Black and grey neo-traditional tattoo of a heart-shaped padlock with skull-headed keys and ribbons, on a person's upper back near the shoulder blade.

Heart padlock and skull keys on a back

Neo-trad · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A heart-shaped padlock with ornate scrollwork and a keyhole sits at the centre of the design, with two keys whose bows are shaped as skulls. Ribbons loop around the padlock and keys, and the shoulder blade area is visible. The shading is smooth grey with bold outlines, and the image shows no colour ink.

Neo-trad Back Padlock Heart Key Skull Ribbon Filigree Scrollwork

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ruth had the spare keys out on the kitchen table before the lift had finished groaning up to the ninth floor. Forty-one labelled hooks, one for every flat in Carrick House, and Len's old ring at the bottom of the tin with two skeleton keys whose bows had been filed into skulls by someone with more patience than sense.

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"They'll open anything," Len used to say, which was a lie, because nothing in the block had been locked properly since 1974.

Mrs Okafor's son had rung at six. His mother had died in the night in flat 9C, and the only thing she had asked for, in a note pinned to her cardigan, was that someone open the heart-shaped padlock on her biscuit tin before anyone threw the tin away. The padlock was brass, black with age, scrolled all over like a fancy gate. Nobody had the combination. Nobody had the key.

Ruth tried the first skull key and it turned with a dry sound, like a bone shifting in a sock. The shackle sprang free. Inside the tin there were no biscuits, only a bundle of faded red ribbon and a stack of postcards addressed to a Mr Samuel Okafor at a hotel in Lagos, every one unposted, every one saying the same thing in a different hand: come home.

Ruth sat on the stairwell step with the tin in her lap for a long while. Then she threaded the second skull key back onto its loop of ribbon, tied a knot the way Len had taught her, and went down to tell the son the lock had opened easily.