The Journal of Dora Damage (22 page)

‘And now you have come to a place where you can have all the books you could wish for,’ I said.

‘Ain’ it the strangest ol’ world, ma’am.’

‘Ain’t it just, Din.’

‘I’m losing you, Dora,’ Peter said that evening, when his perturbing visions had left him.

‘No, you’re not.’

‘Then I’m losing my mind.’

‘No, you’re not,’ I said again, but with less conviction. For the pain in his brain was nothing compared to the physical torments
of his joints without the ease of laudanum, which was taking his mind with it.

‘Don’t take the bottle away.’ But I did, and I put it on the dresser. He closed his eyes, so I took his sore body into my
arms and rocked him like a baby. I wished I could have remembered what he looked like when I first met him. Was his nose ever
sharp, or was it always this round? Did he always have this porous, pitted forehead, or was his skin once smooth and taut?
I had not expected then that it would come to this. I knew the hazards of bookbinding; bookbinders died young, I knew, of
pulmonary disease and the like, from all that leather-dust, like my father. But what mattered Peter’s lungs now, when his
very flesh was drowning?

At times like these I would catch myself thinking that what he really needed was for me to show him what pleasure really felt
like, to distract him for a moment from his pains by straddling him and giving him the sweets of my body, or unbuttoning his
breeches and taking him in my mouth, for this is what I discovered
minetting
actually means, from the French (and, incidentally, I had learnt by now that the clitoris is not in Africa). But it would
have killed him, I knew. How many times had I read of lecherous men shuffling on a crimson cunt and shuffling off the mortal
coil? Now there’s a story to pass on to Mrs Eeles, I thought to myself.

But wasn’t it strange that my professional life should have been so devoted to a morass of seething sexuality, while my husband,
the one person I was legally entitled to
firkytoodle
, was slumped in the corner, oblivious to the writhing bodies of my work and my imagination? No, in many ways it was not strange
at all.

Then came the challenge from Holywell-street. I did the first thing I could think of: I dismissed Din, but only temporarily.

‘Din, you may go. I won’t be needing you today.’

‘As you wish, ma’am.’ He put down his mug of English Burgundy, and gathered his coat.

‘It is no indication of your progress – and, indeed, prowess – in the workshop. I am pleased with your work to date. Still,
I won’t be needing you. I trust you will find something to occupy your time suitably?’

‘You trust correctly. I thank you, ma’am. I am grateful for the liberty; I have business to attend to.’

‘Business?’ I smiled, presuming that this was a joke. ‘Just for today, mind?’

He smiled back at me. ‘As you wish, ma’am,’ he repeated.

I think my heart started beating again once the door shut and his whistling receded up Ivy-street. I had been tense since
I opened the crate and recognised its contents for what they were; I knew that my immediate instinct to get rid of Din was
correct. I tried to pretend to myself that I was only carrying out Diprose’s wishes: the man had not yet been verified, and
was still not to be wholly trusted. But I defy anyone to have seen what was on those pages and not have dismissed him too.

Each stack of paper was a collection of several hundred photographs. They were to be bound as a series of catalogues, each
of a certain theme. The preface for the first read:

This volume is for neither the prurient and perfidious, nor the ignorant and innocent. The artist of discernment, who professes
the pursuit of truth, the liberation from taboos, and the continued supremacy of Britannia, as the higher motives behind his
representations, will be best served by its contents. The nature of such an endeavour compels the reproduction of extreme
imagery, which is a triumph of the technology of our age.

I flicked through. Here entitled: ‘The Negro’s Revenge. Young wife violated by Negro in revenge for cruelties by master’.
There: ‘Untitled. Stupration of mulatto daughters by father.’ Later on: ‘African maid circumcises female word.’

The precious reader, artist or not, was not sufficiently warned by the preface. For these were by no means the worst. I picked
up the second, then the third stack of papers, and scanned them all, until I was so stunned that the papers slipped from my
hands and back into the crate, crushing the corners where they landed. I stood up slowly, then ran into the house and out
to the privy where I vomited savagely.

Even Jack was subdued. We talked in low tones, and noticed the trembling of each other’s cheeks. Once we had decided on the
bindings, and trapped the images between suitably stiff endpapers, we didn’t turn the pages again.

Hyperion to a satyr; antidote to a poison; this contrary world threw up to us a clash of perspectives, and Damage’s was the
point of collision. For the following morning we received a package of an altogether different kind, shortly after Din arrived
back for work with an innocent smile, as if to say ‘all well, ma’am?’

But all did not look well with him either. He was walking stiffly, and his limp was more pronounced; his arm did not seem
to move effectively, and he had a wound somewhere about his neck, which I did not notice at first, but which oozed on to his
dirty collar throughout the morning.

‘Good morning, Din. I trust you had a pleasant day off.’

‘Thank you, ma’am, most pleasant.’

‘Are you in trouble, Din?’ I asked him, as he struggled to sit down without pain.

‘No, ma’am,’ he replied, and that was the end of the matter. I dared say nothing more, out of decorum.

And then the aforementioned new package arrived, so I sent Din to make up some paste, and stood for a while, picking at the
dry skin on my upper lip.

‘What’s in it, Jack?’ I eventually asked, nodding towards it.

‘Do you want me to have a look?’

‘Yes please.’ I pulled at a flake of skin, which stretched my lip away from my teeth.

‘No pictures,’ he said first. Then, ‘this one looks all right. And this one.’ The fragment came away from my lip. I pressed
my bottom lip against the top, and tasted blood.

‘All manuscripts. Seven of them, all the same. They look pretty safe to me, Mrs D. You can look now. It’s all right.’

And so I sat, and read, wetting my lips with my tongue to ease the smarting, as Din came in with fresh paste.

My dear Mrs
Damage

It seems a tremendous while since we first met. And
how tedious my life has become since then! Jossie has
been a frightful bore about my condition; it seems I
must rest around the clock. I have missed everything
worth seeing this summer, and I fear I shall miss the
Mistletoe Players’ Production of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
at
the Phoenix if the baby does not appear until after
Christmas. Still, I am blessed to be married to the finest
physician in London, and am nearing the end of my
confinement with as much good grace as I can muster!!!

My activities with the Society continue apace,
notwithstanding Jossie’s disapproval. And here I come
to the purpose of my letter. You may have heard of
Mr Frederick Douglass, Mr William Wells Brown, Mr
Josiah Henson & many others; if you have not, I
assure you their names will soon be unforgettable to
you, for their stories are certainly! Many is the lecture
I have attended given by these eminent former slaves,
and I wish I could share with you now the eloquence
with which they captivate their audience: they terrify
& enthrall, & elicit copious tears, reverent anger, &
inspired action! Many are the panoramas I have
viewed which have reinforced to my eyes what my
ears had witnessed, illustrating the horrendous conditions
under which they are forced to live and work!
Many are the torture implements I have touched &
shrunk from, &c., which they exhibit at these events!
And many are the narratives I have purchased after
such an experience, & of that ilk is the document
which I am proud to enclose.

It is entitled
My Bondage and My Freedom
, by Mr
Frederick Douglass. Herewith are seven copies, all still
in their trade paper bindings. You will see it is already
in its fifth edition!!

I & several of my Society colleagues would like to
have them personally re-bound by you for the Society
with the Society’s emblem and motto centre-top, for
which I have enclosed the appropriate tools. Centre
itself requires an engraving of Douglass’s profile; I
enclose some recent portraits of him for reference.

I also enclose the appropriate sum for your pains!

After my confinement I shall be visited by Mr
Charles Gilpin, publisher of William Wells Brown’s
narrative, & will recommend to him your furnishing
for the quality end of the market. William Wells
Brown sold 12,000 copies in 1850 alone, when I was a
mere girl. We need our treasured copies beautifully
bound for longevity & as a mark of respect for their
noble contents!

In the hopes that this letter finds you and the dear
dark boy well

Yours &c.,

Sylvia, Lady Knightley

The change in patron, author and subject matter came as a tremendous relief. Jack went out to buy some leather, while Din
and I removed the trade bindings and the old stitching, and sewed through all seven manuscripts. When we had finished, we
took a copy each, and settled down to read, he in the sewing chair, I in the gold-tooling booth, as Lucinda sat at the bench
and drew pictures.

We paused for a mug of beer at lunch-time. ‘How do you fare, Din?’ I gestured towards the book, to make it clear I was not
talking about his injuries.

He weighed my question for a while, then casually dropped it on the floor.

‘You don’t cry,’ he said. ‘In America they say the ladies of England increase the ocean between us with their tears for us.
Are you not moved?’

‘I asked you a question.’

‘An’ so did I.’

‘Would tears convince you of emotion?’

‘No. I am an innocent, ma’am, in the ways of English women.’

‘And so am I, Din, so am I. In the ways of English men, too. But I wish to know your reaction to what you have read.’

‘An’ I wish to know yours.’ He sat back in his chair and folded his arms as best he could.

But there were no words I could use. What mattered my reaction in the face of his human defiance of human monsters; what purpose
his reaction, having been treated inhumanely himself by the inhuman?

‘Tell me, instead, how this compares to your life. Is this what it was like for you?’

‘There are similarities,’ he returned, ‘both bein’ captive, an’ escapers, an’ fugitives. But his life is not mine. You can’t
know one by knowin’ the other.’

‘Have you thought of doing this, Din? Of writing your own narrative?’

He shook his head.

‘But I’m sure you could. You are intelligent; you can write. It might help you fathom it.’

He shrugged. ‘Why would I need to?’

‘It would certainly make money.’

‘What do I be needin’ money for?’ he asked. ‘I have a job, don’ I?’ It sounded as if he were mocking me. He rested his hands
on his knees and leant forward, as if to get up.

‘How about the cause? It would raise money for the abolitionist cause.’

‘You mean your society o’ ladies?’ And now he was rounding on me, for sure.

‘You have something to say about them?’

He paused. His silence was beguiling. What was he withholding? He was smiling to himself, and his head was cocked.

‘Come now, Din,’ I cajoled. ‘I have no allegiance to them. You wish to tell me something?’ I smiled and beckoned; he grinned
back at me, then nodded to himself.

‘All right, ma’am.’ A secret; he was going to tell me a secret. He placed his hands on the back of his head, stretched and
winced, pondered for a while, then wound me towards him with his words.

‘Let me tell you, ma’am,’ he said, with deliberate intrigue, ‘about what they have bought.’ He stopped.

‘You, Din?’ I prompted.

‘That’s right. But how they be usin’ me!’ I thought he half-winked at me, but it could have been the tremors of a bruised
eye.

‘How, Din?’

He was quiet again, smiling.

‘Din!’ I shrieked. ‘Tell me!’

‘They send for me, ma’am.’

‘When?’

‘When the fancy takes them.’

I giggled nervously like a young girl. ‘And?’

‘And . . .’ He was still weighing up how much he could tell me.

‘I want to know
everything
, Din! Don’t do this to me!’

‘And . . .’ And then he was off. ‘They take me into this room, ma’am, this red room in her house, an’ they put the pelt of
a tiger round me, an’ a spear in this hand an’ a shield in that, an’ ask me to stand about like a Zulu warrior. “Ooh, a Zoo-loo,
a Zoo-loo,” they cry, an’ wave their arms.’

‘Oh my! Din!’ I cried. ‘How monstrous!’ But how fabulous, too! What knowledge!

My reaction encouraged him further. ‘I’m their dandy Zoo-loo. An’ so I stand, an’ I wait, an’ they look at me, like they seen
nothin’ like me before, an’ treat me for a fool.’

‘How degrading that must be for you!’

He shrugged. ‘They the ones degradin’ themselves. They the fools.’

‘What else do they do?’

But he would not answer. He simply sat and smiled. So I moved slightly closer to him. A question burnt my lips; I did not
know if I dared ask, until it spoke itself for me. ‘Do they touch you, Din?’ I said quietly.

He paused, and held my gaze, still grinning. ‘Oh, Lor’, do they touch me!’ He whistled through his teeth. ‘They stroke my
arms, an’ they kiss my brand –’ here he pulled up his sleeves to show his tattoo ‘– an’ they cry tears over me, an’ they say,
“Oh, Sylvia, how his skin shine!” an’ “Oh, his teeth be so white an’ fright’nin’!” They keep me there so late, sometimes,
they send me to climb out up by the coal cellar so I don’ be scarin’ the neighbourhood.’