Black and grey realism tattoo of orchid-style flowers and cursive script across the shoulder and upper arm.

Black and grey flowers with script on upper arm

Realism · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

Realistic black and grey flowers, including large orchid-style blooms and smaller petals, wrap across the shoulder and upper arm. Cursive script runs through the design, with the word Love clearly visible among the flowers. Soft shading and fine highlights create depth, and the composition follows the curve of the arm.

Realism Botanical Shoulder Upper arm Flower Orchid Lily Script Love

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The orchids arrived at Mrs Pargeter's on a Tuesday, in a wet cardboard box that had split at one corner, and I was the one who had to carry them up four flights because Dennis had gone to see about the boiler. Nobody ordered orchids in Scarborough in February. I knew it and so did the florist's boy, who stood in the hall dripping and looking at my shoes while I signed for them.

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The lodger in the attic room was a widow called Ilse Tanner, who came down to breakfast every morning in a grey wool coat even when the kettle was on and the radiators sang. She had a pencil behind one ear and a habit of writing on the backs of envelopes, short lines that she folded into her coat pocket before anyone could read them. I had never once seen her smile at a bill. She smiled at the orchids, though. She took the box out of my hands, lifted the lid, and said the pale ones were called lady's slippers, which I doubted, but I let her have it.

She asked me to fetch a pair of scissors and a jam jar of water, and when I came back she had pinned a page of her envelope lines to the wall above the sideboard, the ink running where the damp had got to the paper. You know the one I mean, she said, reading off it in a flat voice. Love is in your hands. Then she cut the stems on the slant, the way her husband used to, and set the blooms in the jar one by one, turning each so its best face showed to the room.

They were still standing there in March when she left without paying the last week, and I found her note under the jar. It said only that the flowers were for whoever came next, and that the room faced the sea, which was the thing I'd have wanted to know.