Traditional tattoo on the inner upper arm showing a red rose, a hand holding an envelope marked R.I.P. and a skull on the wrist.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Rose, hand and envelope on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A large red rose sits above a hand holding an envelope marked R.I.P., with a skull on the wrist and a lace-like patterned cuff below. The design uses bold black outlines with solid fills in red, green and blue, plus grey shading on the envelope and hand. The tattoo fills the frame across the inner upper arm, with the rose at the top, the envelope to the right and the hand in the centre.

Traditional Upper arm Rose Hand Envelope Skull

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nell, I am writing this on the back of the lock-keeper's rent book because the good paper went damp in the bilge, and I am not going to waste the last of the ink on tidying my sentences. The Mary Ellen came through Hythe Bridge at dusk with Harold's rose still tied to the tiller, the red one he kept in a jam jar by the stove, and I knew before Tom Pike opened his mouth.

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He gave me the envelope at the lock gate. Harold had folded it the way he folded tally sheets, corners sharp as a sail, and across the front in his cramped pencil was R.I.P., as if he had been making a joke and wanted me to laugh at it. I did not open it on the towpath. I carried it to the cabin and sat with it while the kettle went cold, turning it over and over, looking for a stamp that was never going to be there.

Inside was one line and a shilling wrapped in tissue. Keep the rose going, Bet. Sell the boat to the Pikes if they pay fair, and don't you dare wear black for me on the towpath. Underneath, smaller, as if he had remembered something at the last minute: the skull on my wrist is for the river, not the sea, so bury me in the cut where the herons are.

So that is what we did this morning, with the barge drifting slow past the willows and Tom's boy rowing us out to the bend. I tied the rose to the rail myself. It is red as ever and it has not wilted on the water. Come up on the train when the frost goes off. Bring your good scissors, and we will cut a new ribbon for the tiller together.