Black and grey botanical tattoo of a tied bundle of lavender with roots on the upper arm, drawn in fine line.

Lavender bundle tied with twine on upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A bundle of lavender stems with flower spikes and narrow leaves is tied at the base with a knotted cord, and its roots trail off to one side. The design is drawn in fine black linework with light hatched shading on the leaves and stems. The bundle sits upright and centred on the skin, with a soft, plain background.

Botanical Fine line Upper arm Lavender Root Leaves Flower Stem

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ground under the old wash-house wall is cold in February, and you are on your knees in it, working a fork under the last of your mother's lavender. Mr Pryce from the allotments stands at the gate with his cap pushed back, watching the wheel above the valley turn slow against the grey. When the clump comes free he gathers it into a fist, shakes off the clay, and ties it with a length of baler twine. "Roots and all," he says. "Don't let them dry out. Put it in water and it'll think it's still in a garden."

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Your brother Dai has been on the night shift since Michaelmas, and the house smells of wet coal and carbolic soap. You stand the bundle in a jam jar on the windowsill above the sink. Each morning the roots have grown a little further, pale threads reaching for the glass, and each morning you check the jar before you check the kettle. Mam used to say lavender keeps the moths out of the good blankets and the bad thoughts out of the head. You don't believe her, but you change the water anyway.

On the Thursday the siren goes late and the lamp boys come up the lane in a stumbling line. You wait by the gate with the bundle held against your chest. Dai's face is grey beneath the soot, and when he sees you he stops so suddenly the man behind walks into his back. You say nothing. You just push the stems up under his nose, and he breathes in that clean, sharp smell as though he has been holding his breath since morning.

That night you plant what is left of it in an old tin bath by the back door, roots spread into the wet soil. By June there are new shoots, thin and grey-green. Dai sits on the step to watch them and says nothing, which is how you know he is home.