Dora
One of two girls who pick Gordon Comstock up outside a Tube station on the night he spends Julia's five pounds. She takes charge of him, hauls him away from Ravelston, gives the taxi driver the address, and gets him and his money as far as a hotel room with a framed picture over the bed and an aspidistra on the bamboo table.
Her two pounds. She asks for it early, asks again in the room, and gets it whether or not the evening amounts to anything.
The book
At a glance
- One of the two girls Gordon meets on the night of the five pounds
- Two pounds, paid whether or not anything happens
- Chapter 8; recalled in Chapter 9
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeDora and Barbara come up to Gordon Comstock while he is standing drunk by a Tube station waiting for Ravelston to catch a taxi. George Orwell describes the two of them as hard yet youthful faces, like the faces of young predatory animals, with blackened eyebrows and hats that are vulgarer versions of Rosemary's. Gordon, it turns out, already knows their names.
When Ravelston takes his arm to steer him into the taxi and home, Dora takes the other and hauls him out of reach as though he were a stolen handbag, and demands to know what business it is of his. She wins. The taximan takes his direction from a nod of hers. At the hotel the cross-eyed chambermaid seems to know her, and it is Dora who says mind the step.
The room is the point of the chapter. Lino on the floor, a gas fire, a huge double bed with vaguely dingy sheets, a framed colour picture from La Vie Parisienne over it, and on the bamboo table by the window an aspidistra, which is the plant Gordon has spent the whole novel declaring war on. Her question — half wheedling, half menacing — is about her present. Nothing happens; Gordon is too drunk. He tells her she will get her two quid anyway, because they are not paying by results, and then falls off the bed.
How the book draws them
- The introductionTwo hard yet youthful faces, like the faces of young predatory animals, with blackened eyebrows and hats that are vulgarer versions of Rosemary's, appearing out of the blur Gordon's evening has become.
- "What bloody business is it of yours?"Shouted at Ravelston when he tries to get Gordon into the taxi. She hauls Gordon out of reach as though he were a stolen handbag, and Ravelston, who is incapable of anger, gives way.
- Who is steeringThe taximan takes his direction at a nod from Dora. She knows the hotel, and the cross-eyed chambermaid there seems to know her.
- The presentHer one demand, made half wheedling and half menacing, leaning over him with her youthful, rapacious face and blackened eyebrows.
- The roomLino, a gas fire, dingy sheets, a picture from La Vie Parisienne over the bed, and an aspidistra on the bamboo table by the window, in the one place in London where Gordon least expected to meet one.
- What she bringsThe Chianti bottle off the dressing-table, when he asks for it. He drinks it lying down, slides off the bed and hits the floor, and that is the end of the five pounds.