Black and grey tattoo on a calf showing two cartoon figures, one in a dark cloak and one in a cap, inside a vine wreath with the words Ain't that just the way.

Cartoon pair and lettering on a calf

Traditional · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A tattoo of two cartoon figures sits inside a circular frame of leaves and vines on the front of the calf. The taller figure wears a dark cloak and the smaller figure wears a cap and carries a bag, both drawn with clean outlines and soft grey shading against radiating sunburst lines. Lettering above and below the figures reads Ain't that just the way, and the piece is rendered in black and grey on a plain light background.

Traditional Lettering Calf Cartoon character Cloak Cap Vine Sunburst Lettering Lyric

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The fog had come in off the sea at teatime, thick as porridge, and by the time Ned reached the top of the cliff path the lamp at Scarrow Point had gone out for the third time that week. Absalom Vane was already there, his cloak flapping like a crow with a grievance, peering up at the glass as though it had personally insulted him.

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'It's the wick,' Ned said, shifting the paper bag from one hand to the other. Inside it, under a twist of waxed paper, were a spare mantle and a tin of oil his mother had sent up with the post boat. Absalom took the tin without a word, which was how Ned knew he was nervous. Absalom was never nervous about lamps. He was nervous about the dark.

They climbed the iron stair together, Absalom taking two steps at a time and then waiting, Ned taking every one, until the room at the top was full of brass and the smell of paraffin. Ned trimmed the wick with hands that had stopped shaking somewhere around the fortieth step. Absalom held the lantern steady and talked about nothing: the price of herring, a gull he swore had stolen his hat in 1911, the way fog made every sound arrive twice.

The light caught, swung out across the water in a long bright fan, and the fog peeled back from the rocks like a sheet being lifted off a bed. Absalom let out a breath and looked down at the boy, and the boy looked up at the cloak that had kept his shoulders dry all the way up the hill. 'Well,' said Ned, grinning, 'ain't that just the way. Fog only lifts once nobody needs it to.' Absalom pulled the cloak tighter and said nothing, but he dug into the paper bag, found a pear drop, and held it out. That was as near to a thank you as the lighthouse had ever heard.