Black and grey rose tattoo on a woman's forearm, shown in a mirror selfie while she squats in an oversized grey T-shirt.

Rose tattoo on a forearm

Botanical · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A woman squats in a grey oversized T-shirt and takes a mirror selfie, with her face hidden behind the phone. Two shaded roses in black and grey run along the upper forearm, with soft grey shading and fine detail in the petals. The tattoo is the main focus, set against a plain grey wall and wooden floor.

Botanical Realism Forearm Rose Floral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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The boat came in on Tuesday with the post and no roses, which Mr Cassidy blames on the weather, though I suspect he forgot to order them again. So I have planted what I could in the lee of the yard wall: two bushes from the cuttings Gran sent over in a biscuit tin, wrapped in wet newspaper that smelled of the Ardrossan harbour. The salt has been trying to kill them since May.

They are not the red you remember. Out here the light turns everything to pencil, and the roses have gone grey at the edges and black in the folds, like the harbour drawings Father used to make on the back of the tide tables. The petals curl back on themselves the way the lids of old letters do. I find I prefer them that way, though I would never say so to the Ferguson girls, who think a rose should smell of something.

The left bush gave its first bloom at the end of June, one flower on a stalk no thicker than a knitting needle. Mr Cassidy came out with his pipe, stood by the wall for a long time, and said nothing at all. Then he cut it with his penknife, carried it up to the lamp room and set it in the glass beside the brass polish. When I went up with the flask that evening he had propped a card against the jar. It read, in his square capitals, FOR WHOEVER WATERS THESE.

Tell Mother the second bush is coming on. I have stopped watering it so it will learn to find its own water, the way you and I had to. Write soon, and tell me whether the Glasgow shops still sell that grey wool.

Your loving sister, Mags