Black linework tattoo of a walking pilgrim with a staff and a dog, set among clouds and waves, on the upper arm of a person in a blue tank top.

Pilgrim with staff and dog on upper arm

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A pilgrim figure in a hat and long cloak walks with a staff, carrying a pack and followed by a dog, on a small patch of grass and rock. Clouds, sun rays, waves and tufts of grass fill the background, all drawn in black outline with fine hatched shading. The design is in black ink only and wraps across the upper arm and shoulder.

Upper arm Shoulder Staff Dog Hat Cloud Wave Grass Sun rays

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The rain has not let up since Tuesday and the market on the quay has turned to soup. Mr Pritchard's awning gave way over the cheese stall, so I've been selling eggs out of a bread crate. You'd laugh. Yesterday a man came up from the causeway with a staff, a pack on his back and a brown dog at his heels that looked more drowned than he did. He wanted nothing but a bowl of broth and to know whether the tide was turning on the far path.

I told him the tide does what it likes in March. He laughed at that, properly, and paid me from a pocket of coins with holes in them. The dog ate the crust off my palm and then sat on his boots as if it had been waiting years to be claimed. He said they had walked from the chapel at Skerrow Point, and that the dog had chosen him at a ferry queue and would not be talked out of it.

Then he said something I keep turning over. He said a pilgrim never really arrives anywhere, he only gets further along. The sun came out for about a minute over the harbour wall, throwing thin bands of light across the wet stones, and then the cloud shut again like a lid.

I've put a jar of your favourite marmalade in the post with this. Don't eat it all on the train. Come home at Easter. The boat should be dry by then, or at least the awning will be.

Love, Nan