the stench of too close humanity engulfs me. I have never conceived such a potent concoction of people, bustling and bumping and sharing the same close air and space. As we begin to walk, I know once more that there are dozens of new Visitors waiting to speak with me, but I shut my eyes to dismiss them. It is curious this, that new Visitors come when I travel. I cannot explain it. Something tells me that when I board the train again later to return home, I will leave these behind. I do not understand why, it is just something I know.
I feel the ground shake when a rocketing eruption comes from the train as it lets off steam. Those with ears must suffer. Lottie tells me a porter is asking Father to carry our luggage, but we only have the picnic box and Father shakes his head, saying to Lottie that he will not be forking out money to someone to carry a basket when he can quite easily do it himself. Lottie tells me there is a Nestlé’s chocolate machine but we would need a penny from Father. I know she is shy of asking him, so I stop and take his hand.
‘Can we have some chocolate from the machine?’
‘How did you know about that?’ asks Father.
‘I could smell it.’ It is a white lie. Lottie and I devour the chocolate as we walk along, though Father declines.
I grab his hand. ‘Have some, Father, please!’ But he will not. Something in the quick movements of his wrist tells me that he is anxious. And I remember why we are here in London, not to have picnics or eat chocolate and other adventures. It is to see the eye doctor. I work the melting mass around my teeth as I think about what this doctor wants and why Father is nervous.
Outside Victoria station the air broadens and the rumbling chaos of my first city street assaults my senses. Father is looking for transport to the doctor’s office. I am overwhelmed by the reverberations from the pressing of huge wheels into the road, the clip-clop of a thousand horses’ hooves, the throb of machines all around, the thrum of numberless feet pounding the pavements. You may believe a deaf-blind person is immune to the teeming roar of a city street, but you would be wrong. Our sense of physical awareness is attacked in precisely the same cacophonous way. It is exhilarating and terrifying, exhausting and vital. I feel the dust and grit speckle my skin and inhale smoke and dirt and horse manure and produce of every kind.
‘Tell me everything,’ I press Lottie.
She says the wide road is packed three deep each way with carts, coaches, trams and trolley buses of every description, all drawn by horses clattering by each other with hundreds of near-misses every second. Trams and omnibuses are stuffed with passengers, the upper deck reached by a half-spiral staircase with a rail, topped by mottled crews of men in bowler hats and cloth caps, handlebar moustaches and side whiskers, women with their hair pinned up and wide-brimmed hats furnished with cloth flowers, artificial fruit and masses of feathers. Carts are driven by men and boys with dusty coats and mucky boots, some with blankets across their knees, their goods secured with tarpaulin and rope. A coach and pair of the well-to-do is directed by a coachman and groom riding on the box with a top hat and plume on the side, while cabs have men in bowler hats with a whip. There are two men pushing a board on wheels advertising tea along the edge of the road. The lanes clog at turnings, where two-wheeled hansom cabs and four-wheeled growlers queue quite patiently. Nearby is a stoppage where a horse has slipped on the cobbles and men are placing sacks all around so the horse can regain its footing. Pedestrians negotiate the roads at their peril, old gentlemen with canes and top hats, little messenger boys with cropped trousers and working women with tight-waisted coats dodge in and out of the bustling traffic. But there is a kind of method to it, Lottie says, as everyone seems to know what they are about. And where on earth are
I feel the ground shake when a rocketing eruption comes from the train as it lets off steam. Those with ears must suffer. Lottie tells me a porter is asking Father to carry our luggage, but we only have the picnic box and Father shakes his head, saying to Lottie that he will not be forking out money to someone to carry a basket when he can quite easily do it himself. Lottie tells me there is a Nestlé’s chocolate machine but we would need a penny from Father. I know she is shy of asking him, so I stop and take his hand.
‘Can we have some chocolate from the machine?’
‘How did you know about that?’ asks Father.
‘I could smell it.’ It is a white lie. Lottie and I devour the chocolate as we walk along, though Father declines.
I grab his hand. ‘Have some, Father, please!’ But he will not. Something in the quick movements of his wrist tells me that he is anxious. And I remember why we are here in London, not to have picnics or eat chocolate and other adventures. It is to see the eye doctor. I work the melting mass around my teeth as I think about what this doctor wants and why Father is nervous.
Outside Victoria station the air broadens and the rumbling chaos of my first city street assaults my senses. Father is looking for transport to the doctor’s office. I am overwhelmed by the reverberations from the pressing of huge wheels into the road, the clip-clop of a thousand horses’ hooves, the throb of machines all around, the thrum of numberless feet pounding the pavements. You may believe a deaf-blind person is immune to the teeming roar of a city street, but you would be wrong. Our sense of physical awareness is attacked in precisely the same cacophonous way. It is exhilarating and terrifying, exhausting and vital. I feel the dust and grit speckle my skin and inhale smoke and dirt and horse manure and produce of every kind.
‘Tell me everything,’ I press Lottie.
She says the wide road is packed three deep each way with carts, coaches, trams and trolley buses of every description, all drawn by horses clattering by each other with hundreds of near-misses every second. Trams and omnibuses are stuffed with passengers, the upper deck reached by a half-spiral staircase with a rail, topped by mottled crews of men in bowler hats and cloth caps, handlebar moustaches and side whiskers, women with their hair pinned up and wide-brimmed hats furnished with cloth flowers, artificial fruit and masses of feathers. Carts are driven by men and boys with dusty coats and mucky boots, some with blankets across their knees, their goods secured with tarpaulin and rope. A coach and pair of the well-to-do is directed by a coachman and groom riding on the box with a top hat and plume on the side, while cabs have men in bowler hats with a whip. There are two men pushing a board on wheels advertising tea along the edge of the road. The lanes clog at turnings, where two-wheeled hansom cabs and four-wheeled growlers queue quite patiently. Nearby is a stoppage where a horse has slipped on the cobbles and men are placing sacks all around so the horse can regain its footing. Pedestrians negotiate the roads at their peril, old gentlemen with canes and top hats, little messenger boys with cropped trousers and working women with tight-waisted coats dodge in and out of the bustling traffic. But there is a kind of method to it, Lottie says, as everyone seems to know what they are about. And where on earth are
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