Colour neo-traditional tattoo of a Roman numeral clock, autumn leaves and a banner reading UNTIL THE VERY END, on the upper chest.

Clock and autumn leaves with banner on chest

Neo-trad · Chest · Colour · Photo

A clock face with Roman numerals sits inside a teal ring, with splashes of dark ink around it. Orange, yellow and red autumn leaves spread out from the right and lower edges, and a pale banner across the centre reads UNTIL THE VERY END in black capitals. Bold black outlines, soft pink and purple shading on the clock face, and vivid leaf colours give the piece a painterly finish, with a hand and a silver ring visible at the right edge.

Neo-trad Chest Clock Roman numeral Autumn leaves Banner Quote Splash

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The big clock over the proving cupboard said twenty to five when I pulled the first tray, though it has run a minute slow since Dad hung it there in 1987. He swore the slowness was deliberate, so we would always be early for the day rather than late for it. I have stopped correcting it. The Roman numerals are flaking at the six, and the minute hand has a little bend where someone knocked it with a flour sack, but it still tells me when the bread is ready better than the timer does.

October has come in hard. Somebody left the back gate open and the wind has blown half the sycamore across the yard, so there are leaves stuck to the bin lids and drifting under the bench. I swept them into a heap and then, daft as it is, kept a handful of the orange ones and pressed them flat between two cooling racks. They are on the windowsill now, going brown at the edges, next to the jar of starter Mrs Okafor keeps asking me to name.

Mrs Okafor came in at quarter past six for her usual cob and said, "You look like you've been up since the Romans." I told her I had. She laughed, then went quiet and said Dad used to chalk one line on the board every October: until the very end. I hadn't known he did that. I've been thinking about it all morning with my hands in the dough.

So I am writing to say the shop stays open. I know you wanted me to sell up. I will keep the clock slow and the ovens hot, and when you come home at Christmas there will be a loaf waiting, still warm, with the leaves pressed into the crust.

Love, Maggie