Black and grey botanical tattoo of a lute framed by scrolling vines on the inner forearm near the wrist, shown in a black and white photo.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lute and vine scrolls on a wrist

Botanical · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small lute sits at the centre of the design, outlined in dark ink with a rounded body and a slender neck. Ornamental vine scrolls and leaves curl above and below it, forming a symmetrical frame. The tattoo is shown in monochrome against a dark background, with two hands resting on the wrist.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Mrs Adeyemi,

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I've left the lute propped against your door on the ninth floor, the one with the cracked belly that Mr Halloran pressed on me the week before they moved him into Hillcrest. I know you asked for no music after ten, and I know the lift has been out since Tuesday, so I'm sorry. I'm only asking you to listen to the second line before you tell me it's still wrong.

He taught me the tuning by ear, sitting on the balcony rail with the lute across his knee while the ivy the council keeps trying to cut back crept up past the washing lines. He said the little scrolls carved round the pegbox were there so you'd always have something to look at while your fingers found the right note. I used to think that was daft. Now I think it's the only sensible thing anyone has ever told me about instruments.

Last night I finally got through the piece he wrote out for me on the back of a parking notice, every bar in pencil and his handwriting going loose towards the bottom of the page. Four floors down a man started banging on his pipes, so I stopped, then started again, slower, because the scrolls on the lute seemed to be asking for it. That's the whole of my news. If the caretaker asks, tell him it was my fault, not yours.

If the flat goes quiet at midnight, it's only me working out the last phrase. Leave the kettle on, if you can, and knock twice.

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