The Illustrated Mum Read Free Page A

round his neck, whispering in his ear.
    I turned my back on her and looked at the wall of flash. They had all the usual designs on display, most of them pretty boring stuff, dragons and tigers and skulls and basic Celtic designs. I could understand why Marigold got so sick of tracing out the same designs again and again. No wonder she sometimes gave the dragon flame-breath or the tiger a little cub or placed a perky little wig on top of the skull.
    She was still wound round Steve. He soon weakened.
    “OK, OK, I'll do your cross. Only no shrieking the place down. I don't want you frightening away any potential customers.”
    “I won't even whimper,” she promised.
    Steve tinkered with his needle bar, bunching the needles at various angles.
    “You're a genius, Steve,” Marigold said, tracing her cross design onto duplicating paper. “No one can ink like you.”
    “Flattering witch,” he said, wiping her arm with alcohol and then spraying it with soap and water. He carefully stuck the duplicating paper down, rubbed it all over and then left the picture in place.
    “You're sure, Goldie?”
    “Surer than sure,” she said, taking my hand with her free right arm.
    Steve rubbed Vaseline over the design, poured out a capful of color, put on his rubber gloves and started the machine.
    I couldn't look for a long time. I held Marigold's hand tight as tight, while her nails dug a deep groove in my palm. Her eyes were watering and she bit hard on her bottom lip, but she was as good as her word, not making a whimper.
    The machine buzzed loudly. Steve whistled tune-lessly through his teeth, his way of concentrating. He stopped every now and then and sprayed Marigold's arm and dabbed it dry.
    I dared look. I saw the black line of the cross taking shape. It took well over an hour before it was finished. Two customers were kept waiting but Steve let them see what he was doing and they watched, fascinated.
    “Right. Done!” Steve said at last.
    Marigold got up very slowly, straightening her arm with extreme caution. The front of her shirt was damp with sweat. Her face was chalk white but when she saw the new cross tattoo in the mirror it flooded pink.
    “Oh, Steve, it's going to look wonderful!”
    “It's your design, babe,” said Steve, coating it with special ointment.
    He went to wrap it in a bandage but Marigold stepped aside.
    “Let me look a minute more.” She craned round to examine every detail.
    “That's a truly cool tattoo,” said one of the customers. “I reckon it would look great on my lady. Will you do a cross on her exactly like that?”
    “I'll design her own personal cross, if that's what she'd like,” said Marigold. “But this one's mine.”
    She let Steve put the bandage on and then grinned at me.
    “This one's mine too,” she said, ruffling my hair. “Come on, Dol. See you, Steve, darling.”
    He was busy breaking the used needles off the bar and putting the equipment in the sterilizer.
    “Don't forget this,” he said, pointing to my card.
    “I don't need the design. It's permanent now,” said Marigold, tossing it in the bin.
    “It's on the back of your birthday card,” Steve reminded her.
    “Whoops!” said Marigold, retrieving the card. “Sorry, Dol.”
    “It's OK,” I muttered.
    “Hey, you're not going to go all sulky on me too, are you? It's my
birthday
. We're going to have
fun
,” said Marigold.
    It didn't really work. Star was barely speakingwhen we got back. When she saw Marigold's bandage she screwed up her face in disgust.
    We had the rest of the birthday cake for lunch. Marigold bought wine for herself and juice for Star and me.
    “So we can all drink to the birthday girl,” she said. She drank her wine in less than half an hour and then said she felt a little sleepy. She curled up on the sofa, her arm carefully out to one side. She fell asleep in the middle of a sentence.
    Star stared at her.
    “She only drank so much because her arm hurts,” I said.
    “So whose fault is