The Journal of Dora Damage (24 page)

‘Rozzers!’ he cried. His two front teeth were missing. ‘It’s a bloody
razzia
.’

Diprose was standing up. ‘Silence,’ he hissed at me. ‘Get the girl up.’ He tugged at his waistcoat, and turned briskly towards
the front of the shop.

‘Knife it!’ Pizzy whispered at me. ‘Or you will live to regret it.’ But my screams had stopped. We heard Diprose’s voice switch
to controlled charm as he unbolted the front door and greeted the new arrivals in the shop.

A girl – or rather, a woman – had rushed in with the boy, all long ragged hair and faded orange dress. Pizzy handed me over
to her, and she gripped my waist with one hand and the back of my head with the other, and led me to the rickety stairs. The
pencil-man had already reached the first floor; Pizzy was busy handing him boxes, stacks of books, brown-paper parcels, up
the staircase. The gap-toothed boy was scurrying around, quiet as a girl, gathering goods. The stairs brought us out into
another dingy room, clearly the centre of Diprose’s enterprise, with its printing presses, blocks of type, and stacks of paper.
Pizzy was up with us now, flitting around the room, collecting this and that, and whisking it up a second flight of stairs,
which we too climbed, along with two men who had been tending the printing press, their faces pricked with grey stubble like
burnt fields of corn, moving silently, jerkily.

We reached the attic, where there was an opening in the far wall, curtained with cobwebs; we climbed through it, and into
a wide, dusty room in the roof-space of the adjacent building. An older woman was already in there, waiting for us.

‘All right, Bernie?’ she hissed at the woman who was leading me in.

‘All right, Mrs Trotter,’ Bernie replied.

‘Is Alec in?’

‘He’s coming.’ Alec, it turned out, was the young lad, Mrs Trotter’s son.

And then – once the room was full of the salvaged contraband, three men (two printers and the pencil-man), Alec Trotter, Mrs
Trotter, Bernie, and myself – the opening was closed, and I did not stop to wonder how it looked from the other attic, or
where Mr Pizzy had gone to, but I guessed that this was not the first time the room had been used in this way.

And we sat like this, in almost total silence, in the darkness and dust of the attic, for what must have been close to five
hours. We heard the sounds of doors opening and closing in the houses below and around us, and footsteps, furniture being
moved, cabinets opening and closing. For a while the noises were louder – closer – and I imagined the activities had reached
the first floor.

We waited and waited, the unproductive hours slipping past, mocking us in our abeyance. The only movements were the shadows
through the cracks in the plaster, crooked sundials marking the progress of the day outside. I tried to avoid the stares of
my other cell-mates through the miserable gloom of the attic, and occupied my mind with different thoughts: of Lucinda with
Jack, and whether she would notice how long I had been gone; of all the books I could be binding, the food I could be preparing.
The inactivity was unfamiliar to us all in that attic. It was as if someone had told a joke that had fallen flat, and we were
doomed to linger in the awkward after-moment for eternity. We were inoperative, null and void, useless, like seven phlegmatics
trying to compete on idleness, or seven lie-abeds waiting on Providence, seven lotus-eaters feasting on lethargy, seven workers
going rusty through lack of use. It was as if we were procrastinating, but had quite forgotten what action it was that we
were deferring.

And then we heard footsteps nearing us; they climbed to the attic, and spoke loudly outside our hatch, and we dared not breathe.

‘She’s not ’ere. There’s no one up ’ere.’

‘Where could she’ve got to?’

‘You sure you ’eard a woman scream?’

‘I’ll swear it.’

I prayed silently to my Maker. I had neglected Him for too long, and I promised Him anything, anything, if only He would get
me out of here and safely home where I could feel Lucinda in my arms. I would go to Church more, I would sing hymns around
the house, I would keep the house clean, I would not read any more illicit books before binding them, I would refuse to carry
out any design that was too ‘emblematic’ . . .

‘Could’ve been out in the alley, s’pose,’ one of the men said. ‘If she’d screamed lahd enough.’

‘Must’ve been. C’mon. Better get back wiv ve uvvers. Nice pickings today.’

And then they descended, and the place became quiet.

In time the torpor started to lift. It started with the inescapable fact that our bladders were in varying degrees of fullness,
and we could not help but fidget. A chamber-pot was passed round; it was shown to me, its sulphurous contents threatening
to slosh on to my skirts, but I shook my head and declined its use.

‘What d’ya expect? She’s the toff’s toffer,’ Bernie said. It was the first time any of us had spoken for hours. ‘Laced and
marbled good and proper.’

‘D’ya think she’s even got an arse?’ Mrs Trotter replied.

‘Oh, sure she has. But she likes it blacked.’

‘Does she now? Like a good blackleading, do ya?’

‘Got a voice on her too. If she had kept ‘er pretty mouth shut we wouldn’t be risking our skins like this,’ Bernie added.
‘Did you hear ’er holler?’

‘Shut up,’ the pencil-man said. ‘We gotta wait til Pizz-pot gets up ’ere.’

And so they lapsed into silence once more, and we waited. The shadows were fading; it was getting dark outside, and cold.
We could no longer stare at each other’s shoes, or scrutinise the worm holes and cobwebs in the beams above us. We sat in
the stink of each other’s urine, and waited.

And then, at last, the hatch shifted a little, and then some more, and Pizzy’s head, illuminated by a candle, emerged into
the room.

‘You can come down now,’ he said wearily. His tie and top buttons were undone, and his clothes all creased.

One by one, we stretched our legs, rolled on to our knees, pulled on to something to bring ourselves to standing. Bernie reached
her hand out to me; I took it, and she pulled me up.

We went down to the first floor. I could not tell if the room had been ransacked; it looked fairly orderly to me, but the
others were wandering around it, opening drawers, assessing the damage.

‘How much was it, Ben?’

‘Four hundred books, nine hundred and fifty prints, and eight hundredweight of unsewn letterpress. All the Gamianis went.’

‘Will they be destroyed?’ one of the printers asked.

‘Oh yes.’ He looked tired; he ran his hands through his hair, then rubbed the back of his neck. ‘But at least we saved some
of it. Thanks to young master Trotter.’ He ruffled Alec’s hair, and the boy ducked out of reach.

‘I really must go, Mr Pizzy,’ I said, like someone who had stayed too long at a christening. ‘It’s been a long day, and I
must get back to my daughter.’ Some food and beer was brought out from underneath a table.

‘Nobody leaves,’ Pizzy replied. ‘Not till it’s safe. And certainly not a fine lady like yourself, Mrs Damage.’ He smiled with
his mouth closed. ‘You must stay here the night; I will get Bernie to make a bed for you upstairs. You will be quite safe,
I assure you. Alec, go down and guard the door.’ He handed me a glass of beer, and I took it, but I could not drink, despite
my thirst.

‘So, what ’appened, Pizz?’ said pencil-man.

‘Remember the nob with the black cane who came in last week?’ Pizzy said. Pencil-man nodded. ‘Vice Squad.’

‘So was it the constable today?’

‘Yes. He was a give-away the moment he walked in the door. “Do you ’eppen to ’ev any prints by A
cki
ll
ees
Dever
eer
?”’ Pizzy said, imitating the policeman’s artifically polished accent. Someone laughed. ‘And Charlie played it so straight.
“A
cki
ll
ees
Dever
eer
?” he said back to him. “Are you, perchance, referring to the French illustrator, Achilles –
Asheel
– Dev
ee
ria?” And the rozzer said, “Er, why yes, perchance, oi em.” And blimey, his glasses fell off at the sight of them!’

‘Which ones did ’e show ’em?’

‘The lithos.’ I knew them. They were a sequence of lithographs on the history of morals under Louis-Philippe. ‘And when he
could finally shut his mouth, he said he was going to seize the prints, and any more like them in the establishment, and take
him before the magistrate, under the authority of Lord Campbell’s Act, and then five of ’em came bursting through the door
like a rum rush, grasping everything they could get their sordid, hypocritical little hands on, and dragged our Charlie off
to Bow Street!’

‘Will he go to prison?’ I asked.

‘If he does, he’ll be out within the week, Mrs Damage,’ Mr Pizzy rejoined.

‘Why so sure?’

He laid a finger on one side of his nose, then said softly, ‘Contacts.’

‘Where?’

Slowly and with satisfaction he said, ‘A Noble Savage. In the Home Office.’

‘Really?’ I raised my eyebrows.

‘Charlie once had a two-year conviction with hard labour, and was out in three weeks with hands soft as butter. Nowadays they
don’t even bother to convict him; they just hold him for as long as they dare before getting their fingers rapped. They just
do it to get their hands on a bit of filth which they enjoy for a bit then burn it.’ And again, he roared with laughter, until
his face fell suddenly, and he said solemnly, ‘We did lose a fair bit of stock and press, though. That’s not so good.’ Then
he seized his pipe, threw up the sash-window, and leaned out of it. He unscrewed the burner of the gaslight, and vicious flames
flared up from it, nearly scorching the wooden figure of the African, but he nevertheless managed to light his pipe from it.
And when he pulled himself back into the room, having singed his whiskers and blackened one side of his pipe, he started what
seemed to be a well-aired speech about the burning of books at Ephesus, the fiery purge of Don Quixote’s library, and the
flame of freedom that would burn out hypocrisy. ‘
Nihil est quod ecclesiae ob inquisitione
veri metuatur
,’ he told me assuredly. Then he slumped in his chair once more, and sucked thoughtfully on his pipe, before reaching over
and clasping one of my hands on my lap. He clearly enjoyed his master’s absence.

‘Dora, Dora. It’s a shame these cases hardly go to trial any more!’

‘Why would you want them to? Would you not get done?’

‘Oh my yes, or no, we wouldn’t. Only the trials are such merry sport! By rule of law, each obscene item has to be categorised
and described, and read out as the list of indictments in court. Item one, clay phallus, in the style of Pompeii. Item two,
daguerrotype of naked woman in congress with a horse. Item three, print of Hyperion fucking a satyr up the arse. Oh, it cheers
the heart of a radical
obsceniteur
to hear such words spoken in a court of law by an upholder of the law. Is that not the heart of the matter? Have we not won,
then?’

‘Won, Mr Pizzy?’

‘Yes, won, Mrs Damage. Please call me Bennett. Do you think we are in this for the money? This is a moral crusade! My father
started it all. He was a true radical, part of the Cato Street Conspiracy. Suspected, but never proven. Clever man. He was
one of many radical publishers – based, as they all were, in Holywell-street. They were freethinkers.
Splendore
veritatis gaudet ecclesia!
They published tracts on politics, religion and sexuality, and they did this –’ he waved his hand around the room ‘– only
to satirise the aristocracy and the Church. And to raise funds for more radical press, of course. Now, take me. Chip off the
old block as far as politics are considered, but no bloody hope of a revolution round the corner. My challenge is to Lord
Campbell’s vile Act (oh, he who could show you a few vile acts, I’m sure!); the radical cause I champion is the distribution
of obscenity to the working classes.’

‘Working classes, Mr Pizzy?’ I retorted. ‘Mr Diprose pays me more per binding than my husband earned in a week! And I assure
you, that if the man in the street were to chance upon the princely sum of three guineas, he would not beat a path to your
door to spend it.’

‘Unfortunately, Dora, for I prefer to call you Dora, you are indeed correct, but the situation is only temporary, while I
earn enough to fund my radical ventures. It is not only a mighty lucrative scene you and I have fallen into, but one that
provides me with remarkable fodder for my ambitions. Think of the hypocrisy: these lords take their families to the Cremorne
Pleasure Gardens on Saturday by day, their mistresses (or, indeed, rent-boys) on Saturday night, and spend the rest of the
week legislating against Cremorne’s vices!’ He pulled a file out from under the floorboards. ‘Look.’ Here he showed me a host
of pamphlets and unbound manuscripts, like yellowbacks, but less mustardy and lurid in hue, although not, I was to discover,
in content. I cast my eye over the stories.

The old familiar characters were there, differing only in name: the Right Honourable Filthy Lucre, Lord Havalot Fuckalot,
Lady Termagent Flaybum, the Earl of Casticunt, the Comtessa de Birchini. I picked up one entitled
Reasons Humbly Offer’d
for a Law to Enact the Castration of Popish Ecclesiastics
, then put it back down again.

‘Is this not the key to the health of the nation? This is where Sir Jocelyn and I find common ground, in the free discussion
– and unbridled practice – of sexuality.’

‘But is not Sir Jocelyn from the very class you seek to overthrow?’

‘Indeed, you are right. But he is a rare ’un. The fellow is more a man of the people than he lets on. Don’t you covet his
smoking-room?’

‘Mr Pizzy,’ I said, for I wished to ask a question.

‘I love the way you say my name, Dora. Some say, “Pitzy”. How Italian. Others “Pissy”, and well they might. You, you make
it rhyme with “dizzy”. As well
you
might, given your giddy-making charms. But please call me Bennett.’

‘Mr Pizzy.’