Small script tattoo on lower back

The Marigold came into the yard on Tuesday with her hull grey from a winter under tarpaulin, and Mr Askew wants her gleaming before the regatta at Dartmouth. I have spent three days with a rubber block and a tin of white gloss, rubbing back the salt until the fibreglass squeaks under my thumb. You would laugh at me. I have more paint in my hair than the boat has on her.

Nobody in the yard believes the name she was christened with. Askew says her first owner, a widow from Salcombe, chose it from a racing list in 1962 and never once sailed her. When I sanded the transom I found a pencil line under the old varnish, where a signwriter had tried out the letters before the gold leaf went on. Half faded, but I could read it: one word and a date. I copied it into my notebook. I'm not sure I'll tell Askew, because I like the idea that someone rehearsed it in pencil first and then thought better of the ink.

Yesterday, with the sun low and the hull gone bright as a plate, I wiped the last of the rag along the coaming and a loop of green thread came away in my fingers, the colour of a fluorescent sweet. Somebody's lost sail tie, most likely. I put it in my pocket meaning to throw it out, and it's still there. I'm writing this with it coiled between my fingers.

Come down at the weekend and I'll show you the pencil line. Bring the good scissors and your patience. We'll see if the word still reads once the sun has had its turn at it.