The Palace of Strange Girls. Sallie Day

you’re all right. I can pick it up at the same time.’

      Once in the room, Jack reaches inside his jacket. The beige satin lining whispers conspiratorially against the thick envelope as he slides it out. He has had the letter for the best part of a week now and keeping it hidden is proving stressful. If he were at home there’d be no problem. Jack could have hidden it in his worksheets and textile patterns. As long as they’re neatly stacked Ruth never bothers with them; she’s no interest in loom specifications and the like. But here in Blackpool there’s nowhere safe to keep the letter. Not in the suitcase. Dear God, not in there. She’s in that case half a dozen times a day, pulling out fresh clothes for the girls and rearranging everything. She has a system. Everything in its place and a place for everything. At night she goes through all Jack’s clothes looking for loose buttons and dirty handkerchiefs. She empties the contents of his pockets on to a brass tray on the dressing table and puts his wallet on top. Finally she brushes down his jacket and, resisting the lure of the hotel wardrobe, hangs it up behind the door. As a result of her efficiency Jack has been driven to distraction – forever moving the letter from jacket to trousers as the situation demands. He had been keeping it in his shirt pocket until he noticed her eyeing him suspiciously at breakfast yesterday. Discretion being the better part of valour, he had retired to the toilet and moved it to his jacket pocket where he’d reckoned it was safe enough for a while. Now he takes the letter, folds it in half, pushes it in the back pocket of his trousers and does up the button. Manoeuvre completed, Jack takes off his jacket, collects Ruth’s scarf from the dressing table and locks the door behind him.

       3

       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