Two matching black Roman numeral tattoos reading IV, heart, I, heart, VI, one on an upper forearm and one on a wrist, with a silver watch visible.

Roman numeral pair tattoos on forearms

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two people's arms are shown, each with a small black tattoo of Roman numerals IV, a heart, I, a heart and VI. The larger one sits on the upper forearm and the smaller one on the wrist, both in clean outlined lettering with solid black fill. The photograph is shot in close focus against dark clothing and denim, with a silver watch and heart charm bracelet at the left edge.

Lettering Forearm Roman numeral Heart Numeral Matching tattoo

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Now then, sit closer and mind the lamp, because this is the business of the clock on St Anselm's tower, and nobody in Porthillock tells it right after the second pint.

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When the tower was rebuilt after the gale that took the old dial, the parish sent to Falmouth for a painter. He was a careful, sour man called Edwin Coad, and he came with a boy named Tobias Penhale to hold the ladder, a thin lad who could whistle through his teeth and who had been courting Maud Trevithick down by the net lofts since Whitsun. Coad painted each numeral square and black, IV for the four and VI for the six, and he worked without a word for three days. On the fourth morning the boy stood below with the pot of paint and asked him, very politely, to put two small hearts in the gap between the one and the four and the six.

Coad told him to go and fetch the tar. The boy went, but he came back at dusk with Maud on his arm and a shilling in his fist, and Coad, who had a soft spot he did not admit to, climbed the ladder once more and painted the hearts in the dark by the light of a single candle.

The vicar complained for a month, and then the fishermen stopped complaining, because the boats that went out at first light came home by the time the hour hand reached the hearts, and the widows on the quay could see from the harbour mouth whether their men were nearly in. Tobias and Maud married in the spring. The clock still says IV, heart, I, heart, VI, and if you ask old Penhale at the Ship what the hearts are for, he will tell you the time, and then he will tell you that he is not nearly done being right about it.