The original motivation for the marks that constitute the source for Defacement Times Nine was to scratch the word ‘CUNT’, in uppercase, into the side of a van. Someone else (presumably the van’s owner) subsequently added more scratches to the lettering in order to render it illegible – hence the ‘Defacement’ of the title. The C has had a downward stroke added to the right of it, suggesting the letter D rotated by 180°. The U has been curiously underlined by a construction not unlike an angular version of itself, making it into a form resembling the linear cross-section of a goblet. The N has two horizontal marks connecting its vertical strokes to its upper and lower points, so it becomes a rectangle with a left-to-right downward sloping diagonal. The T is simply joined by two horizontal strokes that transform it into a pretty convincing uppercase E. With incredible economy of means, the second mark-maker has rendered the original word almost invisible. Ian McEwan has written a remarkable paragraph on the character of this word; it is almost a miniature treatise:

'The word: she tried to prevent it sounding in her thoughts, and yet it danced through them obscenely, a typographical demon, juggling vague, insinuating anagrams - an uncle and a nut, the Latin for next, an Old English king attempting to turn back the tide. Rhyming words took their form from children's books - the smallest pig in the litter, the hounds pursuing the fox, the flat-bottomed boats on the Cam by Grantchester meadow. Naturally, she had never heard the word spoken, or seen it in print, or come across it in asterisks. No one in her presence had ever referred to the word's existence, and what was more, no one, not even her mother, had ever referred to the existence of that part of her to which - Briony was certain - the word referred. She had no doubt that that was what it was. The context helped, but more than that, the word was at one with its meaning, and was almost onomatopoeic. The smooth-hollowed, partly enclosed forms of its first three letters were as clear as a set of anatomical drawings. Three figures huddling at the foot of the cross'.1

1.Ian McEwan, Atonement, Jonathan Cape, London 2001, p. 114.