Eventually, I tired of these ladies, for it was not in my heart so to instruct them. Besides, Din’s legacy persisted. I never forgot that day in the bindery when he quoted Ovid at me, or our subsequent conversations in which he revealed his determination to build the kingdom of heaven here, in this life. He was ever true to himself, for that is what I trusted he was now doing in America. And so, too, as an act of love and, in some way, commitment to the man, that was what I had to do here, in England, amongst my own people.
And so, with Ovid’s words as our motto, I established here in Lambeth an organisation that rejoiced under the name of ‘The union of Women Employed in Bookbinding’. Pansy, Sylvia and I were its founder members, and we were soon joined by thirty-four others. Our initial costs were funded almost entirely with the money I had earned from Damage’s: a nice example, I thought, of converting filth into something more worthwhile and spreading the riches amongst those more deserving of the profits of obscenity. It was a sound enterprise, based on the trades union model, offering support, advice and representation to women in the bookbinding trade, with a target of a thousand members, and a weekly wage of a pound for our girls.
It was Sylvia who suggested I burn the book, the one Din had stolen back for me, the one we now referred to as Jocelyn’s Little Black Book. I simply put it in the grate, without ceremony, and watched it flare up. The widow got burnt after all, only not on her husband’s pyre, and who can say which outcome was the more barbaric? And then, talking of barbarism, I remembered the photographic catalogues still in their crates, and Sylvia and I burnt them all, one by one, over the next few days. It was a waste of good paper; I would have given them to the poor in their tenements, to burn in their own hearths and keep them warm, had the pictures not been so horrific, but then, if that had been the case, I wouldn’t have needed to dispose of them.
But the tattoos, of course, persisted. I did not mind them at first; I felt I deserved them. A clitoridectomy would have been a punishment too extreme for the nature of my crime, but the tattoos felt somehow fitting, the secret branding of a clandestine criminal. Like Hester Prynne, I wore my badge of shame, only further from the heart and closer to the seat of my transgressive pleasure. Only the visuals mocked me: I did not mind so the picture of myself in a wreath of ivy, but the insignia of the Noble Savages rankled and reminded me of the man I had murdered.
It was Pansy who suggested we do something about it. She got a sailor friend to help her, an inksmith who had been responsible for the artwork on her brother’s arms. A bit at a time, she inked roses (true love), hyacinths (forgiveness), daffodils (respect), lily (to ward against unwanted visitors), nasturtiums (a mother’s love) and of course, pansies (merriment) over my right buttock, until the insignia of the Noble Savages was completely overgrown and invisible beneath the flora.
About a year after Lucinda’s safe return to me, in the early days of the union , we saw a carriage parked at the very top of Ivy-street. It was like Sir Jocelyn’s brougham, only shabbier, and the wheels were orange, not red, and it lacked a coat of arms. We were to see it there once every six months or so, never frequent enough for us to remember the last time with any certainty. And if Nathaniel were out playing in the street when the carriage arrived, it would stay there for twenty minutes at a time, sitting, watching the children, until the mothers got wind of it and called to their children to come inside. A pederast, they would whisper to each other, or years later (for the carriage kept coming), we would say a child-snatcher, with the modish hysteria about the white-slave trade, and kidnappers crawling our streets. But I kept my suspicions to myself. I had the fancy that it was Sir Jocelyn, looking from afar at the child he wished were his son. And just occasionally, I spotted Nathaniel, who was growing into a fine lad, with his mother’s fondness for excess and drama, standing stock still, and staring back up the street at the carriage, before his mother’s fears snatched him out of the way.
And what of Din? Despite all my best intentions, my memories of him crept back. I learnt wilfully to remove all thoughts of him, all conversations my head hosted for me, every moment we had together which my mind wanted to relive, every longing my ears had for his voice, my skin had for his touch, my heart for his love. I did not want Din to become a tormentor of dreams, an invader of hearts; he was only gone, and I was slowly setting him free. Or rather, I was slowly setting myself free of him.
I still used to think about crossing the seas to find him. I was free to go; it might even have been safer for us there. It was Sylvia who told me she had seen the name ‘Dan Nelson’ in an article about the first black regiment, the 54th Regiment of Massachussetts, and I often wondered if that were him. But, for all my vain fantasies of his leading them on to glory and my meeting him at the edge of battle, I feared I would find him only as a name on a white cross, or maybe never at all. Besides, my life was here. There is hope, I would console myself, for I have loved a stranger, and after him I will not go.