Colour neo-trad tattoo of a cat in a flying helmet and goggles beside a red biplane, with the words Come Fly With Me on a banner, on the calf.

Cat pilot and biplane on a calf

Neo-trad · Calf · Colour · Photo

A cat wearing an aviator helmet and goggles sits in front of a red biplane with a visible propeller, set against pink clouds and green shading. The cat's fur is shaded in greys and browns with pale blue eyes, and the bold black outlines frame the design. The scene sits within a rounded panel, with the phrase Come Fly With Me on a banner along the bottom, and the photo is taken outdoors on a paved street.

Neo-trad Calf Cat Goggles Cloud Banner Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The band at the Starlight Ballroom in Bexhill is murdering a slow foxtrot when Ray Kettle comes through the side door carrying a flying helmet under one arm, as if the dancefloor were an airfield. You are behind the cloakroom counter counting paper tickets, and you tell him nobody wears headgear to a dance. He holds up a photograph of a tabby sitting bolt upright in a yellow biplane, goggles pushed onto her forehead, looking over the wing as though she has never once been afraid of a drop. "She's flown more hours than me," he says. "Come on. Just the once."

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He has borrowed the aeroplane from a farmer near Battle and wants to take someone up before the summer ends. You have never been higher than the top deck of a Bexhill bus. Still, the way he describes the marshes from the air, the sea laid out like tin foil and the evening clouds stacked up pink as candyfloss, makes your chest go strange. He says the cat rides up front on every flight, and he has never once lost her.

On Sunday the propeller coughs, catches, and the field at Pevensey shudders beneath your feet. Ray shouts over the engine that this is the song they were playing, and you sing the chorus into the wind until the words come apart. Halfway over the levels you look down and find the ground small and forgiving, nothing like the kitchen you grew up in. When you land, your legs feel like steps to a dance you have not learned yet.

Back at the ballroom that night you hang the borrowed helmet on the cloakroom hook beside your coat. Ray asks whether you'll go up again, and you say you'll think about it, which is what people say when they have already decided. The band slides into the last waltz. Somewhere a blue-eyed tabby is dozing in a hangar, and you are already counting the days until you hear that engine catch again.