Three-panel photo of a black and grey script lettering tattoo on a forearm, with Arbonne foundation and a compact shown alongside it.

Script tattoo on forearm with makeup over it

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The top two panels show a grey script lettering tattoo on the inner forearm near the wrist, with bold outlined loops in the first and a faded, partly covered word in the second. The bottom panel shows an Arbonne compact, a bottle of liquid foundation with SPF 15 and an open jar of cream foundation, which appear to be used to conceal the tattoo. The photos are taken at close range in warm, indoor light.

Lettering Forearm Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Mum, Mr Tully has finally let me touch the gold leaf. Not the fascia of the Grand, which is his, but the stage-door board of the Corrigan Travelling Show, which has been wintering behind the gasworks since the elephant went to Blackpool and nobody came back for her. The show is letting go of its lions one at a time, and Mr Corrigan says the posters need freshening before the buyers come on Thursday.

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Tully showed me how the shading works. You lay the letters down in one colour, then go over the shadow edge with a thinner, darker stroke so they seem to lift off the board. He said a script has to look like a hand wrote it on the way past, not like a man sat down to it. I did the C of Corrigan four times. The fourth one he let stand, then took his own rag and rubbed a little dust into the corner of it, so it wouldn't look so pleased with itself.

The new word goes over the old one, which is the trouble. Under the fresh cream paint you can still read CIRCUS in the bones of the boards, where the old white was thinner. Mr Corrigan wanted it painted out properly. Tully wouldn't. He said you can cover a letter but you can't make it not have been written, and that the best sign men always left a little of the last man's hand showing through.

On Thursday the buyers came and looked at the boards and nobody said a word about the ghost letters. I stood by the gate and watched the late light come across the yard and find the old word coming through the new, loops and all, as bold as the day it was first written. I think it is the most honest thing I have ever painted. Your loving daughter, Edie.