Ruin by Emma Hislop

Author:Emma Hislop
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Victoria University Press
Published: 2023-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Doctor Ink

By the time Sinead found out Joe was married to Kaylie and they owned the print studio, the sex was already there, or it wasn’t there yet but it was arriving. Something about the secrecy had excited them in a good way, not a secret exactly but not discussed. Sinead had taken a beginner’s class with Joe. There was something about him. Those deep-set eyes and long eyelashes. She’d booked private instruction to perfect her lithography technique, and he’d offered her a job. The studio was called Doctor Ink and ran workshops and held events, as well as printing T-shirt and tote bags for businesses. Sometimes art students used the space and there was always music. It felt like an exciting place to work.

She looked at her phone. She was lying in bed, in the exact spot the printing press used to be, recalling Joe washing down screens wearing latex gloves. The cracked leatherette seats had stuck to her thighs. She could still see the indentations in the floor left by the wash troughs. At the end of the room, the doors opened into what had been the washout room. Joe’s mountain bike was propped up against the wall. This made her remember the finances again and she opened the banking app. She transferred the amount for the new gallery into Joe’s account, more than she’d had in her entire life, and waited for the payment to be confirmed.

The house was so quiet, she would just stay here. It wasn’t like her to lie in; there were so many jobs, but she wasn’t used to the lack of interruptions, or the absence of noise. She’d been so tired lately, fainted at work – low on iron. It had been quite nice, disappearing for a little while.

Afterwards, Joe had suggested they go out for a steak, even though she was vegetarian. He was always joking around, so different from Sinead’s other boyfriends. She’d always gone for men who took themselves too seriously.

Joe had left to pick up the glass for the new gallery window before she was awake, and the house was cold when she eventually got up. Moving into the print studio was her idea. It made sense. She’d sold her house, and they were using the money to set up next door to the old studio, just an espresso machine and a gallery space with a limited number of prints. Joe had called it a fresh start and Sinead agreed, without saying out loud that it was more than that, it was her investment, her chance to make something of this. It was what it represented: the thing she had worked so hard to hold onto. The new place would be in Sinead’s name. She needed to show the community and Kaylie that she’d won. This was a small town. They needed to stick it out. The long tables and stools from the print studio had all been sold now, and the little stage where Kaylie once stood for the screen-printing demonstrations dismantled.

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