Black and grey lettering tattoo running down the spine of a bare back, partly covered by black ribbons crossed over the skin.

Lettered quote running down the spine

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A close, shallow-focus photograph of a bare back with black ribbons crossing over the spine. Fine black serif-style lettering runs down the spine and side of the back, though only fragments such as 'OF THE', 'WICKED' and 'NO EVIL' are legible. The ink is solid black with soft grey tones in the skin, and the warm, dim lighting leaves the background dark.

Lettering Back Text Quote Lettering Ribbon Spine

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mr Aske never let anyone sew a spine until they had read the whole book aloud, and the Lindqvist ledger was no exception. It came to our bench in Grimsby in the wet March of 1931, a fishing company's accounts bound in cracked calf, its spine rubbed white where a thousand thumbs had pulled it from the shelf. Aske ran his finger along the old lettering and said whoever stamped it had not trusted the sea or the men who sailed on it.

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I was seventeen and wanted to be useful. I rebuilt the headbands in silk, glued fresh linen tapes across the split spine, and tied them off in a neat criss-cross, the way Aske had shown me. When I pressed the tapes flat, the old gilt showed through in fragments: OF THE, then WICKED, then something about no evil. I asked what the rest said. Aske shrugged and said the rest had gone to the fish.

Three nights later the boats came in short. The Saint Anselm had gone out with a copy of those accounts aboard, kept for the owner's wife, and the squall off the Dogger had taken her and everyone on her. The widow came to the shop in a black coat and asked if we could rebind the ledger so she might read her husband's last entries. Her gloved hand rested on the counter. She asked me whether the spine would hold.

I told her it would. After she left, I picked out my knots, tied them again more slowly, and let the ribbons lie loose so the gilt could breathe. Aske watched from the press and said nothing for a long while. Then he took the lamp from the hook and held it over the spine, and the faded words stood up plain in the light, the last of them still sharp enough to read: NO EVIL.