Colour tattoo of a pink bow with dangling beaded chains, teal and purple drops and scroll details across the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pink bow and beaded chains on upper back

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A pink bow sits at the centre of the design, with a looped ribbon tail hanging below it. Dark beaded chains with teal, purple and green droplet pendants curl outwards into scrolls on either side. Soft pink and jewel-toned fills sit within dark outlines on smooth skin, with the composition centred on the upper back.

Back Bow Ribbon Bead Chain Scroll Droplet Jewel

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The chandelier at the Palais came down the week before the Coronation dance, and Mrs Ruddock sent me up the ladder with a bucket of vinegar and a tin of Brasso to bring the glass back to life. Forty-two drops, she said, and every one counted before I came down.

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Dad had strung the chains for the old house in 1938, before the war took the good wire. He'd ordered the droplets from a man in Birmingham who sent teal and violet and a green like pond weed, because the committee wanted colour to show under the lamps. I counted them twice. Thirty-nine. The three missing had gone into the coat pocket of Lennie Fairweather, the caretaker, who was now sitting on the stage steps eating a bacon cob and pretending not to watch.

On the Friday I found the bow. It was tied to the lowest link where the chain met the hook, pink silk gone the colour of weak tea, knotted by someone who knew how to make loops that hang. Mrs Ruddock said it had been there since the dance the year the glass first went up, and nobody had dared touch it. I left it alone and worked the chains up the ladder one link at a time.

When the last drop clicked into place, the whole room went green and violet, and the bow caught the lamplight like something alive. Lennie stood at the foot of the ladder with his cap in his hands. 'Your dad would have liked that,' he said, and for once I didn't correct him about which of us had done the work. I tucked the loose ribbon end back under the cord and came down with the tin under my arm.