Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a seated tabby cat with a small heart on its chest, set over fine geometric circles on a forearm.

Seated tabby cat with geometric circles on a forearm

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A seated tabby cat faces forward, with its head, striped body and paws shaded in stippled black dots and fine lines. A small unshaded heart sits on its chest, and thin overlapping circles and straight crosshair lines form a geometric backdrop behind the cat. The design is centred on a pale forearm against a dark, blurred background.

Dotwork Geometric Forearm Cat Tabby cat Heart Circle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Mam,

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You will laugh at me, but the cat has finally settled. Mr Oddie's tabby, the one we call the Reverend because he sits in the drawing office as if he were paid to, has taken to lying square on the big plan of the Kelso glebe. He does not stir for the compass or the lamp. He sits on the circles Mr Oddie scratched in last week, the ones meant to find true north along the boundary wall, and he looks at us as though we were the ones in the wrong place.

Mr Oddie says it is a sign. He is a hard man with figures but soft on animals, and he swears the white patch on the Reverend's chest is shaped like a heart, which is why nobody has ever had the heart to put him out. Yesterday the chainman, a lad called Tam Gilchrist who has no sense of direction, asked why we did not simply move the cat. Mr Oddie only tapped the crosshairs with his pencil and said the cat was already where the line ran true.

We worked late with the lamps turned low. I inked the crosshairs fine as hair, the way he taught me, and each time I finished a circle the Reverend stretched, yawned and I had to start again. By midnight I had the bearings checked three times and not one of them disagreed. Mr Oddie came to the bench and laid his hand flat on the paper beside the cat, not touching him.

Here is the thing I did not expect. The old wall, the one the Haldane family have sworn was theirs since Flodden, sits a full chain east of where the cat sits. Mr Oddie folded the plan, tucked it under his arm and said we would walk it at first light. I think he is right. I think the cat knew before any of us did.

Write when you can. Tell Dad the Reverend sends his regards, which is nonsense, and that I am eating properly.

Your loving son, Robert