A man in a grey felt hat and white t-shirt, face hidden by the brim, with a partly visible dark tattoo on his upper arm.

Man in felt hat with partly visible arm tattoo

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A man stands against a plain white wall, his face hidden under a wide-brimmed grey felt hat while one hand holds the brim. He wears a white t-shirt with a distressed pocket and white earphone cables hang at his chest. A dark tattoo is partly visible on his right upper arm at the edge of the frame, and the ink appears black and grey, though the design cannot be fully made out.

Upper arm

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Wendell,

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The hat came off the towpath at Hythe Lock on Tuesday, a grey felt thing gone soft at the crown, and I have been wearing it ever since because the wind off the Thames gets into the cabin and nothing else keeps it out. Ma says a barge is no place for a man who won't wear a hat. I told her a barge is no place for anyone who hasn't learned to keep their head down under the bridges, and she laughed, which she hasn't done since March.

The owner's son came asking for it on Wednesday, a lad with white earphone wires trailing from his coat pocket, and he didn't look at my face once. He just took the hat from the nail by the stove, turned it round twice in his hands, and said the lining smelled of someone else's tobacco. I said it had belonged to a man who sold rope. Half true. He didn't ask anything more, which I respected.

What I keep thinking about is the ink. He pushed his sleeve up to tie the mooring line and there was a dark shape on his upper arm, black and grey, the edge of a wing or a sail, I couldn't tell which, and he pulled the cloth down over it before I could see more. Some things are kept for the people who need them. I left the kettle on and didn't follow him up the bank.

Hythe Lock is quiet now. Come up at the weekend if you can, and bring the good tea. The hat's on the nail where he left it, waiting for whoever comes back for it.

Yours, Ada