Black and grey photograph of a small solid black queen of spades tattoo with a letter Q on a woman's ankle, shown above a strappy high-heeled sandal.

Queen of spades tattoo on an ankle

Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a woman's leg and foot in a strappy high-heeled sandal, with a small solid black spade containing the letter Q tattooed on the lower leg above the ankle. The spade is a bold, filled silhouette with the Q set in white space, and the photograph is in black and white. The composition is tightly framed on the leg, with the shoe and polished floor below and a blurred background.

Ankle Spade Queen Playing card High heel Sandal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Uncle Ray dealt the cards on the cabin table with the lamp swinging above us, and every time the barge shifted against the lock wall the brass hook rang like a bell. I was eleven that summer and had been losing at patience for a week, so when he pulled the queen of spades from the deck and slid it under the ashtray, I knew it was mine to carry.

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"Black lady," he said. "Keeps the bad luck off the boat if somebody's holding it who can count."

I held it. The card was soft at the corners from years of being turned over by thumbs that smelled of diesel and Woodbines. Outside, the Thames ran past Teddington weir in the dark, loud and busy, and I could hear the lock keeper's dog barking at a heron.

Thing is, I did count. I counted every boat that came through on the tide that month, every fare Uncle Ray missed, every bill pinned to the galley wall. By August I could tell him to the penny what the coal would cost him. He never once asked me to sit down and do it properly.

We sold the barge in September. I kept the queen in a biscuit tin with my swimming badge and a bent key, and when the new people asked what it was, I said it was the only card I ever won outright.