Black and grey tattoos on bare legs in a bath, including a rose with leaves, script lettering reading SELF and floral designs on the thighs.

Lettering and rose tattoos on thighs in a bath

Fine line · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

Two bare legs rest in a bath of white foam, with several tattoos across the thighs and knees. The designs include a rose with leaves on the outer thigh, script lettering, including the word SELF, and a flower and mandala-style motif, drawn mostly in fine black linework with light shading. The ink is black and grey, and a hand at the bottom of the frame holds a cup of coffee.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Dad,

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The kettle has finally given up in the back room, so I'm writing this at the counter of the Gull and Ledger with a mug of coffee going cold beside the till. Mrs Pryce brought in the old tin of rose-patterned cups this morning and asked if I could mend the handle on the one with the chipped lip. I said I'd try. Then I spent an hour with the glue pot instead of the ledger, which Mum would have had something to say about.

Above the bench where the fishermen sit, in gold leaf gone soft at the edges, is the word SELF. Mum painted it the summer before she left, standing on the step ladder with her tongue between her teeth. People ask what it means. I tell them it's the name of a boat that never got built. I haven't told them the truth, which is that she wanted me to look at it every morning and decide for myself what I was going to do about you.

Yesterday a boy from the trawler crew came in with a sketch on the back of a fish receipt. He wanted a rose with leaves curling round it, the same one that's stamped on the cups, and he asked whether I knew anyone who could ink it straight. I said I knew a woman in Lowestoft who could. I didn't tell him that I've been carrying your address folded inside the till drawer for nine months.

I've put the mended cup on the shelf, handle facing out, where the light from the harbour catches it. I'm posting this letter on the way home, before I can change my mind. The spoon is still in my coffee, Dad. I haven't had the nerve to take it out.

Lou

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