The Journal of Dora Damage (34 page)
We heard the front door open and shut, and two sets of footsteps coming into the house. Pansy had brought a woman with her.
She was not a coarse-mouthed fishwife, nor a longsuffering kitchen-servant type, nor doughy and nurturing like a baker woman.
She did not have voluminous breasts. She looked composed and efficient, like a nurse, and had a slightly furrowed brow and
expression of concern, like one of those ladies who visit the missions, the really squalid ones in the east, not just the
ones near Chelsea.
‘It’s late, you know,’ was the first thing she said.
‘I do apologise,’ I said.
‘I’m halfway through the nippers, and I must be back within the half-hour if I’m to get any rest tonight.’
‘Thank you for coming out, Mrs . . .’
‘Masters. Bess Masters,’ she said, looking between Lady Knightley and me as if wondering who it was who needed her assistance.
I started to explain the situation, and gestured towards Lady Knightley, and the little baby in my arms. Mrs Masters had a
permanent expression of doubt on her face, which I hoped would lift the more I talked, but it didn’t.
‘I’m awful busy. Got so many babies this time of year, got to get back to them soon too. Not sure I can take another one on.’
‘It’s only for tonight.’
‘Actually, Dora, we cannot be so sure.’ Lady Knightley’s voice had returned to its usual authority, poised halfway between
tedium and wrath. I looked at her in surprise. ‘I’m here until he comes for me,’ she said simply, as if that explained everything.
‘And you will, of course, pay Mrs Masters well,’ I said, but she dropped her gaze into her hands.
‘I have no money with me. Jocelyn can pay you, but it will be in time. It will be handsome, but in time.’
‘Nope. Just too busy,’ Mrs Masters said.
‘Please.’ Lady Knightley’s voice was weak.
‘She will have money soon,’ I said, but Lady Knightley’s eyes were still lowered. ‘Won’t you, Lady Knightley? Won’t you?’
I was willing it now, more than ever, for in that moment I realised that it was possible that Jocelyn might never have her
back, no matter how innocent she was. ‘I can pay you,’ I said finally to Mrs Masters.
‘D’ya not hear me? Too many mouths.’
‘So what can we do?’ I asked.
‘How old’s the baby?’
‘Seven days.’
‘And you gave it any of your own milk?’ she said to Lady Knightley.
Lady Knightley shook her head.
‘You bound?’
She nodded.
‘It might not be impossible to get you going.’ I don’t think any of us understood straight away, even when Mrs Masters went
on to say, ‘Let me have a look at you.’ And with that, she stood up, and gestured to Lady Knightley to do the same.
‘I do not understand,’ Lady Knightley said.
‘I need you to cast your skin, luvvie. To see if there’s any hope in those breasts of yours.’
‘I will not do it! What an extraordinary suggestion!’
‘Well, you’ve got to do it. Or the little bugger’ll starve to death.’
Bess Masters, Pansy, Lucinda and I all stared at Lady Knightley, and she looked back at us in dismay and affront. We all knew
her decision would clarify everything.
So when she stood up and beckoned to Pansy to undo all those buttons and ribbons and stays which Buncie had fastened only
this morning, I knew that she had lied when she had said Jocelyn would find her soon, and she had been right when she had
said she had nowhere else to go. My confusion and suspicions about her disappeared in an instant; we were well and truly lumbered
with her.
She was as good as gold about it when we peeled the binding off her, though she screamed when Mrs Masters rolled her nipples
in her fingers and pinched them together. If it had been six months ago I wouldn’t have looked; I would have stared at the
floor, or into the ceiling, along with her. But I had seen so many pairs of breasts now that I didn’t feel the lack of decorum,
or the burning curiosity, that would have forced my eyes away from them. I could see it was hard for her, and I was quick
with her clothes once the ordeal was over. She was shivering, and had goose pimples all over her ivory skin, and was chastened
with the indignity of it.
‘Perfect. Got lovely milk in there. Pity about the binding, but do as I say and you’ll have fountains of milk. Rub them every
hour. Rub them, pinch them, brush them with a soft-bristled brush, ten minutes each side. Give them to the baby to suck, and
let him suck and suck even if he’s a hungry bugger, and if he screams cos he ain’t getting nothing, then pull him off, and
feed him milk with a teaspoon, only a bit mind, then put him back on, then feed him a bit more by hand, and then on again.’
Lady Knightley nodded, but I knew she needed me to be following it too. ‘I’ve got some herbs here,’ Mrs Masters continued,
pulling out a bag of dried leaves. She spread them on the lid of the range. ‘There’s fennel, blessed thistle, borage. And
here, here’s fenugreek.’ I fingered the pyramid-shaped seeds; they smelt of syrup.
‘Ugh. Jocelyn brought some back from India. He loves the stuff.’
‘I got mine from an Indian family up the road an’ all. And beer. Drink lots of lovely beer. It’s the hops what does it. But
whatever you do, don’t eat anything cooked with sage. And avoid onions for a week or two. Give it ten days, you should be
on your own.’ Then she turned to me and added, ‘Let her cry as much as she needs to. Tears help the milk flow. She’s gonna
be cryin’ buckets, an’ all.’
The crying started right then, only it was Nathaniel. I handed him to Mrs Masters, and she said, ‘Let’s give it a go right
now.’ She put her finger inside his mouth to get him sucking, then she brought him over to Lady Knightley’s dress and tugged
it down. She got Lady Knightley to hold the baby while her finger was still in his mouth, then, using her other hand, pinched
and tugged her nipple until it stood out like a cigar butt, grabbed it between the knuckles of the hand that was in the baby’s
mouth, whipped out her index finger, and shoved the nipple in. Nathaniel’s eyes opened wide in shock, and he pulled back a
bit, so she guided his head back to the nipple and he gave it a lick, then clamped his mouth firmly on and started sucking.
‘When did he last feed?’
‘About two hours ago. Bread and milk.’
‘Good. He’s in the right state then. Look at him, he’s doing well already.’
‘It hurts,’ protested Lady Knightley.
‘It’s gonna,’ said Mrs Masters. ‘But not half so much as a hungry baby who’s sick with the wrong kind of milk. Cry all you
like; crying helps the milk to come.’
Lacrimosa
, I thought. Tears. And milk.
‘I’d better be going soon. Me milk’s comin’ in again and I’ve got four mouths waiting for me. But I’ll give you something
before I go to get you through the night. Pansy, be a love and get me some hot water and a glass.’ Then, when she had them,
she warmed the glass in the water, quickly undid the buttons of her blouse, pressed the rim of the glass over her nipple,
and the milk poured into it as if she had turned on a tap. The glass went cloudy with milk and steam, and when it was almost
full, and the flow had slowed, she pulled it away, and fastened up the buttons of her shirt with one hand, using the cloth
of the shirt itself to mop up the drops. ‘Look at that,’ she said with pride, and I thought she was going to drink it, she
was salivating so. ‘Ain’t no better substance on earth. She can use goat after this if she likes, shouldn’t need it for more
than a week. Make sure she uses it up by midnight, or it’ll go bad. That, and the herbs, makes a nice round two and sixpence,
don’t you think?’
No sooner had I given her the money than she was gone, back to her waiting hungry mouths. I could almost hear the crying that
would greet her as she turned into her street.
It was getting late, and I still had things to tidy up. I pressed some small coins into Pansy’s hand, even though she wouldn’t
get paid properly until the end of January, and sent her on her way, and then I went back into the kitchen to relieve Lady
Knightley of her now screaming child.
Nathaniel seemed bitterly disappointed with his mother’s provisions, and there were tiny spots of blood around the top of
her dress. I took him into the parlour and jiggled him up and down for a bit, before laying him out on a blanket in front
of the fire, which quietened him somewhat, and he gazed at the flickering shadows it cast, while Lucinda sat by his side and
stroked him. Then I went back into the kitchen, where Lady Knightley was still sitting in a droop where I had left her.
‘Come with me, upstairs, now.’ She followed me and my single candle meekly, and I took her into the bedroom, which Pansy had
aired. ‘You will sleep here. I will clear all this –’ I dismissed the impedimenta of the sick-room with my other hand, ‘–
tomorrow.’
Lady Knightley was looking strangely around the room. ‘What curious taste you have!’ she said quietly. ‘And my, you have so
few wardrobes! Oh look, how clever!’ She pulled back the drape I had pinned across the alcove between the wall and the chimney
breast, to reveal the pegs and hooks and their meagre hangings in darkness behind. In her surprise she seemed quite to forget
her misfortune. ‘How ingenious! But where do you fit your dresses?’ Had she not noticed that my dresses did not trail with
the yards of fabric of her own? I did not mention the brown silk one in the ottoman at the foot of the bed. ‘And look! No
hangings on the bed! But what do you do about draughts? Why, this house is considerably draughtier than Berkeley-square, but
still you have no curtains!’
I went over to the chest of drawers and opened the bottom one. It still contained a few of Peter’s shirts; I lifted them out
and placed them in the drawer above, then pulled the bottom drawer out completely, and placed it on top of the chest. ‘And
Nathaniel will sleep here.’
She looked down at the drawer, without comprehending at first. Then, as my proposal dawned on her, she protested, ‘But what
about soot? What about dust? Have you no cot, with draperies? And a cover you can wash? Why, this is disgusting.’ Her eyes
started to fill with tears, and she looked as if she was going to fall over. ‘I had such a beautiful berceaunette for Nathaniel!
It had yellow flowers, and cream lace. And my perambulator! It came from France!’
But this is Lambeth, love, I wanted to say to her, where we carry our babies, and put them in a drawer to sleep, but if they’re
lucky they get a bit more love than in some other places. Not always, but sometimes.
I watched her for a while as she dried her tears on the lace edges of her sleeves, then I helped her out of her dress and
into one of my nightgowns.
‘You must do something about this,’ she said, as she took her petticoats off, and pulled a bloody towel from between her legs.
‘Take it, please, and get me another one.’
I folded the towel in on itself, and put it in the chamber-pot to take downstairs. Then I pulled a flannel from the press,
folded it, and handed it back to her ladyship. When she was ready, I wrapped her in a blanket, and took her out on to the
landing.
‘And where is the bathroom?’
I must have looked at her blankly, for she repeated the question.
‘There’s a tap in the coal cellar,’ I said eventually, ‘and a hip-bath under the bed. If you want hot water for it, ask Pansy,
but please, not on a Monday, which is wash-day.’
We went downstairs again, and I brought Lady Knightley and Lucinda a bowl of soup and some griddle-cakes, and we sat and ate
in silence, watching the flames flicker, and listening to the sweet babble of Lucinda to Nathaniel. But soon the baby was
crying again, and I picked him up and leant him against my shoulder to rub his back. Lucinda came over and caressed his meagre
hair.
‘Maybe it’s time to feed him some more,’ I said gently.
‘I can’t bear to do it, Dora,’ Lady Knightley snapped, ‘whatever that awful woman said. Go be a love, get me a teat and a
bottle from the pharmacist, and we’ll make do with that.’ I simply sat and stared at her; her child raged against my shoulder
and tried to suckle first the skin on my neck, and then its own fists. It was all too much to take in. ‘Get me one, now, or
I shall strike you!’
I rose to standing and felt the words come out as a shout, despite myself. ‘Strike me all you like, you’re using your own
tit to feed that child!’
I handed Nathaniel to her, went to the kitchen, took the glass of breast milk off the windowsill, and found a clean tea-spoon.
I wondered at myself and what had brought me to shouting at someone of her station, but my anger was still hot. And when I
returned, her head was bowed and tears were dripping off the end of her nose, but her chemise was slipped down, and for a
while, Nathaniel was sucking her breast with relative satisfaction and quiet. I waited until he started to cry again, and
then I pulled up a chair and spooned the the milk into his mouth as his mother held him, then I made her some tea with the
fenugreek, which she took obediently despite its awful taste, and we both knew the balance of power had shifted in my favour,
and would stay there as long as she was under my roof.
Blackamoor, Taunymoor,
Suck a bubby,
Your Father’s
A Cuckold,
Your Mother Told Me.
T
he visit from Diprose or Pizzy never came. I wondered if they had been informed but did not care, or whether for a moment
we had slipped the scrutiny of the Eeles spies. It did not much matter, either way.
Sylvia (for that is what I was now to call her) spent her first week at Ivy-street living entirely in the past or the future.
The present situation and the immediate needs of her child, beyond suckling him, were lost on her. Her milk had started to
flow well, and she seemed to gain some small satisfaction from the nursing, but her heavy sighs would startle the baby from
his milk-filled dozes. She floated and cried, prayed and yearned, around the house; even the simplest chores seemed to perturb
her. She made not a single mention of my Peter, or gave a moment’s recognition that I might wish for peace and solace in my
time of mourning. She was not interested in what I did all day in the workshop, or even in meeting Din again – in fact, she
did not even seem to remember he was now working for me – such was her self-obsession.
She fretted over Nathaniel’s linen binder, and insisted on dressing him so: his clothes took up the contents of one of her
travelling cases alone. He had a flannel cap to prevent eye inflammations, a selection of cambric gowns and lawn smocks, embroidered
or trimmed with muslin and satin ribbons, and woollen shoes. Then there were his Russian napkins and flannel pilches, which
had to be laundered separately for reasons of hygiene, and Sylvia’s bloody bandages too, while her wounds of childbirth healed,
which meant Pansy was at the laundry all day, it seemed. And Sylvia insisted that Pansy starch Nathaniel’s clothes as well,
and not just with cold potato starch; she made her heat it up in a pan with borax and candle-wax until it jellified, and dip
the clothes in, and then iron them only once dry, which taxed the poor girl a whole extra load as well. I told Pansy she could
take all the washing out to Agatha Marrow again, which she did, but when it came back she didn’t do what I did, and put it
all straightways in the press and drawers. Instead, she unloaded it in the kitchen and aired the sheets and clothes in front
of the fire, and checked them all over for lice and their eggs. Eventually, I decided, given that money was so good, that
we could hire a laundress who would come straight to the house itself, even thought she cost nigh on two shillings. a day,
on top of the cost of boiling water, and all the extra soap.
But one could not help but pity Sylvia. It cannot have been easy to go from the upper ten thousand to the lower middle class
with such rapidity. She had been bred to be nothing more than a beautiful appendage to an aristocratic arm, helpless but ornamental,
and it was not her fault she had not received instruction in resourcefulness in circumstances such as these.
She required my presence each evening to hear her latest lamentations, which quickly moved from sobbing to anger. She would
reminisce about her childhood and her courtship with Jocelyn; she would bemoan her recent pain, and strategise how to win
him back; everything, in fact, but explain the reason for her eviction, much as I was curious to discover it, and despite
my best efforts to draw it out of her by stealth, the direct approach having been firmly rebuffed the first night she had
arrived.
‘Is he not beautiful?’ she started one evening. ‘Is Nathaniel not exquisite?’ And this single sad thought so quickly precipitated
outright indignation. ‘How dare he! The monster! Spends his months with naked African women, all saggy dugs and bloody thighs,
and yet he would not even attend me in childbirth while I was wearing a chemise, a full petticoat and a bed jacket! Would
the man have preferred me to have worn stays as well? He administered the chloroform, then went off to his club for a game
of backgammon and a venison roast.’ And thence she would meander into her thoughts, which took her any which way. ‘Charles
Darwin gave chloroform to his wife, and stayed.
And
Charles Dickens! Queen Victoria took it when she had Leopold and Beatrice. Where was Albert?’
‘At least you got chloroform,’ I muttered.
‘There are, I suppose, some advantages to being married to a man of medicine. I could have had my pick of my brothers’ friends,
but they bored me. Decaying men with their crumbling manors, or stiff rods in the Army, or worse, in business. I chose none
of them. Jocelyn told me I had too much sunshine in me for the grey lives they offered. He might not have had the breeding
my father required, but I loved him.’
‘Breeding?’
‘I’m the daughter of an Earl, Dora. Papa told me I had to think of my future, but I had never wanted for anything. I would
bring money to our marriage, so why should it trouble me that Jocelyn never quite reached the five thousand a year Papa demanded?
Jocelyn had invented some half-credible scheme, some crazy prospective venture, which half-quelled Papa’s doubts. But of course
it came to nothing. I thought my father secretly liked his wayward son-in-law. His interest in science might have marked him
as more upper-middle than upper ten, but Papa loved his sense of adventure, and when he received his title for his exploits
in India, Papa couldn’t have been more proud. Besides he couldn’t fault Jossie’s love of the foreign climes. They even went
tiger-shooting together in Burma. Jocelyn killed two; Papa didn’t kill any, but Jossie gave him one of his, and on the boat
back, Papa finally accepted Joss’s request for my hand in marriage. They used to joke that I was traded for a tiger-skin;
Jossie always said I was cheap at the price.’
I listened, and oh, but it was tedious! The only thing that kept me in check was Lucinda’s delight at little Nathaniel, and
at Sylvia too, with her wan beauty, her suffering and sighs. Lucinda helped out in every way she could – she brought Sylvia
drinks while she was nursing, she held the baby while Sylvia bathed, she helped Sylvia bathe the baby – and was responsible
for the first smile to cross Sylvia’s face since being thrown out of her own home. I would sit and listen to the woman, but
my attention was always on the enchanting games being played on the blanket at our feet, of a happy little girl with a living
doll for a playmate.
‘So, you have a lodger,’ Din murmured one morning as he fastened some cord to the sewing-key.
‘You have seen Lady Sylvia?’ I queried.
‘Hmm-mmm,’ he affirmed. I watched, quizzically, as he laid out the shears, and checked the sharpness of the bodkin. Then,
almost as if he weren’t talking, and I weren’t listening, he added quietly, ‘But she ain’t that much of a lady.’
‘Din!’ I scolded, as both warning and encouragement. ‘You wish to tell me something?’
‘Hmm. Maybe,’ he breezed.
I sat down on the chair next to him, and started to rub the bodkin against the strop. We would catch each other’s eyes, then
look away, and giggle, until finally he spoke.
‘I told you they made me pose with spears, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘An’ do the Zoo-loo warrior thing, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that lady likes spears.’
‘She likes spears?’ Oh my, but I had visions of the Lustful Turk’s fleshful weaponry, and I was not sure I wanted Din to continue.
‘Your meaning?’
‘She had this idea, see, of bein’ the white lady captured by savages. She would swoon, and lie down, and pull at her dress,
like this, see –’ and he tugged at the neck of his own shirt, so that I could see more of his chest, and I found myself looking
away, and then back again, ‘– an’ say to me, “No, no, no, you must not kill me!” ’
‘Why, what were you doing to her?’
‘Nothin’! That was what was wrong. She would get so cross with me, an’ order me, “You stand there, above me, an’ hold that
spear so, and point it at me, an’ make like you’re killin’ me!” An’ I didn’t want to do it. Felt like such a fool. But I did
it. “Oh, no, no, no, the Negro is killin’ me! Help! Help!” ’
‘Oh, Din! You’re playing with me!’ He shook his head. ‘Really? What a marvellous story! Sylvia – really – she?’
‘Really, she, yes!’ Din was nodding.
‘The indignity!’ I gasped. ‘It’s outrageous! It’s – it’s thrilling, and scandalous!’
‘Ain’ it just!’
The extraordinary memory lingered around us, as Din took the bodkin from me, and tested the point. And there it was again,
catching me by surprise: the urge to touch him, and be touched by him. Was this what Sylvia had felt? Did I lack dignity because
of it? It certainly was all the more shameful, given that I was meant to be in mourning. But all the more intense, because
I was growing to like this man a lot.
‘I could always revisit it with her today, only with a real weapon,’ he said slyly, brandishing the bodkin and gesturing at
the door.
‘I fear her appetite is less for frivolity these days,’ I chastened.
Din nodded more solemnly. ‘There’s a baby in there, right?’
‘Yes. I don’t quite know what to make of it, whether she’s a silly woman, or a victim of circumstance.’
‘Or both.’
‘Possibly you are correct, Din. Isn’t it peculiar, that those so recently envied can so quickly elicit pity?’ But I was unlike
Sylvia, in that his companionship meant as much to me as my desire for him, and each intensified the other.
‘And ridicule,’ Din added, with poignant resignation.
‘And ridicule, Din,’ I agreed.
We were interrupted by a knocking from the interior door.
‘Dora!’ Sylvia was calling.
‘Oh my!’ I whispered to Din. ‘Are you ready to meet her again?’
‘As I’ll ever be,’ he said, casually.
I called through the door, ‘What is it, Sylvia?’ as I began to unlock it.
‘Could you tell me the date, please?’
I swung the door open, and said, ‘It’s the ninth of February. Why?’
‘The Prysemans will be back from Scotland soon.’ I waited for her to notice Din, and wondered what her reaction would be.
But she continued, dreamily, ‘What bad timing my confinement was! Just when people are returning from the hunting season!
I must be back in full health by the time the season starts.’ She was looking directly at Din now, but her blank face registered
no recognition. Then she turned on her heel and disappeared back into the house.
‘She has no need to fret,’ I said saltily to Din as I locked the door. ‘Surely all she does at the season is make small talk
with people she doesn’t actually really like. I can take her to the market tomorrow for her to practise.’
‘You are a wicked lady,’ Din said.
‘And you a wicked man, for those stories you tell about her. But she did not recognise you, Din.’ He simply shrugged. ‘Possibly
we need to jog her memory. But, to my great regret, I have no animal skins and spears to hand.’
‘And, darn, because I left mine behind in Virginia,’ Din added.
‘How thoughtless of you, Din.’
He continued with his work, but I was not ready to go back to mine. I wanted this moment to last longer. So I found a question
I could ask him. ‘Tell me, Din, why are you really called Din? Is it a real name? Or were you telling the truth when you said
it was that acronym, what was it?’
‘Dudish Intelligent Nigger. Of course. Or Dun-coloured Idiot Nigger. Or Dangerous Irate Nigger.’
‘No, seriously, Din.’
‘Yes, seriously. They would put it in on my papers. DIN. Dangerous Intelligent Nigger.’
‘Really?’
He laughed. ‘Or I can tell you that it’s a word from the Mandingo, my people in West Africa.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘It don’ mean nothin’. But each time I slipped away, I heard a man holler, “Where dat man-Din-go?” ’
I had to laugh too. ‘You are good at slipping away.’
‘And besides, Dora tell me, what is a din?’
‘A noise.’
‘A noise. See, I been given too many names. The one of my birth. Master Lucas changed it twice. The ones given to you by the
other whiteys. Other niggers have had their names changed forty, fifty times. And along the way, they get names like Shame,
or Odious. I heard a Master call out across the fields, “Shit, get Dung for me.” And they’ll keep that name for five years.
Din stands for the noise in your head of all your names arguin’ at once. I’m going to call any child of mine somethin’ wrong,
somethin’ unexpected, like after flowers, or something. If it’s a boy, he’ll be tall, so I’m gonna call him Delphinium. An’
if it’s a cute little girl, I’ll call her Daisy.’
‘And what if she’s a tall girl?
‘I’ll call her Dora.’
We burst out laughing at the same time, and I felt the unexpected sensation of my eyes watering, but with mirth, not misery,
and I bit my lip and scolded myself for this unseemliness. I love you Din, the words teased around my heart. No I don’t, my
head chastised. I merely appreciated this new and unexpected friendship, which threw the relationship I had with the empty
woman in the house into stark relief.
‘We all thought Jocelyn had gone mad,’ Sylvia exclaimed at supper-time, ‘when he came back from the Continent, and wanted
his meals served at all sorts of strange times, in the foreign fashion, but Dora, the hours you keep are something else entirely!
You have your dinner at noon, and only a frugal repast at nightfall.’ I got up at this point, and went into the bindery. Her
words chased me there, her voice raised now. ‘And as if that were not quaint enough, you still serve your food
à la russe
; don’t you know the rest of the world is now dining
à la française
?’
But my head was full of Din, and I stopped hearing her.
Later, however, she knocked on the door, and called through the wood, ‘Dora, dear. May I disturb you?’ When I did not answer,
she added, ‘I was wondering if you might like a cup of tea with me, or something stronger.’
‘Stronger?’ I quizzed. Such an overture was not wholly unpleasant to me. I unlocked the door.
She was standing in the door-way, and shrugged, a small smile on her face. ‘I don’t know. What have you got?’ She was almost
skittish.
