The Journal of Dora Damage(14)

‘Do me a favour, Miss, and pay me nah.’

‘I said, I have no money.’

‘Forgive me laughin’, miss,’ he said, almost peacefully, ‘but we both knows yewer tellin’ little porky pies. I can ’ear it,’ he whispered, ‘chinkin’ away, under yer skirts. Are you tellin’ me I don’t know the sahnd of money when I hear it? Wouldn’t be a good money-lender if I didn’t, nah, would I?’

I stood still, and looked at him in horror, and felt Lucinda looking up at us both.

‘Come on, then,’ he cooed, like a hungry man trying to get a chicken from a dog’s mouth. ‘Give it up. There’s a good girl.’ I put my hand to where my purse hung at my hip beneath my skirt, but did not put it inside. ‘Come on, girl. Or do I have to go in there an’ get it for ya?’

And so my hand slipped inside my skirts, and I untied the ribbon securing it, and made to tip the contents into my hand, when I saw Skinner shake his head.

‘Just give it to me. None a’ this cahntin’-aht nonsense. I need it all.’ And with that, he snatched it out of my hand, tipped its meagre innards out, flung the empty purse on the floor, and then he was gone, and with him my eight shillings.





I think it was fair to say that now, after the visitation from Samuel Skinner, having been too proud to ask for support, I had reached the point where desperation overcame pride. So the next morning, one of those awful ones when the water had frozen overnight in the pans, I left Lucinda with Agatha Marrow for as long as I dared, where I knew at least her stomach would be filled, and then in and out, in and out, my toes first took me back to the pawnbroker.

I waited in the booth while the man attended to a poor fellow whose face betrayed more misery than I dared to imagine. He handed over a blanket with a look of such sorrow it were like he were giving away a child, and took away a shilling for it. I wanted to run after him and check he had at least one more blanket left at home, but it would have served no other purpose than to make myself feel better in the face of his tragedy, and I feared the answer would have been no besides.

‘My flat-iron, how much?’ I asked as the door closed behind me.

‘Four pence.’

‘Four? But with the ha’penny gone to get me over the bridge that leaves me with next to nothing! I need at least sixpence!’

Still the man shook his head. ‘Then you’ll have to give me something else.’

‘But I only want sixpence! Surely you can do a flat-iron for that?’

‘I have twenty flat-irons back there,’ he said, waving his hand at the storerooms behind him. ‘All of ’em got four pence, nothing more. Here you go, here’s a thrupp’ny bit and a brown.’

‘But I need a tanner!’

‘So, what else you got?’

‘Nothing on me.’

‘What about that ring?’ He gestured towards my finger.

‘No! I can’t! That’s my wedding ring!’

The man shrugged and turned away. I thought about going home, to get my own blanket, or one of Peter’s waistcoats, which might raise nine pence, but I needed to get north of the river this morning, and I feared further delay would condemn me forever to the pile reserved for prevaricators and no-hopers.

‘Please don’t go! Help me! Raise me sixpence for the iron, and I’ll bring it all back, I promise.’

‘Not a hope, miss. I’ve heard it all before. Give me the ring, an’ I’ll give you what I think. If you redeem it soon enough, the old man might never know.’

And so I took off my wedding ring and handed it over. I looked down at the clammy white dented band it left behind on my skin, and waited for him to deliver his verdict.

‘Three shillings.’

‘You evil man! It’s worth at least a crown! Do you spit on my husband’s name?’

‘Which is?’ he asked, raising a pen.

‘Damage,’ I said meekly. ‘Peter Damage, two Ivy-street, Lambeth,’ as he filled out the ticket and handed me over the three silver coins.

Then in and out, in and out, my toes took me north across the marshes where the mud-larks – the tide-waiters, the beach-pickers, whatever name you want to give them – were wading over the shallows of the Thames in the rain for fragments of iron and wood, their children swimming alongside them waist-deep in mud, toes searching for lumps of coal and what-have-you dropped by the barges, to sell for one shilling per hundredweight. I scanned them for signs of Jack’s family, and indeed, for Jack, for the Lord knew how else he might be spending his days and earning his living while he was not at Damage’s. And then I approached Waterloo Bridge, and gave a ‘Good day’ and a shilling to the toll-keeper. I waited for my eleven pence-ha’penny change and the clicking of the turnstile, then went through onto the bridge.