Black ink drawing of a tattoo design with a keyhole plate, chain links, ribbons and a key, shown on a white background with no body part visible.

Keyhole, chain and ribbon design

Black and grey · Flash

A vertical design showing an ornate keyhole plate at the centre, with chain links wrapping around it and ribbons twisting through the composition. A key with a decorative bow hangs at the lower end, and scrollwork and leaf shapes fill the gaps. The work is drawn in fine pen linework with hatched shading on the ribbons and chains, in black ink only on white paper.

Keyhole Chain Ribbon Key Scrollwork Lock Bow Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You learned the lock at Stoke Wharf before you learned the name of the boat. In February the top gate paddles stuck, and your uncle would stand you on the balance beam with the windlass and tell you to feel for the give, the moment iron stopped fighting and began to turn. The brass plate on the lock cabinet had a keyhole shaped like a pear someone had leaned on, and the key that fitted it hung from a length of ribbon your aunt had knotted into a bow. A key without a bow, she said, was just a bit of iron waiting to be lost.

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The barge was called Patience, and nobody who worked her said the name without grinning. She lay against the bank on a chain of six links to each ring, orange with rust where the water licked it. Every evening you wound the ribbon round the stern chain twice, then once more for luck. Every morning it had frayed a little more, the blue faded to the grey of wet slate, and you retied it anyway, because retying was part of the job.

The spring the council sold the lock house, a man in a good coat came down the towpath to collect the keys. You had the key in your pocket. You stood with the wind lifting the ribbon end like a small flag and found your fingers would not open. He offered money, then offered more. You offered him the chain instead, the one that had held Patience through every flood since your uncle died, and he laughed as if you had made a joke.

When he had gone you untied the bow with your teeth, the way your aunt used to, and dropped the key off the lock beam. It turned once in the brown water and was gone. The ribbon you kept, folded small, in the drawer with the windlass grease. Some nights, lying in the cabin with the boat knocking softly at the bank, you still feel for the give, and wait for something to turn.