The Copperplate Name

Text 1: A Line of Ink, by Mira Fenwick

An original short story extract.

Saira Malik arranged the tools before she opened the book: ruler, pencil, cloth, ink, nib. They waited beside her in a precise row. Under the white circle of the desk lamp, she drew guidelines so faintly that they seemed to disappear as soon as she made them. Then she turned the nib towards the light and examined its point.

She dipped it only as far as the narrow vent and touched it once against the rim of the bottle. The first downstroke flowed across the page, a black ribbon drawn through still water. Her fingers lifted, turned and returned. Each letter grew from a sequence of measured movements, broad where she pressed, fine where she released. Soon the empty page held three names, then six, then nine.

Halfway through the tenth, a knock rattled the door. Saira’s hand stopped; the ink did not spread. She held the nib above the unfinished curve until the corridor was quiet again. Only then did she complete the letter, joining its two lines so neatly that the interruption left no scar.

From the doorway, the finished names looked printed. Close to the page, however, every one carried its own tiny variations: a longer sweep, a narrower loop, a final stroke shaped to the space that remained. Saira closed the ink bottle and cleaned the nib before she allowed herself to look at the whole page.