A reckless god

Secrets and ink

I used to keep clippings from newspapers and magazines. Actual clippings. I still have them. They are in a drawer of doom and on my list of things to sort along with:

• fixing my depression

• finishing my book

• opening my post (3 weeks and counting)

I rarely work from home now as I need the discipline of getting to my studio, even if I don’t get there early and it takes me hours to get going. Better there than not. But yesterday I did work from home and once I had piled the mountain of unfiled paperwork off my desk into a box where it will probably stay for years, I noticed this clipping. It is one of my favourite pieces of writing. I may have posted a picture of it before but here it is. It is from the Observer which even now unlike the Guardian has manages to resist filling its pages with vacuous millennials thinking they are the first people ever to have a baby or want to dress differently or wanting to bully everyone into using particular pronouns. Talking of which, my mate Juliet posted this on Zuckerbook and quoted her friend Gia saying, correctly, that he should have won a PhD for this. #dosomething

The clipping was of a column called True Confessions, which consisted of readers writing in with a story. And this. What a story.

They think I’m a lonely spinster. But I have a secret.

By Carolyn Thompson

I live alone. Sometimes, I sit for hours in silence except for the ticking of my father’s old clock and the soft sounds of my own breath and body. I am 45 years old, female and alone. I cared for my parents for many years and now they are gone. I have never been married. I feel that I have given up on many things but I regret few of them. I no longer believe, if I ever did, that love is a solution to anything.

Every weekday, I leave my quiet house and go to work in the same office where I have worked for many years. I noticed that now most of my colleagues are younger and they have many things that I don’t have and don’t want — marriages, affairs, divorces and Thai kick-boxing classes. They tell me about their lives before they leave to take better jobs, promotions or new careers. Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of something in teir eyes when the look at me. What is it? Pity? Laughter?

I am healthy. I eat well and treat myself to good wine. At first, when I saw my body falling with age, I was depressed. Now I try to embrace my sags, wrinkles and lines. Nevertheless, I am glad that my skin is still soft and smooth. Yet today, there is a distinct tightness and tenderness low in teh middle of my back so that I take care as lean back in my chair.

This tenderness pleases me. I know that very soon I will go again to the mirror, take off my shirt and turn until I can get a good look at my back. This is what I want to tell you. My back is covered by a tattoo of a turquoise and sea-green seahorse. His horned head rests on my left shoulder; his finned tail traces my lower spine. He is my gift to myself and my compensation for the quiet clock ticking away my quiet life.

For the past six months, after the Thursday accounts meeting, I have left my office early and walked into the old part of the city. I turn along a dim alley which leads to the tattoo studio. Inside, I sit in front of the tattooist, turning my back to him and baring my skin.

At first, I hear the soft hiss of his breath and then only the nagging singing of the needle. I feel the sting and pressure it causes. I am soothed and comfrted by the soft, regular wip as the artist cleans the excess ink and blood from my skin. Sometimes, passers-by peer in through the dim windows. I look straight into their eyes and they turn away.

I have watched others taking this step. I have seen giggling girls arrive in packs to have Chinese letters tattooed on their ankles or thighs. Just last month, I watched a young man’s firm, muscled body constrict in pain as red, black and bloody flames grew slowly around his stomach and side.

But I have seen others like me take this pleasure and pain and wrap it inside them like a secret treasure. I have recognise the soft smiles on their faces as they remove their shirts and sit again in front of the tattooist. Their faces firm up in concentration and I am sure that I have a seen a secret pleasure leaking from their eyes. Today is Thursday. And today my seahorse is complete. He is my glowing secret, a blue-and-green, smooth-and-scaly version. I will carry him on my back forever. I feel that I have sacrificed by own plain skin to some older, more reckless god.

I have sometimes wanted a tattoo. I thought perhaps a swallow, because I am entitled to it as I have crossed the equator by ship. But then I read that is a standard prison tattoo. Otherwise, I can’t think of anything I could be sure I wanted to live with for forty years. And 90 percent of tattoos I see are awful. The seahorse, though, would be in the ten percent. Or maybe not.

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News

I haven’t given a talk for such a long time. Both The Big Necessity and Ninety Percent of Everything reaped dozens of talks and lectures. It was fun and I loved doing it. Nine Pints? Hardly any. I think it’s because it fell between the medical profession, who scorned a “popular” book, and the general public who thought it too medical. Dunno. Anyway finally again I get to go somewhere interesting to talk to interesting people. I’ll be in conversation with the journalist Sonia Pellizzari, for the Conversazioni sul Futuro (Conversations on the Future) festival in Lecce, Puglia. I speak Italian, but I don’t think my Italian is good enough to talk of leeches or plasma or blood fractionations. So I’m compromising: I’ll do a reading in Italian as Nine Pints was translated as Breve Storia del Sangue by my charming Italian publishers Codice Edizioni. But then I’ll talk in English and maybe some Italian. Una miscela. Una macedonia.

(Sorry, that screenshot is huge. But all the better to see all those lovely packs of sanitary towels made by women using Menstrual Man’s machines.)

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Animal hero of the week : Finn

In 2016, PC Dave Wardell and his dog Finn were chasing an armed suspect in Stevenage. The PC shouted at the suspect to stop. He shouted, “Police officer with a dog! Stop! Stop or I’ll send the dog.” The officer noticed that the suspect, who was young and fit, was carrying something that he thought was a police baton.

The suspect didn’t stop. Instead he tried to climb a fence, and Finn grabbed his lower leg with his mouth. He pulled and pulled, and pulled the man off the fence. The man fell onto grass on his front, but then turned over onto his back.

“I took hold of Finn’s collar and told the suspect: ‘You need to stop listening to me. You need to stop fighting my dog.’ Suddenly, something caught my eye. It was a massive piece of dark metal which he appeared to be pulling from Finn’s chest. It was covered in blood. It was a knife – as thick as a ruler. It was ridiculously huge, like a hunting knife – the blade alone must have been 10in long.

‘You’ve just stabbed my dog!’ I gasped. ‘You piece of s***!’ Now the man lunged forward towards me. I had no time to react, but Finn did. He tugged harder on the man’s leg, shaking it violently. All the suspect managed to do was slice open Finn’s head, and as my hand was close by, he sliced that open too.

Finn still hadn’t let go, even with a ten-inch blade that had sliced open his head. When the suspect had finally dropped the knife, then help arrived, PC Wardell ordered Finn to let go. He then noticed that his dog’s belly was also covered with blood.

The officer dashed to the nearest 24-hour vet. Finn was breathing shallowly, his lungs were damaged. Finn was transferred to a centre with better facilities.

It was almost 4am when a police van arrived to take us there. Despite or because of the morphine, Finn became agitated, so to keep him calm I tickled his ear and whispered soothing things to him.

He survived. (By the way the suspect was 16 years old.) For more, read this extract from PC Wardell’s book “Fabulous Finn: The Brave Police Dog Who Was Stabbed And Came Back From the Brink.”

Finn is an extraordinary dog in his own right. For years, he topped the police league table of arrests. But because of his injury, he also changed the law. The suspect was sentenced to only four months, for assault on a police officer, possession of a knife and also possessing a pellet gun. For stabbing a police dog twice, he was not charged. It didn’t count as an offence.

Finn’s Law came into force on 8th June 2019.

This new legislation, coupled with the government’s plans to increase maximum sentences for animal cruelty offences to five years in prison, will make sure those who harm service animals are punished accordingly.

According to the group which led the campaign for this law, more than 100 other service animals have been injured since 2012. This includes injuries such as being beaten with an iron bar, kicked or hit by a car.

The amendment of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 means that it now became an offence to harm service animals.

The government also increased the maximum penalty for animal cruelty to five years. Not enough, of course. But don’t get me started on the inability of justice to be delivered for women, girls and animals.

That wasn’t the end of Finn’s legacy either.

The dog also appeared in the 2019 series of BGT, alongside Mr Wardell, where he wowed the judges with his magic tricks and mind-reading skills.

Finn died last year, aged 14. Good dog, Finn.

Postscript: Also in 2023, Dave Wardell was investigated for police dog welfare issues, but cleared. The person who writes the photo captions for The Comet really needs to think harder.

What is a former dog?

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