Skull and crossbones finger tattoos beside skull rings

The shop on Brewer Lane shut at nine, but Mr Okonjo let me sweep the back room until the lamps went out, and that's where I found the tin. Forty rings, tangled like fishing hooks, all of them grimed black from years in a damp drawer. Most were plain bands. Three were skulls, one was a coffin no bigger than a thimble, and a little one with round ears looked as if it had been cast for a child who never came back for it.

I polished them at the bench with a cloth and a bit of rouge while the buses coughed past the window. Okonjo came through at half eleven, saw me hunched over the coffin ring, and said nothing for a long time. Then he told me the crossbones were the old sign for a sailor who had come home. Mostly they were a promise that you'd reach the port before the tide turned, and he said the same to every boy who ever learned the trade from him.

I asked which ones were sold, and he laughed and said none of them were ever sold, only lent, and the lending went on until someone's hand grew too large or too thin. I think that's why I'm writing. I put the rings back in the tin tonight, every one, and left the lid off so the cold air could get at the silver.

Tomorrow I'll tell him I'm staying on. Don't wait up.

Love, Tom