The Journal of Dora Damage Read Free

summer, when
     Mrs Eeles let number six to a group of girls who claimed to be opera-dancers appearing at the Alhambra. She would never have
     considered that type as a rule, only that the house had a leaky roof and a draughty cellar, no matter how many workmen tried
     to patch it up. But when Mrs Eeles discovered they were what one might call gay, of the seediest type, she threw them into
     the street wearing nothing but their scarlet drawers, and hurled their fancy dresses after them. Oh, she could be a devil
     with her dander up, but she did see to the drains, unlike other landlords. Besides, I had heard that the late Mr Eeles, who
     had been a marble mason, used to throw his boots at her, so Peter always used to tell me that it was fortunate she had tenants
     to throw hers at. She and Peter had a special understanding, what with their obsessions with respectability and mortality:
     there was nothing that impressed Peter so much as the dignity enshrouding the payment of one’s debt of nature.
    ‘Apologies for the meddling of you into it, my dear,’ she continued, ‘but I can’t find myself to catch your husband these
     days. Not that it’s a worry to me, as you’re honest souls, and I shan’t be throwing you out on to the street, I’m sure, but
     it is now three weeks and two days behind.’
    ‘Is it now? I’ll get Peter to see to it at once,’ I said.
    ‘And how fare you, young master Jack? Keeping your feet nice and dry in here, I’ll warrant.’
    ‘Yes, thank you,’ he muttered, continuing to glue down the grey moiré endpapers of a volume of plain, unvarnished calf, entitled, The Law and Practice of Joint-Stock Companies . Jack Tapster lived right up by the river, and was flooded out every other year, but the river had been his family’s livelihood
     – or deathlihood – ever since his father ran off one night after a prize-fight and never came back. Mud-larks, they were,
     and turd-collectors. Mrs Eeles had brought him to us, as, though the Tapsters lacked respectability, they had not just the
     whiff but the stink of tragedy about them, which she could not resist. Besides, Jack was often called ‘The Skull’, not only
     from the black grimacing skull tattooed on his left bicep, but also owing to his skeletal appearance and his unusual cleverness,
     so to her he was a living memento mori , which may have had something to do with her favouring of him for our apprentice.
    Mrs Eeles didn’t care to look at Sven, who was German, despite him being the best finisher south of the Thames. It was a miracle
     he was still with us; he had come over on his Wanderjahre in search of work and had never left. He was fine-tooling around a copper-plate let into the cover of Rules and Articles of War (Better Government of All Her Majesty’s Forces) ; second-in-command after Peter, he was clearly intent on not catching my – or her – eye.
    ‘Peter must’ve forgotten, strange enough,’ I said. ‘He’s been awful busy, Mrs Eeles, what with Christmas and things.’ I became
     aware that I was blunting the needle on the wood of the sewing-frame, and Lucinda was clutching my skirt, pale as candlewax.
    Mrs Eeles started to make her way towards the door. ‘Ho, dearie, never need to worry about you Damages, do I?’ she said heartily.
     ‘You’re a pattern young family.’
    Despite the talk about her, I liked Mrs Eeles. She fussed about the wrong kind of people, but she never knew that I’d seen
     her from our box-room window, perched on her back porch, knees up outside her hitched skirts, smoking on a pipe. I could not
     tell her either, for I did not know how to without letting her know that I did not mind, that I thought she was quite the
     screamer for it. Sometimes she even came rent-collecting in her yellow curl-papers, when she must have thought she had already
     thoroughly brushed and fluffed her feathers.
    I picked Lucinda up, and together we stood at the door and waved Mrs Eeles off into the gloomy