Black and grey full sleeve tattoo on an upper arm and forearm, showing praying hands, a cross, clouds, rosary beads and script lettering.

Black and grey sleeve with praying hands and script

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

Four views of a full sleeve tattoo show praying hands beneath a cross, rays of light and clouds, with rosary-style beads, scrolling script lettering, a compass and a hooded figure with a covered face. The work uses fine, finely shaded greyscale with soft gradients on the clouds and skin-toned highlights. Only black and grey ink is visible, and the sleeve is arranged across the upper arm and forearm.

Realism Lettering Upper arm Forearm Praying hands Cross Cloud Rosary Script Compass Hooded figure

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, you will not believe what the vicar did with the rain. He stood in the porch with his hands folded like a man about to be painted, and the whole congregation of Saltcote turned to look at the sky as if it owed them money. The bride arrived forty minutes late in her mother's car, which has a dent in the passenger door shaped like a cricket ball, and she laughed the whole length of the aisle.

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The business with the compass was my doing, I'm afraid. Ada Pell had left it in the vestry drawer for thirty years, brass gone green at the hinge, and when I found it under the hymn books I thought of her father, who fished out of this harbour and never once came home by the road. I polished it on my sleeve and slipped it into the groom's jacket pocket without telling anyone. He found it at the reception and went quiet, then passed it across the trestle table to his new wife like a dare.

Then there was the hooded man. Nobody saw him but me and Old Tom, who sat at the back with his dog. Tom swears a figure in a grey cowl stood by the font during the vows, hands tucked away, and that he nodded when the rings went on. I told him the dog had eaten the trifle and he'd had too much rum punch. Still, I checked the font twice before I locked up, and the rosary I'd left on the end pew was gone.

I've binned the trifle and put the compass back in its drawer, though I left the lid open a crack so it can breathe. Tom says the light off the water was so bright at the end that the praying hands in the east window looked like they were clapping. Write soon and tell me the cake survived the lightning. Yours in haste, Marjorie.