The Palace of Strange Girls. Sallie Day

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

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