The Thirteenth (3 page)

The pain was so intense she wasn’t sure if she could ignore it any longer. She needed some form of painkiller. She had also decided to tell her mum and dad about her arm, even if it meant a visit to the dreaded doctor’s; she simply couldn’t go on like this. Val rubbed her arm forcefully in the hope that it would help and headed downstairs.

“Happy Birthday!” Sue and Mike chorused. They were standing with their arms spread wide to welcome their little girl on her very special birthday. When Val failed to respond, Susan’s expression changed and she began to lower her arms.

“Dear me, Val, you look terrible. Are those the clothes you were wearing yesterday?”

Val looked down. Her mum was right; she hadn’t even changed. “Mum, Dad, I have got loads to tell you. Just let me change, OK? I think I might need to see a doctor.”

Val turned and started to go back upstairs. Susan was about to follow when Mike grabbed her arm. “She said she will tell us when she comes down, give her some space. She is eighteen now.” Susan nodded in agreement, but wasn’t happy.

Val made it back to her room where she grabbed some clothes before heading to the bathroom and turning the shower on. Pulling her top over her head, she peered into the steam-hazed mirror. Was that dirt on her arm? She looked harder, as she walked towards the mirror. As she got closer, she rubbed the steam that had formed and nearly passed out with the shock.

There was a huge black mark on her arm. Val rubbed it vigorously. It was not only massive; it was a tattoo and not just any old tattoo. It was exactly the same as the zodiac circle she had seen in the window of that man Shane’s parlour, and on the book in the shop. Then she realised that this one was slightly different: inside the circle was another symbol that wasn’t on the others.

It was a sort of a backwards ‘y’ with a dot in the centre. As Val took in the enormity of what she was looking at, she heard her mum’s voice calling up the stairs.

“Everything OK, Val? Do you need any help?” This was the last person she wanted to see her new acquisition.

“No I’m fine. I will be down in a few minutes, Mum,” Val answered.

“OK honey, I love you.” Susan’s voice was shaky. Val knew her mum was worried and if she saw this, she would become hysterical. Val jumped into the shower pumping the soap onto her hands, trying in a vain attempt to scrub it off. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. This even beat being kissed, aged ten, by Barry Green a.k.a. Mr Halitosis behind the bike sheds.

This was supposed to be one of the best days of her life, what was going on? Suddenly she was scared and for the first time in her life she knew she would have to deal with this alone. Her parents would never believe her if she told them a tattoo the size of a saucer had miraculously appeared overnight. Maybe this was what being an adult was all about.

Val jumped out of the shower, her arm now sore from the scrubbing. Throwing on her jeans and a long-sleeved Superman top she hurried downstairs.

“OK, what’s going on? Why do you need to see a doctor?” Mike demanded, hoping to get an answer before Susan over-reacted.

Val had to think quickly. “I was feeling a little unwell, dodgy kebab, but after that shower I’m feeling a lot better.” Please buy it, she thought, smiling from ear to ear. “Come on, where are my presents?”

Mike and Susan looked at each other. “You had us scared, Val. Don’t do that again, OK? And why eat a kebab when I had left you dinner?” Susan clearly didn’t entirely believe what Val was saying, but it was Val’s birthday and at least she seemed OK now, and that was what really mattered.

Within a few minutes, they were all looking at the many presents Val had received and, for now, she knew she was home and dry.

“OK family, got to go, working girl and all.” Val kissed her parents as always and made a dash for the door. Mike unexpectedly grabbed Val’s arm and her heart almost stopped beating.

“Give me a hug. You are still my little girl, you do know that, don’t you?” As he wrapped his arms around Val, the pain in her arm became torturous.

“Don’t be late tonight. There is a lot to do before the party, OK?” Susan called, but Val was gone.

She ran down the road with tears burning in her eyes. Wiping them briskly, she managed to compose herself. The last thing she needed was it getting back to her mum that she had been seen blubbering in the street.

By the time Val got onto her bus, her arm had finally stopped hurting so much. She sat down, unable to watch the world go past today as she had other things on her mind. Luckily for her, the local vagrant didn’t feel like sitting next to her and moved a seat further down. ‘How thoughtful,’ she said to herself. ‘Now I can only smell him.’

When she arrived at her stop, she leapt confidently from the bus. She knew exactly where she was going next. She ran across the road, then stopped when someone sounded their horn about an inch from her head. The driver of a red ford truck was about five feet away from her and glaring furiously at her. Val smiled and mouthed an apology, but kept moving across the road. “Focus Val,” she told herself.

As she got closer to the tattoo parlour, she felt a pang of apprehension. Was she doing the right thing coming here, and what could he do to help her other than recommend a good plastic surgeon? It was already too late; her legs had carried her to the front door and straight into the arms of Shane Walker.

“Hello again. Wow, two days on the trot. I will be thinking you want a tattoo if you keep coming.” He smiled but his expression changed when Val started to cry. “Hey, what’s wrong? Come inside.” For some reason, Val knew that this man, as enormous as he looked on the outside, was gentle on the inside. She walked in with him, crossing a black and white chequered floor, and sat down on the barber-style chair he offered her.

“What’s so wrong that you have come to a stranger crying?” Shane asked.

“This appeared on my arm last night.” Val lifted her sweater sleeve to reveal the tattoo.

“Wow, that’s some seriously good art work, I have to say. I couldn’t do better myself. So, apart from being grounded for life, what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know how it got there.” Val’s eyes filled up again. “It’s my eighteenth birthday today and I woke up with this.”

“Well I have to be honest with you, you aren’t the first person to wake up with a tattoo on an important birthday.” He made drinking motions with his hand.

“No, I wasn’t drunk. That’s not supposed to happen until tonight. This has just appeared out of nowhere, you have to believe me.”

Val was so intense that Shane knew she believed what she was saying.

“OK, let me have a good look.”

Val lifted her sleeve once again to reveal her tattoo and Shane put on his gloves and looked at it more closely. “This is strange. Sorry, what’s your name?”

“I’m Val. Sorry that was rude of me.” Val blushed.

“Don’t worry.” He smiled reassuringly. “This is a normal zodiac circle, but I don’t recognise this symbol in the middle. Do you?”

“No.” Val looked blankly at it.

“OK, let me take a transfer then I will find out some more information for you if you want.” He waited for some sign of agreement.

“Yes. Thank you…”

Shane placed the clear paper on Val’s arm and had just started to copy the image when they heard a clock chime.

“Oh no! What time is it?” Val looked around hunting for a clock.

“It’s nine. I’ve finished. You can go, but come back later. OK? I will see what I can find out and should have something for you by then.”

“I’m late again so pray that my boss isn’t at work. Thank you, Shane. I will see you later.” Val’s eyes started to fill up again. Shane touched her arm and smiled, and all of a sudden Val didn’t feel quite so alone. She hurried onto the road, looking this time for traffic, and sprinted all the way to work with her fingers tightly crossed.

She arrived to find the shop in darkness. This was excellent; Wallace must still be away. Finally, something was going her way. Hopefully this would have a snowball effect on the rest of the day.

She unlocked the many locks on the front door. This was how she imagined it must have felt trying to break into Alcatraz. She then chuckled to herself as she entered Wallace’s date of birth into the alarm, listening as its beeping came to an immediate halt.

She seemed to have packed a lot into the morning, and it was still only just after nine o’clock. She was warm after her frantic rush to the shop so she went to the water cooler and poured herself a cold drink, not caring today how old the water might be. It tasted great.

Just then, her mobile began ringing; it was Delta.

“Hello crazy Yank chic,” Val chirped down the phone.

“I’m not singing so don’t hold your breath. Happy birthday and all. Get anything good?”

Val looked down at her arm and felt the irony. “Where are you, Delta? We need to talk as soon as possible.”

“Italy. Why? What’s wrong? You sound odd.”

Val didn’t want to tell her over the phone; she would never understand. “Don’t worry I will call you in a few days, when you get here, and we can catch up on everything then. OK?”

“Fine. Did you get my present?” Delta asked.

“No. Did you post it?”

“Oh, was I supposed to do that bit myself? Isn’t that Maria’s job? Not to worry, we can go shopping when I get there.”

“OK, speak to you…” The line went dead before she could say ‘soon’ and Val was alone again. She put away her phone and stood looking around the shop. What to do now? The book. Yes, she needed to look for the book with the picture of the zodiac circle.

Val walked impatiently up and down the aisles, looking for the book. She knew it hadn’t been sold as to date, she had made a total of four sales and the book hadn’t been one of them. That didn’t mean it couldn’t have been stolen, although that would just be very bad luck. Once again she looked at her arm, ‘
Let’s not tempt fate,’
she thought.

Val ended up spending most of the morning and early afternoon looking for the book, in between attempting to polish. Just as she was beginning to lose the will to dust one more thing, the doorbell rang and someone entered. Val got her bearings and made her way to the front of the shop.

“Hello,” Val said, greeting the young blond woman with a smile.

“Hi. I hope you can help me. I’m looking for a first edition James Joyce ‘The Dubliners’ for my fiancé. It’s his birthday soon and I’ve heard that if anyone has it, you do.” Val tried to give the impression that she knew what the girl wanted, although really she didn’t have the foggiest clue.

“Please feel free to browse while I go and see if that book is in stock.”

“Thank you.” The woman set off across the shop and Val took her sorry self behind the counter trying to work out how she was going to get out of this one.

She vaguely remembered from her interview that Wallace had mentioned a stock list, not computerised, because he’d said he didn’t trust computers. It must be here somewhere she thought, eyeing the various drawers and cupboards that lay under the long shelf-like desk that made up the counter, but it refused to give up the secret of the stock list.

Why had she taken this stupid job anyway? Oh yes, because it was the only one she’d got an interview for. Not even the mighty McDonald’s had given her a call back.

Val started to look through the books knowing that it would only be a matter of time before the woman realised that she didn’t have a clue what she was doing and walked out. Val followed the aisle to the back of the shop, where she stood looking blankly at the ‘new religion’ section.

Snapping her out of her miserable reverie, Val heard the front door bell ring again. Great! More unhappy customers. Maybe if she stayed here forever she would never have to tell her parents about the huge tattoo on her arm or disappoint Wallace with his slowest week ever.

“Happy Birthday, Val.” What a joke! As she stood bathing in self-pity, Val felt a burning pain in her arm, but this was not the same as the previous pains. “Hey a little variety in pain can’t hurt,” Val said, annoyed that there was more to be added to her disastrous birthday.

When she lifted her sleeve, she saw that one of the symbols looked as if it was on fire. From her limited zodiac knowledge, she presumed that the symbol showing two fish was something to do with water. Why, she wondered, was it that just one symbol seemed to be alight?

Her concentration was once again broken when she heard a noise that sounded like a muffled scream. Her attention was drawn behind her to what looked like a reflection in the window. She could just make out a blurred image of the woman who had come into the shop, and she was being held down by a large man.

He heart thumping with fear, Val moved nearer to the glass to get a better idea of what was going on. As she did so, her pump caught on one of the old wooden floorboards and she tripped, forcing her to use her hand on the windowpane to stop herself from falling face first into the glass.

As her hand touched the pane she felt a strong pulling sensation that went into her very core, and then everything went dark. When she opened her eyes, she found herself standing at the front of the shop feeling quite dizzy and looking down on a man trying to strangle her customer. She wanted to know how she had arrived here, but the gravity of the woman’s situation seemed more important. Although the woman was struggling, she was most definitely not winning the fight. Val’s instincts kicked in and she leapt onto the man’s back like a wild animal. If she had been given time to think, maybe she would have come up with something better, but it was the best she could do.

The man stood up with Val clinging to his back, and she saw the enormity of her problem. The man was at least six and a half feet tall. At that point, he threw her off effortlessly. She felt a deep pain in her back as she collided with the water cooler, her mobile spilling out of her pocket and smashing into pieces against the wall.

“Damn,” Val hissed, looking up to see him attacking the woman once more. This was making her really mad, though she was pleased for a second that she had left the new mobile phone her parents had bought her for her birthday safe at home, charging.