head of the queue. The barman, who hitherto has studiedly
ignored Jack in the general crush, fetches up in front of Connie’s cleavage the minute she leans over the bar. It’s like watching
one of Leonora’s Dancing Dogs at the Tower Circus. Jack, embarrassed at the idea of a woman getting his drinks, looks around,
anxious not to be spotted. Connie is wearing a black top and scarlet skirt that accentuates her curves, and her auburn hair
spreads loosely over creamy white shoulders that sparkle with gold freckles. Jack has no idea how old she is, but she looks
at least twenty.

“You’d better take one for yourself out of it,” Jack says as an afterthought.

“Thanks,” she says, flashing him a brilliant smile.

They both retreat from the bar with their drinks and stand at the edge of the crush. Jack, deliberately ignoring Connie’s
cleavage, is at a loss to know what to say. Happily Connie knows exactly what she wants. “Have you seen Doug tonight?”

“Doug?”

“About my age. Brown hair, leather jacket. Beth says you work with him.”

“Oh, you mean Doug Fairbrother.”

“That’s him.”

“No, I haven’t,” Jack says. “Who did you come with?”

“No one. The lads from the hotel are all over at the Laughing Donkey.”

“I should get over there if I were you. It’s a bit of a rough shop, this. For a girl on her own, I mean.”

“Oh, I’ll give it a bit longer I think.”

“Well, I hope Doug turns up. Anyway I’ll keep an eye open for you. I’ll be over there.” Jack points to the table in the corner
where Tom Bell is looking increasingly impatient for his pint.

Unknown to both of them the youth in question has already poked his head round the bar door and, seeing Jack Singleton in
conversation with Connie, has given up hope of bumping into Helen and beaten a hasty retreat.

Jack threads his way through the crowd to Tom’s table and puts down both pints with a sigh.

“Reckoned I’d lost you there for a moment,” Tom says.

“What?”

“I reckoned you’d be happier spending the evening with the redhead.”

“Give over, she’s a friend of Helen’s.”

“Aye, well, you’ll find they’re the worst,” Tom remarks with a wink.

“Are we drinking or just gassing?”

“A bit of both. Cheers, Jack.”

Tom has been fitted with a new pair of dentures. He still had his own gnashers before the war, but the Italian campaign put
the kibosh on his teeth along with his chest. False teeth were the only option after he was demobilized. The bottom set of
National Health teeth are so loose they require some clever tongue and lip maneuvering to keep them in place. Tom’s conversation
is interrupted on a regular basis by discreet attempts to wedge the bottom plate more securely into his jaw. Pronunciation
of the letter “l” is fraught with danger and his “s”s whistle like the wind in the fireback on a winter’s night. It would
be easier to give up the fight and manage without dentures, but Tom still retains a shred of vanity. Despite being well over
fifty he can nevertheless make women blush with pleasure. He makes out it’s a terrible burden, this ability to charm the women.
Blames it on the Union—having to talk to all those women weavers late at night. It never fails to make Jack laugh.

They sup the best part of their pints talking of this and that. Tom asks after Ruth, wants to know how Beth is after the operation
and whether Helen is going to stay on at school. Jack admires Tom; even when they disagree over tactics the old man still
manages to retain Jack’s respect. Tom has been area rep for the Union since before the war. He is absolutely committed to
the Union and members’ rights. Jack has seen him speak for upwards of an hour, take questions from the floor, deal with the
barracking from the hotheads and then pack up and move on to the next mill—and the next set of angry workers and obstinate
management. They met when Jack heard him speak at the WEA on the future of the Socialist movement. Tom gave him a book by
Marx, told him to read it and then tell him the Labour Party was Socialist in the true sense of the word. “They’re a bunch
of phonies, Jack,” Tom had said at the time. “They wouldn’t know Socialism if it got up and bit them on the arse.”

Since that time Jack has read every book that Tom has suggested. Today is no exception. He’s not been sat down two minutes
when Tom says, “Here, Jack, take a look at this.”

Jack turns the book over and reads the title:
The Uses of Literacy
by Richard Hoggart. “Never heard of him.”

“Me neither, but he’s a good read. Better than Orwell at any rate. It knocked me sick to read him ranting on about ‘working-class
decency.’ You’ll not see a lot of that when there’s no wage coming in. Hoggart is a sight less sentimental.”

“So what does this bloke think is wrong with society?”

“Consumerism, that’s what. You’ve only to look in any shop window to see that there’s a spending boom going on. Hoggart has
a profound contempt for all this constant greed for material goods. He thinks we need to get back to real values instead of
forever pushing for the latest fad. Everyone wants to fill their houses with white goods nowadays. And that bugger Macmillan”—Tom
points to the picture of the Prime Minister on the front of his copy of the
Daily Herald
—“is cheering them on. He’s just shooting his mouth off again. He says we’ve never had it so good—it says here that two out
of every three families own a television. Just because these politicians can point to some parts of British industry that
are doing well, they think they can forget about cotton. I mean, what’s the point of announcing all this expansion in the
building industry? They’re only building fancy new houses for people who’ve got the wage to buy them. There’s thousands of
weavers in Lancashire with no hope of paying the next week’s rent, let alone collecting the money to put down on a house of
their own.”

Jack stares at his pint, Ruth’s demands still ringing in his ears. “This new Cotton Act is going to shake things up a bit,”
he says, keen to change the subject.

“Aye. Government has finally come up with an idea how to solve the cotton problem. It’s easy. Just get rid of it, shut the
mills. We’ve lost just short of 20,000 looms in the last twelve months—at this rate there’ll be no industry left in seven
years. And in case there are any buggers left who actually want to carry on weaving they’ll be finished off anyway with all
the foreign competition. They’re calling it ‘modernization of the industry’ when it’s nothing better than ‘Scrap and Shut.’”

“But how can it be ‘Scrap and Shut’ when there’s going to be grants for modernization?”

“Modernization? What good is that when they’re planning to lose 100,000 looms? These new Northrop looms mean that one weaver
can run twenty-four looms instead of six on the old system. And there’s none of the stoppage problems. Same amount of material,
less than half the workforce. Where’s the point in losing all that skilled labor? They’ve been going on about paying mill
owners compensation for the loss of the old machines. Doesn’t occur to them to pay weavers any compensation for losing their
jobs, does it? If the government can afford to pay the owners compensation, why the hell can’t they fork out for the weavers
who’ve been running the looms all their working lives? They’re still arguing that redundancy is the owners’ problem, not theirs.
Parliament won’t touch any move to make redundancy payments compulsory. There’s too many big hitters in the House who’ve made
their money from paying workers a pittance.”

“I heard that the Union signed an agreement with the industry last week to pay some of the workers compensation.”

“They had to—the government has stipulated that none of the payouts to the employers can be used towards redundancy,” Tom
replies. “It sounds a decent deal, but if you look at the small print and get-out clauses you can reckon that less than half
the workers are going to get anything. No, all the real money is to go on new Northrop Automatic machines. Anyway, I’ve not
come here to argue the toss over modernization. I’ve come to see if you’ve made up your mind yet whether or not to take over
my job when I move down to Head Office in London.”

“There’s no easy answer, Tom. It’s not as simple as it looks.”

“Why not? This is a real opportunity, Jack. A chance to make a difference—not just at Fosters but in Union policy in general.
More money than you’re getting at the moment, travel expenses that’ll cover the cost of a car. It’ll suit you down to the
ground—lots of traveling and not having to see the same old faces every day. You know how long we’ve been pushing for improvements?
Bloody years. And nothing’s happened—and nothing will until we get a few more like you working at higher Union level, making
their voices heard.”

“I don’t know about that, Tom. I spent last Wednesday night at the local meeting listening to the usual backbiting, arguing
and time wasting. These meetings go on for hours and finish with meaningless resolutions that pander to every view and satisfy
no one.”

“But you’re talking about local level. You get a totally different perspective at area level. It’s a different ball game altogether—there’s
none of this shop floor tussling.”

“Aye, you’re right. They’re well away from the shop floor. They’re busy making decisions for a workforce they no longer recognize
and barely understand.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you, Jack. What’s happened to workers’ rights? You need national policy to secure them—national
policy steered by area input. We’ll survive this dip. We need to resist the closures. Strike if need be.”

“Striking is no good! How strong is the Union with half its members on the dole? No, Tom. The Union will do what it has always
done. It’ll bleat a bit and then it’ll announce that it’s going to protect all the jobs that are left. Management closed Portsmouth
Mill with twenty-four hours’ notice. The Union hadn’t even got out of bed.”