Free The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Starling Page B

wait at a lamp-post to let people
     past. A notice was glued to it announcing the imminent demolition of Holywell-street and a blessed proposal of a new, straight
     thoroughfare to blast through the meandering pestilence and decay of this metropolitan anachronism, and bring order and circulation
     to the unregulated, crumbling relics of a bygone age. A gap appeared in the crowd, but before I started to move on again,
     I noted the sign was dated ‘July ’52’. It was the first sign I had of quite how tenacious Holywell-street was, how long it
     would hold out against the city-planners’ drive for light, air and hygiene for all, how it determinedly clung to its own filth.
    At another pause in my journey, I spotted a small grey plaque marking the site of a holy well, which once provided succour
     for pilgrims bound for Canterbury, its curative water giving them a taste of the holy wonders to await them at their destination
     and in the next world. As I inhaled the stale air I thought ruefully of my mother’s death, and I fingered her hair-bracelet.
    The signs intrigued me: ‘Shampooing – Hats Ironed – Shaving – Books’; ‘Boot Depot – Books – Sole Entrance’; ‘Hawkers – Suppliers
     to the Trade’, ‘Removed Opposite’, ‘Punch – Almanacks – School Books’, ‘St Clements Stores Merchant – Books’; ‘French American
     Spanish LETTERS’; ‘Bears’ grease, freshly killed’, and I shrieked as I came face to face with a very subdued bear – a real,
     live, breathing, hairy bear with a dry tongue – chained miserably to the railings outside the barber’s, as if he knew he would
     be next.
    Soon the crowds started to thin, and eventually I no longer needed to look up, but could scan across, into the windows. But
     straightways I wished I hadn’t, for the first shop window stopped me directly in my tracks. Despite myself and my own feminine
     cross-glance, I looked directly through the small panes of glass of the narrow shop window, where the cobwebs were lit by
     gas-light, and the shop beyond lay gloomy and nefarious. Waiting for my perusal were lithographs, mezzotints, daguerreotypes,
     call them what you will, but their subject matter was plain: a girl greeted the morning sun in nothing more than her crinoline
     and chemise; another young lady laughed while gaily ironing an indeterminate item of clothing which she no doubt would presently
     put on; another made lemonade in such a manner that it was necessary to display her ankles; another shucked oysters with bare
     arms; ballerinas stretched their limbs along with their morals. I pulled away from the window, flushed, and saw a gentleman
     with yellow whiskers smiling at me, at my betrayal of interest, my forthright and shameless looking. My mother would have
     wept.
    I stumbled on, averting my gaze and checking the card in my hand with purpose. I had taken it from the workshop this morning,
     and it read:
    Mr Charles Diprose, 128 Holywell-st, London.
    Purveyor to the Professions –
    Importer of French and Dutch Specialities –
    Books Bought.
    Fortunately the subsequent windows between that print shop and Mr Diprose’s establishment were less compelling: stacks of
     old and new books, prints of city streets and rural idylls, medical and scientific pamphlets, periodicals and broadsheets,
     second-hand clothes, old furniture. Many of these, like the print shop, I could not avoid, but now for more physical reasons:
     the shops tumbled forth their wares on to the pavement, and I had to step around crates of old books and dodge the swaying
     lines of old clothes.
    I finally spotted the sign ‘Diprose & Co.’ swinging on its hinges underneath a small carved wooden figure of a negro sucking
     on a long pipe, wearing a wavy grass skirt and matching wavy gold crown, a gaslight directly beside it. I was at a loss to
     tell what it represented, but was relieved to see in the windows no arresting engravings. It was a smart but small shopfront,