Two matching colour compass rose tattoos, each with a red outer ring and blue and orange points, one on each forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Matching compass rose tattoos on forearms

Forearm · Colour · Photo

Two forearms show near-identical compass rose tattoos, each a circular design with a red outer ring and a pale inner ring. The eight-pointed star is filled in blue and orange, with a black needle-style arrow running diagonally through the centre. The tattoos are shown side by side with a dark leather surface behind them, and the colour is bright and even.

Forearm Compass Compass rose Arrow Ring Star

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The brass compass had belonged to their grandfather, and in forty years its needle had never once pointed north. Tomas said it was the magnet, Dilys said it was the old man's pocket, and they argued about it the whole way down the Humber in the back of a coal lorry, sharing a flask of stewed tea and one pair of wet gloves.

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Their mother had the back plate engraved, then sold the case to pay the fare. In Hull they found a tattooist above a chip shop who could copy the rose from the lid: the red ring, the blue points, the orange star with its black needle running through the middle. He asked no questions when they paid in coins, and he worked the design onto both forearms in one long afternoon, saying it would only hold if it was done twice.

Years later Dilys signed on for a ferry to Rotterdam and Tomas stayed with the trawlers out of Grimsby. Each night, past the breakwater, they checked their arms against the lamps on the water, though neither could see the other's sea. Tomas claimed the needle on his wrist always leaned east when the weather was turning. Dilys said that was just the tea.

The winter his boat failed to answer the radio off Spurn, Dilys took the brass compass from the kitchen drawer and held it flat on the table. The needle hung still, then swung slowly to the south-east. She put her coat on and walked down to the harbour, where a boat was already coming in, low in the water and slow, with its lamp lit.