Two matching pastel scallop shell tattoos with black outlines sit on the upper arms of two people, placed side by side.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Matching scallop shell tattoos on two arms

Upper arm · Colour · Photo

Two arms are shown close together, each with a scallop shell tattoo. The shells have bold black outlines, with ribbed lines and soft shading across the fan. The colours are pastel pink, lilac, teal and green, and each shell sits near the centre of its arm against plain skin.

Upper arm Shell Scallop shell Seashell

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The tide was already turning when Nan handed me the first shell, and she said the trick with scallops was never to look for them but to wait until one looked back. We were on the slipway at Cullen with our trousers rolled, the wind pushing grit into our eyes. My cousin Dess had come down the steps late, sulking about a row with her mum over a borrowed coat, and she stood at the edge of the wet sand refusing to bend down.

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Nan found three more before Dess gave in. Pink and lilac ones, the ribs ridged like a comb someone had run through the sea, and a teal one so pale it was nearly grey until you tilted it. She told us the fan was for carrying water, or for shading your face, depending on which pilgrim you asked, and that a scallop shell was sewn onto the hats of people walking all the way to Santiago so they'd know they were nearly there. Dess asked how many miles that was. Nan said further than the bus, and far enough that you'd want company.

We swapped our two best ones that afternoon, sitting on the harbour wall with our feet dangling. Dess gave me the green, I gave her the purple. Nobody said anything soft about it. Years later, when Dess rang from a hospital corridor in Aberdeen and asked whether I still had mine, I told her it was in my jacket pocket, where it always was, and that I'd wait until she was home before I took it out.