Black and grey traditional style tattoo of a mermaid sitting in a clawfoot bathtub inside an ornate oval frame, on the thigh.

Mermaid in a bathtub inside an ornate frame

Traditional · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A mermaid with long hair and a fringe sits in a clawfoot bathtub, her scaled tail curling up behind her, within an oval border decorated with scrolls and a flared frame. Bold outlines are filled with soft grey shading on the scales, hair and tub, with small bubbles scattered around the figure. The design is centred in the frame and sits on the outer thigh, with the image showing only black ink and grey tones.

Traditional Thigh Mermaid Bubble Frame Scale Tail Hair Scroll

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody at the reunion remembered the mermaid except me, which surprised me, because she hung outside Mr Pryce's chemistry lab for the whole of the sixth form and we all walked past her twice a day. She was a cheap print in a gilt oval frame, a woman with a fringe sitting in a clawfoot bath, her scaled tail curled up behind her like a question mark. Bubbles rose past her shoulder. Half the boys in our year had tried to make her blush with a biro.

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The reunion was in the old swimming baths on Holm Street, now a gym with a bar at the shallow end. I found Mr Pryce beside the drained pool, ninety and sharp as a cut lemon, holding a glass of warm prosecco he was not supposed to have. "They took her down when the lab was refitted," he said. "I kept her. Somebody should." He lifted the frame off the nail and a little cloud of old dust drifted out of the back.

Under the brown paper someone had written names in pencil, dozens of them, each with a year beside it. Some were crossed out. Some had a small tick. The earliest was 1962. Pryce said the girls used to write a name when they had something they could not tell anyone, then slide the paper back, and the mermaid kept it until the bath was emptied. My name was near the bottom, in my own handwriting, dated the week I failed my chemistry mock and cried in the corridor where nobody could see.

I did not remember writing it. Pryce only smiled and said, "She keeps things, that one." When I hung her back on the nail, I could have sworn the bubbles had climbed a little higher up her shoulder.