The Journal of Dora Damage (16 page)

‘Would you help me, Lucinda?’ He opened his large black bag. ‘Do you see all these phials? They contain pills and powders.
There are so many of them! But we are looking for the most special phial of all. It has a brown cap, with a piece of string
tied around it. Can you see it?’

‘Here! Here it is! Shall I take it out?’ she said gleefully.

‘If you would be so kind. Good girl. Now this –’ he took off the lid and shook most of the contents out onto a large piece
of paper ‘– is something that is almost magical. Do you like magic?’

She nodded, as he tipped the rest into his palm.

‘And can you count to twenty?’

‘Yes I can. One – two –’

‘Excellent. You must count out twenty grains – like this – and you may mix them in some water first, or eat them off your
palm.’

‘What will they do to me?’

‘Nothing. Not a thing. For that is their magic, Lucinda: they will simply act as a preventative. You will not feel quite as
strange as you used to; you will be safer and less tired. But you will not know that, unless you remember how you used to
be.’ He folded up the paper and gave it to Lucinda. ‘Give this to your mother to keep safe for you.’

‘Thank you, Lou,’ I said as she handed it to me. ‘What is it?’ I asked Sir Jocelyn. But something most strange was happening
to him. For all his athleticism, he was struggling to pull himself up to standing from where he had been kneeling on the floor.
He held on to the side of the bench, and he grimaced, just as Peter did whenever he made the slightest movement. He reached
for his side, and pressed it in as he hauled himself up.

‘I was attacked in the Kalahari,’ he puffed, by way of explanation. ‘Got a spear in the ribs, and some residual damage to
the intercostals.’ He was tugging at something on his person: at first I thought that he was trying to get his watch out of
his pocket, but then his waistcoat rose up with the movement of his arms, and he was pulling at his crisp white shirt underneath,
which came clean out of the waistband of his trousers, and I realised to my utter horror that I could see his woollen undershirt,
and that he was unfastening the buttons about his middle.

‘Sir Jocelyn,’ I started. ‘No . . . !’ I clutched Lucinda to me with the hand holding the paper of grains, and buried her
head in my skirts so she should not be victim to the horrid sight. Jack moved closer to us, but clearly did not know what
to do either.

But the man continued, as if this were the most normal practice in medical, scientific, epileptic, what-have-you circles,
and soon he had peeled apart his undershirt, and I caught a degrading glimpse of his navel, all curly hairs and bronzed skin.
I covered my face with the hand that was not holding Lucinda, and whimpered.

‘Mrs Damage, do I alarm you? Come now, permit yourself a moment’s viewing.’

‘But my modesty, Sir Jocelyn!’

‘Your modesty, my good woman? Your modesty will not be compromised by a look! Come, Mrs Damage. Come,
Dora
, if I may. Dora, you may look, and still be virtuous. You, why, you have a scrutinising gaze that belies your inner wisdom.
Look, I entreat you, so you may better understand me.’

I did not remove my hand from my face, but separated my fingers somewhat, and turned my head back towards him. I lowered my
gaze, all the while partially obscured by the Vs of my fingers, but kept Lucinda’s face pressed into my legs. And where his
fingers were pulling apart the fabric of his undergarment, I saw a fuzzy blue shape, like the spokes of a wheel radiating
around his navel.

‘What – what is it?’ I asked, despite myself.

‘The sun. A tattoo of the sun.’ He was already buttoning himself up again, tucking his shirt back into his trousers, pulling
his waistcoat neatly down over his waist again. ‘A minor deity, I must have seemed to them, I’ll warrant, or how else was
I to have survived their vicious assaults? The Sun-God, I fancied. I had myself marked accordingly by a sailor on the return
boat.’

I released Lucinda, but could not remove the image of the blue sun staining the skin around the dark hole of his umbilicus.
I heard Jack exhale heavily, busying himself in his work once more.

‘I have left instructions in my will to bind my complete works with the skin from my torso, with the scar left by the spear
resplendent across the back panel, and the tattoo round my navel on the front. What do you think of that, Dora?’ But he pursued
beyond my dumbstruck silence. ‘I shall call my memoirs,
Afric’s Apollo: Helios in the Bushveld, or Travels
of a Latter Day Sun-God
. Is it not a fine way to achieve immortality?’

There was no answer to that. The paper of grains he had given Lucinda offered me a diversion.

‘But the grains, Sir Jocelyn? Tell me about the grains, please.’

‘Potassium bromide,’ he said, as he arranged the tails of his coat. ‘It will significantly reduce the incidence of her convulsions,
but it may increase her appetite and urination, and affect her co-ordination somewhat.’

‘Is it safe?’

‘Completely. It has had tremendous efficacy in a large number of cases of what we call hysterical – or menstrual – epilepsy.’

‘But she’s five years old, Sir Jocelyn!’ Still I could not look him in the eye, or anywhere else.

‘She has suffered from convulsions since birth. Do you wish to wait until puberty to be rid of them? It will be a blessing
for you both.’

Then he turned back to Lucinda with an ‘A-ha’, as if he had forgotten something, as if he had no awareness of the gross breach
of propriety he had just committed in front of her. I wondered at this world he inhabited, where convention was to be broken
up and trampled over in fearless pursuit of a better world, cheeks flushed and moustaches rippling in the warm breezes of
progress. ‘In here, look.’ He pulled a small blue bag from his pocket and instructed Lucinda to hold out her hand. He counted
out one, two, three small, brown, rolled sticks into her little palms. Then four, five. She dropped one and laughed, and held
out her skirts to catch some more. Soon she had ten sticks.

I knew what they were: crude opium. I felt a flash of anger; the man was surely insulting me. I could have bought these from
any pharmacy by the pennyworth or tuppenny-worth.

‘Give them to your mother again, please, but these are for your father. And tell her from me, Lucinda, that I bestow them
upon her for the simple reason that a lady of her responsibilities and industry has precious little time to run to the pharmacy.’
Oh, but the man was so persuasive he could talk a paddle-steamer out of slapping the water as it moved.

‘Now, run along, and play with Mossie,’ he said to Lucinda, ‘and tell her about your magic grains.’

‘I will!’ And she lifted up her doll to him, too struck to thank him, and I was too gone to make her, and we watched as she
waved good-bye and ran out into Ivy-street to show Billy.

Sir Jocelyn folded my fingers over the sticks of opium in my palm with his broad hand, and grinned. ‘Besides,’ he continued
his explanation, ‘I believe your local pharmacy only stops Bridport’s best, which is nothing compared to pure Turk. And before
I forget –’ he pulled a small brown apothecary’s bottle from another pocket, ‘– here it is already made up, so you do not
have to wait until your own preparations are ready.’

‘Thank you, Sir Jocelyn. That is most thoughtful of you.’ I moved away from him and placed the sticks in a box on top of the
cabinet.

‘And for you,’ he added, ‘a different sort of pure Turk.’ He took a square wooden box out from his case, and opened it to
reveal what looked like a slab of pale yellow jelly divided into diamond shapes, beneath a thick white powder. ‘
Rahat
Lokum
.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It is Arabic for “contentment of the throat”. A sentiment I salute. Do try one, Mrs Damage.’

‘With my fingers?’

‘Is there anything better?’

With difficulty I gouged one of the diamond shapes out from amongst the others, and placed it in my mouth. Instantly the powder
tickled my nose from within, and although I did not sneeze, my eyes watered and my throat closed up. The texture of the confection
was cloying; it adhered to my teeth and the roof of my mouth as I chewed, and to my tongue as I tried to extricate it from
where it was stuck, and I dared not swallow for what it might do to my throat. Contentment of the throat?

And the taste! It was like eating a rich lady’s too-strong perfume in solid form! But it was sweet, oh so sweet, like honey
from the spoon.

‘Do you like it?’

I shook my head and then nodded; I could not speak; my eyes and nose were streaming. And in truth, I did not know the answer.

‘I am helping to finance an old school chum who is opening the first Turkish Baths, right here in London,’ he continued as
I struggled. ‘The city needs to have something to recommend it, doesn’t it? The Iznik tiles arrived yesterday . . .’ and so
he went on, as if I were the type of person who would be interested, or would have the leisure to attend the Baths, and went
on about his own travels through the Ottoman Empire with the same school chum, the aromas and colours of Izmir and Latakia,
the pashas, the beys, the sultans, the women. Then he paused, as if to take in the furious action of my jaws, and smiled languidly.
He stroked his chin with his long fingers, leant forward to me and murmured, ‘Can you guess why the
lokum
is so fashioned, my dear?’

I shook my head again, chewing.

‘The diamond shape,’ he whispered, so that Jack would not hear, ‘may be pressed between the outer lips of a woman’s nether
orifices by her lover, then licked out of her. It drives them both mad with untold delight and desire, or so I am told.’

I choked, and spluttered white and yellow confection into my hands, as Sir Jocelyn leant back to enjoy my reaction.

‘Can you taste the jasmine, Dora?’

I nodded, finally able to free my tongue. Soon, I thought, I might dare to swallow the dangerous sweetmeat; it was not safe
in my mouth or my throat.

‘I trust it delights,’ he probed. ‘That is its sole purpose. It was especially commissioned by Sultan Abdul Hamid the First,
for the delectation of the women in his harem. He had far too many to keep satisfied, so the sweet was designed for the appeasement
of wanton ladies craving solace in the arms of their only man. Which reminds me: a favourite book of mine about a rather infamous
Turk is in need of repair. I shall send it to Diprose and he will get it to you. You might enjoy it.’

I believe now, although I dared not admit it at the time, that he actually winked at me. He bent down to collect his bag,
then adjusted his hat on his head.

‘Good day, Jack,’ he said.

‘Good day, Sir Jocelyn.’

I opened the front door to him, and his driver dismounted, to open the door of his brougham.

‘Good-bye, Mrs Damage. It was a most satisfactory visit.’

‘Good-bye, Sir Jocelyn,’ I managed to say, after swallowing particularly violently.

He stood for a moment in the damp chill outside the workshop, as if he wished to savour the full flatus of Lambeth one last
time before departing from it. Then, when he seemed to have breathed his fill, he looked me directly in the eye, and, with
the kindest of smiles, said, as if in passing, ‘You look after my books, and I’ll look after little Lucy.’

‘Who was the visitor?’ Peter enquired from his place by the fire as I was taking Lucinda up to bed. His feet were propped
on the Windsor chair opposite him: brown knitted socks were stretched over the lower part of his feet, but scarcely made it
to the wide, red, ankles, which looked, each of them, like the neck of a hardened drinker.

‘A client,’ I said. ‘Would you like me to cool your feet?’

‘Which client? He was dressed in too much finery to be a bookseller.’

‘My love, do not strain yourself to talk. Why, look at you.’

‘I need some more draught.’

‘You’re nearly through it.’

‘Get me some draught!’

‘I will be making you some Black Drop. I have some sticks,’ I said, then added hastily, ‘which I bought from the pharmacy.’

‘I must go to bed. Take me to bed.’

I sent Lucinda up on her own, then pulled the blanket off his knees, and he leant on me as he hobbled over to the stairs.
He seemed shorter now, and older. His legs were bowed, his feet splayed, and every part of him sagged with the weight of invalid
tumescence.

‘Did he bring books?’

‘No. But he brought the promise of them.’

‘Of what ilk?’

‘Foreign stuff, mainly.’

‘With what purpose?’

I thought hard to phrase this correctly as we climbed. ‘I believe he informs on the behaviours of the communities at the outposts
of Her Majesty’s Empire.’

‘Ah. Foreign Office.’

‘Possibly. Probably.’

‘Good, good.’ We reached the bedroom. ‘Put me down gently, woman. I do not bounce, despite this villainous cushioning.’

Over I went to the little table and picked up a pot from amongst the lint, the tape, the scissors.

‘No, not the embrocation! A poultice! Blister me!’

‘I must see to Lucinda first. It will not take a moment. I can hear her undressing.’

‘You must not leave me! Give me something, anything, to help the pain!’

‘But the draught is almost finished. I shall make some Black Drop tonight, but it needs to ferment.’

‘Get it!’

And then I remembered the bottle Knightley had given me. I raced down to the workshop where Jack was still hard at work. I
took in the pile of books with one look, calculated the cost of candles against the number of bindings we would get done in
the time, and came out once more in favour of the books.

‘Four books to get up into leather tonight, Jack,’ I shouted at him as I grabbed the bottle. ‘Can you make it?’

‘Aye, aye, Mrs D,’ he said to my departing back. At least he didn’t have to provide his own candles, which he would have had
to in one of those larger, commercial bookbinders, like Remy & Rangorski.

I took it back upstairs. I would not let him gulp it from the bottle; he had to wait while I poured it out into a spoon. He
spluttered at the vicious taste.