Starts moaning at the hair in the pallet (8)
I believe the answer is:
mattress
'pallet' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'starts moaning at the hair in' is the wordplay.
'starts' suggests taking the first letters.
'the' becomes 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects).
'hair' becomes 'tress' (tress is a kind of hair).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
The initial letters of 'moaning at' is 'ma'.
't' going inside 'tress' is 'ttress'.
'ma'+'ttress'='MATTRESS'
'the' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for mattress that I've seen before include "Padded bag on which to sleep" , "Palliasse" , "Large thick pad on the bed" , "It could be slept on" , "Stuffed bag on which to sleep" .)