Black and white photo of a fine script lettering tattoo reading Freedom Beauty Truth Love across a person's ribs, with a dark lace band at the hip.

Freedom Beauty Truth Love script on ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph shows a person lying on their side, with the torso and back in view and no face visible. The words Freedom, Beauty, Truth and Love are written in a flowing cursive script across the ribs in black ink, with soft shading on the letterforms. The composition is close and dimly lit, with a dark lace band crossing the hip on the right.

Lettering Ribs Freedom Love Quote Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mae Dunning had the sign-writer's hands in our van that summer, and she never let me forget that a banner is only as honest as its brushwork. We were pitched on the Cheltenham field beside the dodgems and the Wall of Death, and Dessie Cole, the owner, wanted four words across the front of the Glass Palace tent before the Saturday crowd: FREEDOM, BEAUTY, TRUTH, LOVE. He'd seen them on a biscuit tin in a Leeds shop and decided they would sell tickets.

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I did the layout with a chalk line and a sheet of tracing paper. Mae rolled her eyes at my spacing, then took the brush off me. She lettered in a slanted script she had learned from her grandmother's hymn sheets, thick on the downstroke and a hairline on the turn, every capital looping back under its word as if it were heading somewhere. The paint was cream on black enamel, and it cracked in the cold, so each morning she touched the letters up with a rag and a little spit before the gates opened.

On the last night a gust took a corner of the canvas and folded the L of LOVE over the top of the awning. Dessie wanted it replaced by dawn. Mae sat on an upturned crate under the lamp hooked to the ticket box and said the word that always faded first was the one people stopped for. 'Freedom sells,' she said. 'Truth gets you a second look.' I asked which one she would keep. She didn't answer. She pulled the rag from her pocket, wet it with her tongue, and started on the L.