Sallie Day - The Palace of Strange Girls

‘Hiya!’ Connie shouts in answer to Helen’s polite knock. ‘Come in. Won’t be a sec.’

Helen steps over the threshold and looks around. Connie appears caught in the eye of a storm of personal possessions. Along with the piles of indiscriminate refuse there are copies of Boyfriend magazine (a weekly that Helen would kill to read) and various piles of clothes. Helen is faced with a chaotic mêlée of items from hairclips to powder puffs and discarded food and drink. Various articles of clothing are scattered across the cracked brown lino. A greying bra with circular stitching round the cone-shaped cups is hanging off the back of a chair piled high with discarded skirts and tops. The ledge above the washbasin is crammed with cosmetics, perfume and an overturned can of talc, and the towel rail below is home to several odd stockings, a pair of knickers and a single hand towel. Under the sink Helen spots a curled pink corset with suspenders attached.

‘You’ve got one of those new corsets. It’s a roll-on, like in the adverts. Is it comfy?’

‘Yeah. It’s great. A lot better than the old-fashioned girdles. Those things dig in all over the place. It’s a Playtex elastic. Dead easy. Just roll it on and roll it off.’

‘I wish I had one. Mum won’t get me one; she says I’ve no figure to keep in so I just have a cotton suspender belt. The waist has gone and it’s always slipping down. You’re so lucky, you’ve got so much stuff. I mean I can’t believe you have so many clothes!’

‘Oh, well, you’re welcome to borrow anything. If you fancy any of my skirts or anything. Hey! I’ll bet we’re the same shoe size. Why don’t you try on my new stilettos?’ Connie flaps her free hand in the direction of the bed. ‘They’re under there, I think.’

Helen struggles to ignore the sound of her mother’s voice in her ear: ‘Never try on shoes that someone else has had on. You’ll end up with verrucas… or worse, some kind of transmitted disease.’ But the prospect of seeing herself in a pair of white stilettos is too exciting to refuse. Helen bends and pulls out a Freeman Hardy & Willis box from under the bed. It is disappointingly empty save for a couple of sanitary towels, an emery board and tenpence ha’penny in copper. Helen resumes the search. At last she spots one shoe in the bottom of the gaping wardrobe and the other under the washbasin. Helen slips on the shoes and struggles to her feet. The heels are vertiginous – so much so that she is afraid to walk and as a result is reduced to standing still and swaying slightly.

‘They look great,’ Connie assures her. ‘I’m wearing them myself this afternoon otherwise you could borrow them.’

‘It’s OK,’ Helen replies. ‘I don’t think I’d be able to walk in them anyway.’

‘You have to practise, but you get the knack after a bit.’

Helen opens her handbag and pulls out a piece of newspaper. ‘Here, look what I found in the paper.’ Helen passes Connie a clipping that reads:

PLANS ASSISTANT

The Land Registry has a vacancy for a Junior Plans Assistant.

Applicants must be aged between 16 and 18 and have

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