Ampersand tattoo on the inner wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A single black ampersand drawn in thin, even linework with curled loops at the top, placed on the inner wrist. The ink is solid black with no shading, and the design is small and sits near the centre of the forearm. The out of focus background shows a wooden floor, black leggings and bare feet with red toenail polish.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Ampersand Symbol Swirl

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You have been sent to repaint the fish merchant's board on Kettle Street because the last sign-writer let the rain take the little symbol off the end of Gaunt and Sons. Your brush is a number three sable and the tin of lamp black has gone to crust, so you thin it with linseed on the back step and wait for it to take.

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Mr Abernethy watches from the doorway with a mug of tea going cold. 'It's the small one that wrecks people,' he says. 'Everyone thinks it's a squiggle. Nobody thinks it's a word.' You draw it the way his father taught him, a round belly first, then the two loops curling up at the top like a pair of ears listening. The line must stay even or the whole board looks drunk, and the gulls on the rail above you are already keen to judge.

By noon the harbour smells of diesel and salt. A girl from the chandlery brings you a custard cream and asks what the sign says now. You tell her it says Gaunt & Sons. She squints and says the symbol looks like a stick figure hugging itself. You laugh, because that is exactly what it is, two things held together so the weather cannot pry them apart.

When the paint sets you climb down and read the board from the cobbles. Abernethy hands you a brass key to the back room, where the old ledgers sit on their shelves, every page headed with the same small curl. 'Read the lot before you go,' he says, 'or the job's only half done.' You spend the evening under a bare bulb, tracing each name to the next, and the tide creeps up the slipway while you work.