The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Starling Read Free Book Online

side-table
     on the other side of the room had caught Lucinda’s attention, but I was distracted, as I was wondering if it were too late
     to insist on three months. I twiddled my mother’s hair-bracelet by way of an apology to her: I could never trade this, but
     would that Mrs Eeles were a pawn-shop, for I might even have got half a crown for it, and the prospect of redeeming it later.
    ‘And this one, look, he’s sleeping too!’
    ‘Aye, sleeping cherubs, all of ‘em. Look lovely, don’t they? Especially seeing as they’re gorn! Ye’d never know, would ye?’
    ‘Gone?’ Lucinda asked.
    ‘Dead!’ Mrs Eeles replied. ‘Well, have they done your portrait yet?’
    Lucinda shook her head.
    ‘Of course not. Your mammy won’t go to that expense until you’re twelve or so, stands to reason. But if you passed over before
     then, she would want a record of you, you’d hope, wouldn’t she?’
    ‘Mrs Eeles!’
    ‘Are they your children?’ Lucinda continued.
    ‘Lucinda!’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s quite enough!’ But, truth be told, it was Mrs Eeles I wanted to scold.
    ‘No, dearie. Never had the luck. They’re from my poor dear sister, and some cousins, and some more distant relatives, and
     a few tenants. All of them my acquaintance, mind. I knew of all of them, by letter or by conversation, otherwise it wouldn’t
     be quite proper, would it now? Look at this one. Blew up on a steamship while her mother was waving him off with a spotted
     hankie. You should never use a spotted one, brings bad luck.’
    ‘We really will be off now, Mrs Eeles. Thank you, indeed, thank you. Come along now, Lucinda.’ I pulled open her front door,
     and from the top of her doorstep, I noticed she had a fine view directly on to the platform of the Necropolitan Railway, and
     into the waiting room for the Anglicans, though not the inferior one reserved for Non-Conformists.
    ‘Right-ho, dearies. Thanks for popping by. You’re welcome any time, you know. Lovely veil; what a treasure you are. I always
     knew you were sound, you Damages.’
    And so we returned home, and still Peter did not return, and I troubled and feared for his safety. That evening I was starting
     to know the torture of a mother who cannot feed her own child, as I presented a plate of stale bread and cheese-rinds to Lucinda,
     who ate them as quickly as if they were apple fritters and custard, and I could only watch her in my emptiness, having peeled
     the crust off the loaf for myself sixteen hours before. I pretended to her that I was not hungry, that I had an ache in my
     gut, and that I had a few halfpennies to buy us something better in the morning.
    As I put her to bed that night, a distant train left Waterloo station.
    ‘Mama,’ she said, in that same ponderous tone of voice that heralded the inscrutable question.
    ‘What is it, darling?’
    ‘A train has just gone past!’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘Mama?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Is it a dead train?’
    ‘Darling, go to sleep.’
    ‘Is it a dead train, mama?’
    I sighed. ‘No, darling. The dead trains don’t go at night.’
    ‘But Mama, what if it was a special one, just for tonight?’
    ‘I don’t think that would happen.’
    ‘It might do if lots of people died at the same time.’
    ‘Well, yes, it might, but that hasn’t happened today.’
    ‘But what if it was a train without a ghost in it?’
    ‘None of the trains have ghosts in them.’
    ‘Just dead people.’
    ‘Yes, and some living ones too. Now you be quiet and . . .’
    ‘But Mama, what if the dead train left the station with the dead body in it, and all the living ones, and the death men, but
     the spirit got left on the platform?’
    ‘Lucinda love, don’t you be worrying yourself about scary things like that.’
    ‘But Mama, what if that happened ?’
    I placed my hand on her chest. ‘Hmm, well, now, that would be a tricky one. Let’s think. Why would a spirit want to be left
     behind? Wouldn’t it prefer to stay with its body