Two black line-art deer tattoos, a doe and a stag with antlers, on the inner forearms of two hands held together against a black background.

Matching deer tattoos on two forearms

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two forearms are held together with palms up against a black background, each carrying a single-line black tattoo of a deer. The left deer is a doe with its head turned back over its shoulder, and the right is a stag with a full set of antlers. The fine, sketchy linework is in dark grey-black ink with no shading or colour, and the two designs are placed symmetrically on the forearms.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ink was still weeping when Mairead tied off the ferry ropes on the quay at Skerrin, and you kept blowing on your forearm as if that would dry it faster. Up behind the chandlery the bracken had gone the colour of rust, and the two stags that came down each October to drink from the harbour burn were already restless. Your brother Tam had sailed on the Morag Lee at first light with four hands and a bag of salted bread, promising he would be back before the herring left the bay.

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Mairead had drawn the designs on the back of a tide chart in the net loft. One stag held his head high with the antlers spread like a bare winter hedge. The doe stood a step behind him, glancing back over her shoulder as if she had heard her name called from the hill. 'She's looking for him,' Tam had said, pressing your arm flat on the bench. You had laughed and said she was looking for the way home. He only smiled and said that was the same thing.

The wind swung round to the north and stayed there. Each evening you walked out to the end of the breakwater with the lamp in one hand, and each evening the Morag Lee stayed beyond the point, a grey smudge that never got bigger. Fishwives counted their tallies and went quiet. Mairead stopped coming to the quay and sent up soup instead.

On the fifth morning the boat came in under a torn sail with only three men aboard. You stood among the gulls and the coiled rope, and when Tam's empty place on the deck came level with you, you looked down at your arm. The doe was still turning back over her shoulder, patient and sure. For the first time you did not look back at the hill. You looked out at the water, the way she did.

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