Typewriter quote tattoo on a forearm

The Olympia came in on Tuesday from the Dunmore estate sale, wrapped in a bedsheet that smelled of someone's car boot. Somebody had typed on it last. The ribbon was still inked, and the paper roller had a curl of onionskin stuck in it, which I pulled out with the little hook you always said I should throw away. Under the platen I found a sentence half finished, typed rather than written: find what you love and let it kill you. The e had been struck so hard it bit through the sheet, and I read it twice before I understood that the typist had meant every letter.

I know what you'll say. You'll say I read too much into a machine. But I spent the afternoon with the carriage off, cleaning the type bars with a toothbrush and a drop of paraffin, and I kept thinking about the boats going out past the breakwater at five with their lamps still lit. Your father's boat went out like that. He loved the water more than he loved us, and the water took him, and for years I thought that was a cruel joke played on us. Now I think it was only a sentence somebody finished for him.

I've put the typewriter in the front window. Mrs Abernethy wants it for her grandson, who is going to be a writer, she says, which is what everyone says about boys who stare at the harbour all afternoon. I told her it isn't for sale yet.

Come home for the Saturday. The fish van still comes at eight. Bring the ribbon tin if you still have it, and tell me what you're going out for this time.

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