Black and grey shaded tattoo of a vine of hearts ending in a bow, in a fine line style, on the side ribs.

Chain of hearts with a bow on a side ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A cascade of five shaded hearts of varying sizes is linked by thin looping lines that end in a small bow at the bottom. The hearts use dark outlines with soft grey shading that fades toward the centre, giving them a slight three-dimensional look. The design runs vertically down the side of the torso against smooth skin.

Fine line Ribs Heart Bow Ribbon Vine Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Snow had sealed the Hollin Gate road since Tuesday, and Maud Pickersgill had counted the paper hearts on the beam three times before the kettle boiled. Her grandmother had started the string after the great freeze of 1963, cutting a heart from the back of a seed catalogue for every stranded traveller who paid for a room with something other than money. A mended harness buckle. A mince pie recipe written on a beer mat. A glove with one finger darned in green wool. Each was tied on with a loop of black cotton, and the loose line between them swayed whenever the fire drew.

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Tonight the Drover's Rest held five guests: two lorry drivers at dominoes, a widowed vicar who took his soup standing up, a girl from Leeds with a dog and no coat, and a man called Tobias Crane who had asked for the room at the end of the top corridor and nothing else. He had not paid yet. On the bar he had left a folded train timetable from 1971, its route circled in pencil to a halt that had closed before Maud was born.

At eleven she climbed the stepladder with her grandmother's scissors. The girl from Leeds watched from the stairs, the dog's lead wound twice round her wrist. "You're not meant to cut them yourself," she said. "That's what Gran used to say," Maud answered, "but she also said the last heart belongs to whoever pays in the thing they can't bear to lose." She pinned the corner of the timetable into a fresh heart, knotted it on, and tugged the bow tight.

At dawn the plough came through and Tobias came down early to settle up. Maud pointed at the beam. He studied the newest heart for a long time, then laughed once, quietly, and asked whether the halt was still standing. It wasn't, she said. But the bow was.