The Palace of Strange Girls (22 page)

A face bends close to her. “Hello, Elizabeth. There’s no need to be frightened. We just have to do one or two little things
before we put you to sleep. Just a couple of little nicks. The nurse is going to read to you. Oh good, it’s an adventure book.
We’re all going to be very quiet and listen.”

The nurse begins to read as the surgeon engineers the first cut in his patient’s ankle and moves on, heedless of the answering
scream. Within seconds the nurse’s voice begins to rise and rise until she is shouting in order to be heard over the patient’s
sobs. The child is hysterical with fear and pain. She is wild, fighting against the hold of the leather straps, tears coursing
down her cheeks, stinging against the corners of her open mouth. The surgeon is a compassionate man. He is familiar with the
sound and appearance of pain. Still, the child’s screams are piteous and the straps are not wide enough to ensure she is perfectly
still. Words are exchanged. The straps are unbuckled and three sets of hands continue the job of restraint. Beth’s legs are
held rigid, soothing words are uttered but still the child fights and screams. The nurse at her head raises her voice, bringing
the book up to Beth’s face. “See,” she offers. “Look at the picture!”

A man dressed in a beige shirt and shorts, long gray socks and a pith helmet is walking through the jungle. A tiger, half
emerged from undergrowth, springs on the explorer’s back. The animal has already clawed open the explorer’s shoulder blade
and the force of its attack has caused the man to drop his shotgun. The tiger’s eyes burn bright red, his jaws open to reveal
a set of vicious fangs. In the background three native bearers in bracelets and feathers throw down their loads and, arms
waving, run for their lives. It is an action-packed picture that promises the sort of thrilling distraction sadly absent from
the lives of most six-year-olds. But Beth cannot be distracted. She has no interest in the man’s survival. At a sign from
the surgeon, the nurse abandons the adventure book. She places her arm across Beth’s chest to prevent the child from rearing
up while her other hand strokes a cotton towel across the patient’s face. Beth’s nose streams; her cheeks run with sweat and
tears, her mouth open like a wound.

It is past midnight when Beth wakes from her nightmare. She wriggles beneath the weight of the eiderdown and turns over. It
is slightly less painful if she lies on her right side; the scar is on the other side of her chest. In the next bed Beth can
just make out the comforting shape of her sister. Responsibility for Beth’s present sleepless state lies firmly at the door
of the Palace of Strange Girls, in particular with the Tiger Woman (“See her Scars! Hear her Snarl!!”). Beth has been able
to think of little else since yesterday afternoon. Inspired by the Tiger Woman, she has spent hours playing shadow tigers
on the bedroom wall with the help of the pink bedside lamp. Beth is not allowed to touch the lamp itself in case she breaks
it or electrocutes herself, but nothing has been said about the on/off switch. After an hour spent practicing the crouch and
low crawl, Beth is convinced that she would make a good Tiger Woman. But she will need to grow her nails.

Beth has come out of hospital with several things she didn’t take in. A propensity for nightmares, a knack of sleepwalking
and a habit of biting her nails. This last trait is obviously the most serious since it impinges upon outward appearance.
Ruth has attempted to dissuade Beth from this nasty, unhygienic habit by painting her nails with green aloes. Beth continues
to bite her nails but, as a result of the bitter aloes, she has now taken to pulling a face while she’s doing it, thus increasing
her mother’s despair. Tiger Woman has long scarlet nails filed to vicious points. Beth is determined to have the same. Beth
already has the required scars. The raw gleam of cuts in her ankle, her knee and her hip. They aren’t as large as Tiger Woman’s
but they might increase in size as Beth grows. As to the big wound across her back, Beth hasn’t seen it, but other people
have. In Beth’s experience once people have seen her scar they don’t want to look at it again. Dr. Richmond visited before
they came away on holiday and said, “The little one is healing up nicely, isn’t she?”

And her mother had replied, “It looks no better to me. It’s such a mess… disfiguring. I don’t know how she’s going to cope
when she’s older. Because it’ll always be there, won’t it? There’ll be no hiding a scar that size, will there? Who is going
to want her looking like that?”

Dr. Richmond shook his head and shot Beth’s mother a sharp look. “What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve, Mrs.
Singleton.”

Since that day Beth has tried to twist herself into a position where she can see the scar. But it is hopeless. There are only
two mirrors in the house. One inside her parents’ bedroom, where she is strictly forbidden, and one in the bathroom above
the washbasin, which she is too short to reach. In the end, of course, it doesn’t matter that Beth can’t see the scar that
stretches across her back and curls under her left armpit—she can see the disgust in her mother’s eyes and feel the revulsion
in her touch. That alone is enough to persuade her that the scar looks as bad as it feels. If only she were pretty like the
Tiger Woman at the Palace of Strange Girls. Beth has experienced only limited success with Dr. Coffin’s tooth powder. She
needs something more permanent to redden her cheeks. She wouldn’t be odd at all if she was a Tiger Woman at the Palace of
Strange Girls. She’d fit in perfectly. She wouldn’t mind having to scratch and snarl. She wouldn’t mind it at all.

Beth hears the sound of muffled sobs from the other side of the room. “Helen? You’re crying! What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Shut up, Beth. You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“But I’m not,” Beth replies, twisting from side to side in an attempt to struggle free of her tucked-in sheets and blankets.
Eventually she tears her way free and, Houdini-like, stretches her arms up into the air before jumping the short distance
to Helen’s bed.

“Get off! Go away!”

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m not.”

“You are. I heard you. Is it because Mum won’t let you go out with Connie tonight?”

“If Connie doesn’t see Doug she’ll meet someone else. She’s really popular, she’s had loads of boyfriends. I’m older than
her and I haven’t had a single one. And she’s got a room full of clothes. She buys something new every week when she’s paid.”

“But you’re a lot prettier.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about anything anymore. I wish I were dead.”

“Don’t say that! I don’t want you to die, it’s horrible. Horrible.” Beth sobs.

Helen sits up in bed, shocked by Beth’s distress. She pulls her sister close and wraps her arms round Beth’s skinny frame.
“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it,” she says. “Nobody is going to die.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise, now get back into bed. You should be asleep.”

“I’m not tired,” Beth replies. “I know. Let’s look out of the window like we do at home. We might spy some tipsy.”

Tipsy is the word given to men and women who stagger out of the Four Lane Ends pub every Friday and Saturday night. Tipsies
do a lot of laughing, even when they’re sick over the Singletons’ front garden wall, which is surprising. Beth has been sick
more than once over the previous few months and she hasn’t laughed once. Beth pulls back the curtain and peers down through
the open window into the yard below. There isn’t a lot to see. Minutes pass and Beth’s feet begin to get cold. She is about
to give up when there are signs of movement in the yard. “Helen! Look! Come quick! I think I can see Connie. Just look! She’s
got a boyfriend. She’s holding his hand!”

“Liar.”

“She is. I’ll prove it. Come and look.”

Helen gets up and pulls the curtain wider. There’s very little light down in the yard, but she can see the outline of two
figures and hear the sound of Connie’s unmistakable throaty laughter. Helen strains to try and make out who Connie is with.
It certainly isn’t Doug, he’s got the wrong-colored hair. Has she ended up with Alan Clegg after all? The man looks faintly
familiar, he’s wearing a jacket like her dad’s, but in a moment both figures have disappeared. The sisters stay by the window
for a while. There is a fish and chip shop round the corner and the aroma of hot batter and sharp vinegar makes their mouths
water.

“I’m hungry,” Beth complains.

“You’ll have to wait for breakfast.”

“But I can’t!”

“If you promise to get straight into bed you can have a spoonful of rosehip syrup. Mum left it on the washbasin this morning
by mistake.”

Beth scrambles back into bed, her mouth open wide like a fledgling.

Ruth has spent the whole evening sitting in a faded pink wicker chair by the window in their hotel room worrying about her
daughters. Helen is a pain in the neck with her constant demands. She wants everything too soon. And then there’s Elizabeth—a
constant source of worry. Ruth believes that her daughter’s illness is a judgment from God. Divine retribution for what she
calls her “disappointment” when the child was born. Ruth’s God is an Old Testament God. A vengeful God. A judgmental God.
Ruth barely expects her to last out the week. God, she suspects, has only allowed her daughter to live this long in order
to make her final demise all the more bitter. Not that Ruth is going to give up without a fight. Elizabeth suffered a collapsed
lung after the operation, forcing her mother, in the hope of outwitting the Almighty, to institute a regime of comprehensive
care. No child alive is subject to the same pack drill of health-giving home remedies. Although she recognizes that she can’t
mend Elizabeth’s heart, Ruth has left no stone unturned in her search for a cure for her daughter’s weak chest. To this end
Beth faces a bowl of porridge every morning (“sticks to your chest and keeps you warm”) prior to spending the morning either
traipsing around after any passing tar wagon (“Big breaths, Elizabeth!”) or suffocating over a bowl of steaming water intended
to “clear her tubes.” After her weekly bath Beth’s chest is rubbed vigorously with Vick (“fights respiratory infection”) before
she is squeezed into her wool undershirt, her fleece liberty bodice and her cotton nightie.

Under the onslaught of Ruth’s capacity to worry the evening has flown by. It is past midnight and contemplation of the perils
of infant mortality raises Ruth into such a frenzy that she begins to pace the room. There is nothing for it but to distract
herself with housework—but the cleaning options available at the Belvedere are limited. Not that the grime is not present—anyone
with half an eye could spot it—but she is handicapped by the absence of a bucket and anything approaching a scrubbing brush
or mop.

This attachment to cleaning began some seventeen years previously with the shifting of her few spinster belongings from her
parents’ house on Bird Street and into her first (and so far only) marital home—a terrace on St. Cuthbert’s Street that Jack
had bought prior to their wedding. With the move Ruth set her foot on the road to her own personal Damascus with her blinding
revelation occurring in the form of a desire to clean. As a result Ruth has the tiny two up two down in a state of constant
chaos. Items are shifted, cleaned and replaced on a daily basis. Everything she touches is transformed—polished brighter,
ironed smoother, washed cleaner. Polish is applied, sheets are stripped, windows are washed. The house is a hive of activity
from dawn to dusk. It is an uphill struggle. Even while the family sleep dust is settling, pajamas are being creased, pillows
stained with spittle and flakes of skin shed. The house demands the whole of Ruth’s attention and energy to complete the innumerable
tasks. Ruth has read the statistics. A full eighty-five percent of the dirt in a house is lodged in the carpets. There are
five different kinds of ground-in dirt, all of which really require the use of a proper Hoover vacuum cleaner to remove.

And still the house is not perfect. It seems to Ruth that the sofa is in the wrong place, the kitchen chairs stand at an awkward
angle, the vase needs replacing, the photos dusting. There isn’t time enough in the day to do all she must accomplish. As
a result Jack must drink his cup of tea immediately his fist closes round the handle. Ruth has no time to waste. The sweet
liquid burns his throat while Ruth stands beside him to snatch the empty mug from his grasp. Anxious to run it under the tap,
polish it dry and hang it back on the hook. There is no peace of mind for Ruth until her household chores are completed. Instead
of the stay in a hotel being a welcome rest, Ruth finds that her anxiety levels rise by the day. Her only recourse is to clean.
She is leaning over the washbasin, handkerchief in hand, scrubbing at the tidemark of soap scum and whiskers when Jack returns.

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.