Black and grey flash design of a white cartoon cat face with a black bow on its head and dark ornate tendril patterning below, on a white background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black and white cat character with bow

Mixed · Flash

A simple cartoon cat face with large dot eyes, a small nose and whiskers, drawn in white with a black bow on the top right of the head. Below the face, black ornate tendrils and scrolling filigree form a symmetrical frame with a small dark central motif. The shading is flat with light grey highlights, and a small pink accent sits in the centre of the bow, on a plain white background.

Cat Bow Cartoon character Filigree Tendril

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ada, the big top came down in Wigan on Tuesday, and Mr Vell has sold the last of the elephants to a farm near Carlisle. What is left of Vell's Travelling Marvels fits in two wagons and a van with a bad clutch. I am writing from the back of the second wagon, where I have been stitching a collar for Pearl.

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Pearl is the cat. Some of the younger ones think a cat is a poor headliner, but she has never once missed a cue. She is a white face on a painted board, two black dots for eyes and a bow the size of a dinner plate perched on her head. The collar is what I am working on now: black wire, scrolled and twisted like the ironwork on a cemetery gate. I cut the tendrils from the old funeral drapes, and the lamp throws their shadows across the canvas like wet ink.

Vell wants it finished for Saturday, when the council man comes to look at the field in Barrow. He says if the crowd sees something grand they will forgive the rest. I told him crowds forgive nothing, but they will look at a cat. Last night the bow snapped loose while I was tying off the last filigree, so I sewed it back with pink thread from your sister's wedding dress, which seemed right, since it is the only colour left in the place.

Come on Saturday if you can. Stand at the back by the tent pole. When the lamp goes up you will see her turn her head, the way she always did, and you will know that some things do not fold up just because the rest of us have.