The Palace of Strange Girls Read Free

flicking, tugging and hauling
     the pea-green damask curtains to either end of a buckled and sagging wire. Halfway through this daily ordeal Ruth is distracted
     by the sight of the hotel yard, four floors below. It is lined with overflowing bins and a miscellaneous collection of mops,
     buckets and rusty chairs occupied by members of the hotel staff during their tea breaks. There, in full view, stands a line
     of sullen gray dustbins on an island of cracked concrete; the whole amply irrigated by the backwash of overflowing kitchen
     drains. Ruth’s whitewashed backyard boasts two bins, double the capacity of her terraced neighbors’. One (supplied by the
     local council) for ashes, and the other (privately purchased) for household waste. Ruth always wraps potato peelings and the
     like before disposal. Only by wrapping everything in fresh newspaper can Ruth ensure that the inside of her bin remains as
     clean as the day she bought it.
    The sight of the hotel bins is aggravated further by the appearance of two overturned buckets that roll back and forth as
     the wind shifts. Surely the hotel owns more by way of cleaning equipment than that? Ruth has a whole selection of buckets
     in her backyard. One for gathering up the hot ashes from the kitchen fire, one for scrubbing floors, another for washing windows
     and, finally, a monstrous aluminum bucket, twice the size of its iron counterparts, for “best.” In line with its elevated
     status this bucket stands in glorious isolation in the scullery, immaculately clean and gleaming with potential, waiting for
     the next load of cottons that need starching.
    Ruth’s ruminations on household equipment are interrupted by a cry of protest from her older daughter: “Isn’t it time I changed
     my skirt, Mum?”
    Ruth turns her gaze from the window. “I don’t know what you’re fussing about. That skirt will do another day. You’ve got clean
     underwear. You wouldn’t have that if I hadn’t spent half an hour in the laundry room last night.”
    This is not quite the irksome job it might appear. The hotel laundry room houses a brand-new Bendix Twin Tub. Under the pretext
     of hand-washing the family’s underwear, Ruth has admired the top-loader lids and neat hoses on the twin tub, seen the spinner
     in action. As the adverts say: “This is the future of household laundry.” Ruth has a Hotpoint Empress at home. With its built-in
     “automatic” wringer and Bakelite agitator it used to be the last word in laundry. But the advent of the Bendix Twin Tub has
     changed all that. Who would want the backache of hauling double sheets through the wringer if they could drop them in a spinner
     and pull them out forty minutes later drip free? This is the modern world of postwar Britain. A world made familiar to Ruth
     through magazines. A world she is determined to enter.
    Ruth turns her attention to her younger daughter. “Have you washed your face, Elizabeth? Elizabeth!”
    Beth has her head firmly in the I-Spy codebook. She is practicing stroking her cheek in the manner prescribed at the beginning
     of chapter 3 “Greeting other Redskins.” Beth has been rehearsing this move for the past four days but no one has yet responded.
    “Elizabeth!” Ruth says, taking her daughter firmly by the arm. “Are you listening? Have you washed your face?”
    “Yes.” It is a small lie. So small that it barely deserves the name. But it affords a morsel of revenge, a minor victory in
     the guerrilla war Beth has been waging since Easter, a war that Ruth is only dimly aware is being fought.
    “Looks more like a lick and a promise to me,” Ruth says, scanning her daughter’s face. “You could do with using a bit of soap
     next time.”
    “Can I have a summer dress today? Please. I hate wearing shorts. I look like a boy in them.”
    Ruth holds up the brown shorts. The weave is a right-hand twill, perfect for rough wear because it will resist snags and tears.
     And it won’t wear out.