Black script tattoo reading "aimer et être aimé" in French across the upper chest, just below a white lace neckline.

French script "aimer et être aimé" on upper chest

Lettering · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a single line of cursive French script tattooed on pale skin. The lettering is in black ink with thin, even linework and a few tall letters that rise above the baseline. The white lace edge of a garment sits at the top of the frame, and the plain skin background keeps the focus on the text.

Lettering Chest Script Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mr Lacey wanted it in the window by Saturday, and he wanted it French. He had written it in pencil on the back of a bread bill, aimer et être aimé, and underlined the second half twice as if I might argue. I can't read French past the menu at the Crown, so I took the bill next door to Mrs Hadley, who taught it at the girls' grammar for thirty years and still corrected my spelling on postcards.

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'To love,' she said, tapping the paper with her pen, 'and to be loved. Not the same thing at all, Dorothy. Most people only manage the first.'

I mixed the gold size on the Thursday and laid the letters on the glass in black first, because black sits truer under gold and I wanted the hairline strokes to hold. The tall letters gave me trouble. The t had to rise over the line like a man lifting his hat, and the accent on the last e needed the same confident flick, or the whole thing looked like a plumber's van.

By Saturday morning the glass was cold and the frost had not lifted off the pavement. Mr Lacey came out in his apron and stood where he could read it backwards through the steam from his own ovens. He read it twice, moved his lips, and said, 'Aimez, is it? Like in the films?' I said it was close enough, and he nodded as if that settled something between us.

I left it as it was. The t still stood tallest, catching the first sun over the chimney pots, and nobody in Margate ever asked me to change it.