Traditional style colour tattoo on a calf showing a grey heart-shaped padlock with a key through its keyhole, pink ribbon, orange and pink flowers, and three silver keys hanging below.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Heart padlock and keys on a calf

Traditional · Calf · Mixed · Photo

A heart-shaped padlock with ornate grey scrollwork and a keyhole sits at the centre, with a large key resting across its top. A pink ribbon loops around the padlock and down towards three silver keys hanging from its lower edge, with pink and orange flowers with green leaves on the right and left. The bold black outlines and smooth grey shading contrast with the flat pink, orange and green colour on the flowers and ribbon.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The lock came out of the box Dad kept under the stairs, the one with the fishing reels and the tide tables. Heart-shaped, grey and heavy, the scrolls worn smooth on the side that used to face his thumb. There was no key for it in the drawer with the others. I tried the three skeleton keys from the hook by the back door, then the little brass one from the bread bin, and nothing turned. Mrs Pascoe next door says he bought it off a man on the quay the summer you went to Plymouth, and that he never said what he meant to lock.

The harbour is quiet now that the boats are in for the weekend. I walked down to the slipway this morning with the lock in my coat pocket and the pink ribbon he tied on the handle, the one you used to tease him for, faded now to the colour of cheap sweets. Gulls were arguing over a crab shell. Half the fleet is up for sale and the chandlery has a board in the window that says closing down.

I think he kept a key on him. Maybe it went over the side with the Mary Ann in 1998 when he came back with the net caught on the rudder. I've decided I don't mind not knowing. Yesterday I took the three keys up to the cottage on Church Lane, and the middle one fit the back gate, which it had no business doing.

Come home at Easter. Bring the ladder. There's a gutter that wants seeing to, and I'd like you to hold the other end.

Love, Jen

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