Traditional colour tattoo on a thigh showing an outstretched hand, a lantern with a flame, green leaves and a dangling bead chain.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Hand, lantern and rosary beads on a thigh

Traditional · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A hand with a dark cuff reaches toward a beaded chain that runs down to an ornate lantern with a flame inside a framed panel. Green leaves and berries frame both motifs, and a further section of tattoo is partly visible at the bottom edge. Bold colour in green, red, orange and purple sits over grey shading and dark outlines, with the design wrapping around the outside of the thigh.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Win,

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The lamp in the back parlour went out again last night, and Mrs Pardoe would not let me sleep until I had lit it with the long brass taper. She says the boats come in by it, even now that the harbour wall has its electric light, because her Albert swore the old flame was steadier than any bulb. I told her bulbs don't gutter in a wind. She only shook her head and pointed at her beads.

The beads hang from the lantern's hook on a fine silver chain, and every evening she takes them down and runs them through her fingers while she counts the lights out past the breakwater. Her hand is thin and the cuff of her cardigan is always pushed back, and she reaches for the chain the way you'd reach for a rail on a steep stair. Albert gave her those beads the winter they married, when he was still going out on the Perseverance before dawn. Nobody on Marine Terrace has ever asked whether they are for praying or for counting.

Last night the Perseverance was late. The flame sank low and I saw her face go grey in the window glass. She didn't cry. She lifted the lantern down, eased open the little framed panel, and turned the wick up so the light caught the glass, then set it on the sill facing the water with the beads looped round its handle like a lead.

At half past four the engine sounded off the point, and Mrs Pardoe sat down in her chair without a word. I have decided I will light the lamp myself tonight, and I will not tell her I learned the trick of the taper by watching her hands. Your loving sister, Dot.

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