The Journal of Dora Damage

by Belinda Starling

  She bathed my wounds daily and rubbed my bruises, just as she saw to my smocks, aprons and floral dress. Lucinda watched her in wonder and interrogated her all the while on what she was doing.

  Pansy also treated us to home-cooked, love-cooked food. With friends in the highest parts of the market in New Cut, she was soon dishing us up breakfasts of eggs, bacon, kidneys and mushrooms, and for supper we would have kedgeree, or grilled fish with potatoes, or a nice piece of tongue. Even I had thought that poor folk didn’t know how to cook, that they were happy to make do with stale bread and cold meat, even when warm soup was not hard to come by. And it was not without misgivings that I ate her lovely food, for I wondered what the rest of her family at home had to eat, in what little time she had left over from her chores here to cook it.

  But even Pansy couldn’t reduce my load of washing to one wash-day a week, although she breathed new life into my stale linen. She cut and sewed the bed sheets sides to middle, and made sure Peter had a fresh set every other day, and Lucinda and I every week.

  She arranged for a carpenter too, to come in and build a door to replace the flimsy curtain separating the house from the workshop. He came straightways – Pansy had an impressive knack of getting people to do what she wanted – with his tools and several large planks of wood, and was sawing and banging and fixing into the evening. I expected the Noble Savages and Holywell-street would be informed of his arrival and activities, but I was only carrying out their instructions. I also ensured that the door had a strong lock on it too, and only one key, which I kept round my waist between my skirts.

  And Pansy blackleaded the grate and whitened the front steps, and as Jack arrived at work one morning he whistled in wonder that the establishment had been made to look so respectable once more. ‘If only they knew, mum, if only they knew!’

  ‘Are you calling this place a whited sepulchre?’ I said, and he winked impudently at me.

  ‘No, Mrs D, wouldn’t dream of it.’

  Din returned on Saturday morning, a week and four days after his disappearance. I should have been angry at him; an employer would have stamped his foot, interrogated him, and demanded suitable recompense for his absence. But I wanted instead to throw my arms around him, to make sure he was well and that he had not had some dreadful misfortune or accident, and to express my relief that he had not been deported by Diprose. And so, of course, caught between shoulds and wants, I did nothing more than offer him a polite welcome, present him with some Bible manuscripts for mending, and slip inside the house to fix my hair more neatly under my cap.

  ‘Oos that fella, mum?’ Pansy asked me in low tones as she wiped the dust off the banisters. ‘That coloured fella?’

  ‘That’s Din, Pansy. Din Nelson. He helps me out with sewing and stuff.’

  ‘American?’

  ‘Yes. He was a slave. He was bought by the Ladies’ Society for the Assistance of Fugitives from Slavery, and they asked me to give him a job.’

  ‘Only I know him.’

  ‘Do you? How?’

  ‘Not sure. ’Is face looks familiar, but I can’t fink where from. Never mind. It’ll come to me.’

  I had to wonder how many men of colour she was familiar with; I knew so few I would not misplace their faces. But our distant thoughts were interrupted by Peter, giggling in his armchair, and reciting to himself, ‘ There was an old man from Tobago, Who lived on rice, gruel and sago . . . ’, before collapsing into such paroxysms of mirth he was unable to finish the limerick.

  By mid-morning I felt as if my cool welcome and immediate removal from Din’s vicinity had not been terribly polite. I attempted to rectify this by going over to the sewing-frame and asking, ‘I trust you achieved your business during your absence?’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am, I did. And I trust my absence didn’t overly inconvenience y’all at the bindery.’

  ‘Bindery?’ I said. ‘What an interesting expression.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s what we call it, back home.’

  ‘Bindery,’ I mused. ‘I like it. I have always found “workshop” to be rather functional. And “atelier” is too pretentious. “Bindery.” How simple. Like a bakery, or a brewery. Yes, I shall call it that from now on. Thank you, Din.’

  ‘Pleasure, ma’am.’

  I watched as his fingers threaded the sewing-frame, and wondered again what it would feel like to touch his skin. Mere intellectual curiosity, I persuaded myself, like wondering what hay might be like to sleep on. It was something that I might idly muse over, but never actually consider doing.

  ‘Mrs D, we’re short of boards. Shall I run to Dicker’s and get some?’ Jack called.

  ‘Of course,’ I said. I rummaged in the drawer for some coins for him.

  ‘Nah, he’ll give you credit now,’ Jack said.

  ‘Really? What good news.’

  And I watched Jack take off his apron and leave, before realising that I actually needed an extra pair of hands to hold the leather down while I pasted.

  ‘Din. Would you mind stopping what you are doing for a while, and helping me with the leather?’

  ‘Sure, ma’am.’

  He came over to the bench and placed his hands on two opposite corners of the leather while I worked the paste into it. It was important that the leather did not slip, which would smear the paste onto the good side of the leather. I tried to concentrate. Din’s head was bowed, and he appeared nonchalant, but to me it was unbearable.

  I could smell him. He smelt of smoke and soil, not like dirt but the soil of the earth itself, sweet and damp, like the smell that lurks between moss and bark, or bark and tree-flesh. I was drawn by the smell of him, mixed with the sweet, dusty odour of leather and sawdust around us. I wanted to sniff him deeply, to bury my nose into his flesh and breathe him noisily in.

  Instead, I held my breath. Half of what I desired? I was doing the exact opposite of my desires. And then I knew that he was holding his breath too, and he was answering me, and smelling me too, and I felt a stirring inside me, and my secret longing urged like a vapour towards him and pressed itself into him without me, as I stood still, and rigid.

  ‘Din. Please, repeat for me the quotation from Ovid’s Amores. I have been struggling to remember it.’

  ‘ “Suffer and endure, for some day your pain will be of benefit.” ’

  ‘ “Suffer and endure . . .” ’ I repeated, quietly. ‘Is that a particular philosophy of yours?’

  I felt him smile, although I did not look up into his face, for it was too close to mine.

  ‘It is indeed, ma’am. My favourite motto. For it is about hope. You see, before, ma’am, since my people were first enslaved, there was no hope. Instead, you had to defer your hope to the kingdom o’ heaven that was meant to await you in the next life. You know the song. You’d be escorted there by bands of angels, on winged chariots. It was the only hope we had, and you had to believe it, or despair. Without hope, how can a man live? But now I don’t believe in that no more.’

  ‘Why not?’ I was growing hot from the fire in his eyes as he spoke.

  ‘Because I am startin’ to believe in something else. I am startin’ to believe that there may be hope in my lifetime. There are signs round every corner that the end of enslavement is near. I have more hope than ever before, that the kingdom o’ heaven can indeed be now, and that today can be the day o’ change, for ever. But then again,’ he conceded, ‘a boy may have strange opinions about all things Christian when he come from a country that says slavery is the will o’ God.’

  He chuckled, and kept talking, but I had stopped hearing his words and was just listening to the music of his voice, knowing as I did all the while that the leather was fully pasted, that I could keep him at my table no longer, and that I didn’t know how to tell him.

  So I listened to him talk again, until he had talked himself out, and we lapsed into silence, and I eventually said, ‘Thank you, Din,’ and released the pressure on the leather, and didn’t dare watch him as he return
ed to the sewing-frame.

  Later that day Pansy came up to me again.

  ‘I’ve remembered it now. I know where’ve seen ’im before. ’E’s a fighter, mum.’

  ‘A fighter?’

  ‘Yeah. Dahn the tanners. ’E brought Baz back one night, all cut up and bleedin’. ’E couldn’t even walk. It was ’im what brought ’im back.’

  ‘Back from where, Pansy?’

  ‘It’s a fighting-gang. They’re all at it. Dahn the tanners, at the weekend. Well, used to be the tanners’ yard, now they do it in a drill-shed somewhere. Or outside.’

  ‘Who does it? Is it a prize-fight?’

  ‘Nah, nuffin’ so legit. They just beat each uvver senseless.’

  ‘Why? Is it sport?’

  Pansy shrugged. ‘It was the tanners what started it. Now it’s anyone. Men from the barracks, costermongers, all sorts. Roughs and bruisers, all of ’em. They get well mashed up.’

  ‘Bare-knuckle?’

  ‘Mostly. Only they sometimes do a challenge with the tanning tools. Leather-ligging’s Baz’s favourite, when they do it with leather straps. Metal bands, they use, too. Or worse. They use all sorts, the tanners; they’ve got these big metal triangle pins, and all them pokes and knives. But they don’t do it all the time, or it’d be murder. Baz once had to fight this big Irish fella, who was a shedman.’

  ‘A shedman?’

  ‘The one whose job it is to pummel the leather, to soften it. And d’you know what they use to do that?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘This bloody great stave with two ’eads on. Baz couldn’t walk for a month. ’E got whipped that night.’

  ‘Whipped?’

  ‘Yeah. There’s this bloke with a long leather whip, who whips ’em if it all gets out of hand, before one of ’em gets killed good and proper. You sing small for a while if you’ve been whipped.’

  ‘Are you telling me that Din gets involved with all this too?’

  Pansy shrugged again. ‘Far as I know. ’E brought Baz back, I remember that much, the night ’e got whipped. Does ’e come in ’ere lookin’ all mashed sometimes?’

  ‘Yes, he has done. Pansy, could you find out for me?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, if there’s anything about Din I need to know. Anything that . . . doesn’t reflect too well on him.’

  ‘All right, mum. Only, it don’t reflect well on all of ’em, if you don’t like that sort of thing.’

  ‘But is it legal?’

  ‘Oh, it’s legal enough. Wouldn’t get any rozzer down there, at any rate.’

  ‘It’s just . . . I need to know more about him, something he might not tell me if I ask. Do you understand me?’

  ‘I think so,’ she said doubtfully. ‘’E’s a lucky fella, ’e is, landing this job with you.’

  ‘Maybe. But he hasn’t had much luck before that.’

  ‘It’s a sight better than anyfink I’ve ever ’ad. Wish some royal bird would have bought me and landed me a job when I was down on me luck at Lambard’s.’

  ‘Peter?’ I whispered. He was lying in bed, staring with glassy eyes at the ceiling. ‘Peter. We must get you out of bed today. Pansy wishes to change the sheets.’ I spoke slowly, hoping some of it was going in. ‘Peter. You have not been out of bed for days.’ I took a flannel from the press, dipped it in some water, and wiped his chin, his cheeks, his brow.

  He muttered something, but I could not hear him.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said, and held one of his ravaged hands. He turned and looked at me through rheumy, yellow eyes, streaked with blood. Even his tears seemed to be red.

  ‘I have not been good to you,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Oh, but you have,’ I replied merrily. ‘You have been a fine husband. It is I who has not been the best wife a man can hope for.’

  He stroked my hand, then raised his head.

  ‘Your ring. Your wedding ring. It’s gone.’

  I started at my hand, and for a moment felt like a drunk woman who wonders where she has left her baby.

  ‘Did you sell it?’ he asked sadly.

  Then I remembered it was still in pawn.

  ‘It’s . . . it’s . . . I take it off to do the work.’ I wondered if it was too late to redeem it. But then again, I still had nothing to redeem it with as I was yet to be paid.

  Peter started to cry, low and soft. ‘You are no longer my wife. You no longer sport the sign of our marriage.’ He was not accusing, or angry, just resigned.

  ‘No, Peter,’ I said quickly. ‘The work is the sign of my true commitment to you. I have saved your name.’ But I knew I had soiled it. ‘Is that not the greatest way a wife can serve her husband?’ I hated myself for these lies. I wanted to apologise to him, and ask his forgiveness, but possibly the lie was better for one in his condition. I did not know any more what was right or wrong. I simply wanted to wrap him up in a blanket and carry him to a place where there was great beauty, where he could lie down in a field, smell the corn, and watch the butterflies flutter colour through the air, and know that he was safe.

  ‘Am I dying, Dora?’ he asked.

  ‘We all are, Peter,’ I said quietly. ‘Only some will get there sooner than others.’

  He placed his other hand over mine, and closed his eyes. ‘A pearl of a wife,’ he said. ‘A pearl.’

  I leant forward and kissed his wet lips, then sat next to him with my ringless hand on his chest for a while. His body never twitched or turned, but weighed the mattress down like a rock. Silence was better than lies, at least.

  I let him sleep a while longer while I worked in the bindery. Then Pansy came in to tell me he was stirring so we went upstairs together, and helped him out of bed and into Lucinda’s room, where he lay down on her cot and moaned for some more Drop.

  ‘I’ll bring it for you when I’ve helped Pansy make the bed.’

  ‘Now,’ he groaned. ‘Now!’

  So I descended for the bottle, and when I brought it up he grabbed it from me and swigged. I had never insisted on the measuring-spoon; it would have been impossible to start now.

  I joined Pansy in the bedroom where she was stripping the bed. ‘Anything to tell about Din?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘Nuffink. Not a jot. Baz told me nuffink. They’re all as bad as each other, seems. If you’re wantin’ to shop ’im to the coppers . . .’

  ‘That’s not my intention, Pansy. I just need to know a bit about the side we don’t see at work. You know what it’s like.’

  She looked doubtful again, and slightly suspicious. I decided I would have to take a different approach. But I was sure there was something about these fighting nights that would serve my purpose. It was getting urgent, too.

  My troubling was interrupted by a noise from Lucinda’s bedroom. I rushed in to find Peter lying flat on his back, clutching at her bedclothes with claws of terror, and staring at the ceiling.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  Beads of sweat clung to his face. The bottle was on the floor. I picked it up quickly, fearing it had spilt, but it was empty and there was no mess.

  ‘Peter. Have you drunk the lot? Peter?’

  I tried to remember how full it had been. His eyes were closing. I let him sleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Friday’s a day that will have its trick,

  The fairest or foulest day of the week.

  The volume of work was abating as we got closer to Christmas. Soon we had precious few books to get up into leather, except, of course, for the photographic catalogues, which remained in a stack by the wall, a tower of Babylon taunting me in tongues I could not and did not wish to understand. I had achieved no victory over Diprose – they still had not paid me – and I wondered how desperate I would have to become before I would give in to the work they proffered. I had thought that working like this would save us, that I was being the best wife I could be, but in truth, I wondered if I were any better than a prostitute. I felt like the ghost of Holy-well-street, trap
ped in endless gas-lit labyrinths of vice and filth, and unable to find a way out into daylight.

  It was when Mr Skinner arrived again, and with only the curtest of greetings and a ‘thankin’ ya werry much’ pocketed our remaining proceeds, leaving us with nothing to buy food even, let alone stretch to a little extra Christmas spending, that I started to worry. I took a meagre bag of gold-dust to Edwin Nightingale, who offset it against my outstanding debts with him, but would not give me cash. I became angrier in the workshop; I snapped at Din, and at Jack, and I shouted at Pansy.

  ‘You know your hours,’ I reprimanded Din one day. ‘They are less than Jack’s, and still you cannot keep them.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Why do you leave me every Friday?’

  ‘I have other business.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I cannot tell you.’

  Oh but you can, I thought. And I know anyway. Other business, indeed. I tried to find another way to pry.

  ‘Din, sometimes, you come in here . . .’ How was I to say this tactfully? ‘You look . . . You look . . . as if you have been hurt. You come in here all black and . . .’ Oh my, what a turn of phrase.

  ‘. . . blue, ma’am? Yes, we folks do bruise, but it’s harder to see.’ He continued working. A curse on my haste.

  ‘So where do you go then, of a Friday, Din? What is your other business?’ But I was not getting anywhere, so I added, ‘Or are you ashamed of it?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Are you happy here, at the bindery?’

  ‘Happy, ma’am?’

  I could not stop myself. ‘Are we not enough for you, that you have to take on “other business”?’ He stayed silent. ‘Aha! Then it is us you are ashamed of! Are we too shameful for you, Din?’