Black and grey tattoo of an ornate oval clock face with numerals and a line of script in its scrolled frame, on the back, with a wing tattoo partly visible above.

Ornate clock face with quote

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A filigree oval frame encloses a clock face with numerals and a hand, and a line of script runs across the upper and lower parts of the dial. The linework is bold and dark with fine detailing in the scrollwork, and the shading is soft grey. The photo is taken close up, with a partly visible wing tattoo at the top edge of the frame.

Back Clock Clock face Roman numeral Scrollwork Script Quote Wing Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The ferry didn't come on Tuesday or Wednesday, so I have had more time than I know what to do with, and most of it has gone on Father's clock. You will remember it: the silver oval in the front room, with its Roman numerals crowded into the dial like guests seated too close at a wedding. Mother always said it kept better time than the church bell. It stopped the morning you left, and I couldn't bring myself to touch it, because stopping was the last honest thing anyone did in that room.

Mrs Callow came round with a loaf and asked if I had got it going. I said I had not. She said clocks want someone in a hurry for them, and nobody on Skerry has been in a hurry since the boats stopped. I laughed, but that evening I took the back off anyway, with Father's little screwdrivers and the lamp pulled close. The escapement was clean. The only fault was a single grey hair caught beneath the minute hand, and when I freed it the hand gave a small shiver and began to move.

I have set it by the wireless and by the sun over the lighthouse, which out here comes to much the same thing. It runs a little fast, which Father would have called honest. I thought you should know it is ticking again.

Come home when the weather lets you. The room is cold without you in it, but the clock has decided to keep going, and I suppose one of us ought to.

Your sister, Ada