Black and grey realistic tattoo of a portable record player with a vinyl record and floating musical notes on the forearm.

Record player and music notes on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A portable record player with its lid open sits on the forearm, with a vinyl record on the turntable and a tonearm resting on it. Several musical notes rise from the top of the player, and a wavy line curls up from the open lid. The tattoo uses soft grey shading and fine dark outlines to show the metal, the lid and the case handle, with a dark background behind the arm.

Realism Forearm Music note Music

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ruth had been told twice to leave the case alone. It sat on the landing of Mrs Pardoe's boarding house in Saltcombe, its handle worn pale where a man's fingers had gripped it for years. Mr Finch had left it behind when he went down to the pier on Tuesday and never came back for his dinner. He owed eleven shillings. Mrs Pardoe wanted it taken to the pawnbroker in Market Street, but the lid was latched with a brass catch, and nobody had the heart to force it.

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On Thursday, with rain running down the sash, Ruth unfastened it. Inside, the felt lining had gone the colour of weak tea. A single record sat on the turntable, its label soft at the edges. She lifted the arm the way she had seen him do it, and it settled with a small click. Strings first, then a man's voice, thick with cigarettes, singing about a boat that never came in.

She sat on the top stair with her knees under her chin and listened to the whole side. The notes seemed to climb out of the open lid and hang in the damp hallway, and she half expected them to drift down to the parlour, where the other lodgers were losing at cards. When the record ran out, the arm drifted back and rested, and she saw that the groove had a scratch near the centre, a crooked line like someone had drawn it with a fingernail.

Ruth closed the lid, fastened the catch, and carried the case down to the hall. She set it beside the front door with the handle turned out, where anyone coming in from the rain would see it first. Mrs Pardoe came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands, and asked what on earth she thought she was doing. Ruth said only that the boat had come in after all, and that Mr Finch would know where to find it.