Black and grey fine line arrow tattoo with a compass rose on the upper back, with dotwork detail around the star.

Arrow and compass rose on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo of an arrow runs diagonally down the upper back, with an ornamental feathered head at the top and a compass rose with a dotted ring at the centre. The linework is fine and precise, with dotwork shading around the compass and small decorative motifs along the shaft. The photograph is black and white, framed closely on the back and shoulder with the top of the head only partly visible.

Fine line Dotwork Back Arrow Compass Compass rose Star Dot Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marguerite, the signal box at Thornwick has a compass rose painted on the inside of its door, faded to the colour of weak tea, and I have decided it is the only honest thing on this line. Everything else is timetables and excuses. Yesterday the 4.12 was forty minutes late because a heron had settled on the up line and refused to be moved, and the stationmaster took it with the solemnity of a bishop at a christening. I told him herons are the only creatures with more patience than railwaymen, and he did not laugh, which I count as a kindness.

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You asked in your last letter whether I still look north when I am lost. I do, though the needle in my pocket has been sulking since the spring, so I rely on the old arrow carved into the platform lamp post instead. It points down the valley toward Holm Cross, where you are, and beneath its feathered head someone has pricked tiny dots around the star, one for every mile between us. I counted them on Tuesday with a finger and a cold cup of tea. There are two hundred and twelve. I have decided that is a good number for a distance, neither too cruel nor too kind.

The porter's boy has started copying the lamp post's marks onto the back of his cap in biro, and I have told him that a man who knows where he is going can afford to be slow. He asked me whether that was true for trains as well. I said trains are never slow, only late, which is a different matter entirely, and he went off thinking me a philosopher.

If the 4.12 is on time on Saturday, I will be on it. Keep the lamp lit at Holm Cross. I will follow the arrow the last few miles on foot if I must.

Yours, against the weather, Edmund