Read Ink by Olivia Douglass, this year’s winner of the Guardian and publisher 4th Estate’s award for unpublished writers of colour
• Olivia Douglass wins 4thWrite prize for ‘gripping’ short story Ink
Wrinkled clear film around a forearm. A menthol super-king cigarette is carried to Amy’s mouth. She takes a long, considered drag then exhales a smoke stream into cold air. It’s October and the park is dying. Her other arm wraps tightly around her waist, elbow resting on the upper side of her palm. Feet shuffling, she takes another drag, another exhale. The routine becomes meditation. A small girl on a purple BMX bike whizzes in and out of Amy’s eye line, riding the concrete waves of the skatepark. Occasionally the girl calls looklooklook what I can do. Amy looks, nods.
In Amy’s mind, all of her husband’s potential reactions play on loop. This morning she had said, make yourself useful do that washing while I’m out and swung the front door behind her before the rest of the words escaped, fucking lazy bastard. She didn’t tell him she was going to get a tattoo. He would think she was joking, like when he would sit across the room scratching his balls and her nose would coil, eyes rolling, before, you carry on mate one of these days I’m going to run away with a Nice Black Man.
