White ink script tattoo reading Believe, with swirled flourishes beneath, on a forearm.

Believe script on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo spells the word Believe in a flowing script with a large capital B and looping swashes extending below the lettering. It is done in white ink, so the lines show only as pale, raised-looking marks against the skin, with soft edges and little contrast. The word is centred on a forearm photographed close up against a white surface.

Lettering Forearm Believe Script Word Swirl Flourish

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dad could letter a shopfront in a morning, but he never signed his name on anything. Mine, he said, was for the invoice. He taught me the swash on a wet Tuesday in February, the size pot gone cold on the bench, the brush loaded and then wiped on the lip of the tin so the stroke tapered like a tide going off the sand.

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The job that winter was the Sunrise Café on Harbour Row. Mrs Adeyemi wanted one word painted small above the till, in white, because gold made her eyes water and she said white was honest. Dad said white on glass was the cruellest colour in the trade, because every wobble showed and nothing hid it, so we drafted on tracing card first, pencil and patience, until the B stopped leaning like a man walking into wind.

On the last morning she stood behind us with her arms folded while I ran the final loops. The capital took Dad three goes on the glass. I watched him wipe the first two away with a rag and his thumb, quietly, as if nobody had seen. When he finished, the swashes curled down beneath the word, pale against the clear pane, and she said nothing for a long time.

Then she tapped the till with one knuckle and asked whether it would show after dark. Dad said no, it only shows when the light comes through from the street. So she opened at six every morning, before the lamps were switched off, and I still walk down early on the days I'm near Margate, just to stand outside and wait for the sun to find the word.