Close-up of a small black Roman numeral III lettering tattoo on the inner wrist, worn beside stacked gold and silver bracelets.

Small Roman numeral III tattoo on the wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close-up of a hand and wrist showing a small black Roman numeral III tattoo on the inner wrist, with the rest of the arm partly covered by a dark sleeve. The lettering is simple, with clean, solid black linework and no shading. The composition is tight on the wrist, with stacked metal bracelets and rings and dark green nail polish visible around it.

Lettering Forearm Roman numeral Numeral Bracelet Ring Nail polish

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ada,

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The clock on Saltcombe pier has been stopped since the storm of 1931, and Mr Pellow says the mechanism is sound but the hands have frozen at ten past three. I climbed up this morning with the oil can and my father's small screwdrivers. Inside the case the twelve brass numerals are worn almost to nothing where the gulls have roosted for years, and the third one has gone soft at the edges. I told Mr Pellow I would repaint it. He said that was not the job. The job was to make it tick.

I did make it tick, though not the way he meant. When I wound the going train the whole gear woke at once, a racket like a sewing machine in a cupboard, and the minute hand jumped to the three and shuddered there. I sat on the ledge with the wind coming up off the water and thought about you saying I never finish anything. Then I saw the pin had sheared on the third wheel, a tiny thing no bigger than a grain of rice.

I took it down to the bench and filed a new one from a length of brass rod. It took the whole afternoon. By the time I fitted it back the light had gone orange over the carousel, and the clock gave one clean tick, then another, and the hands moved on past the three as if they had only been resting there.

Mr Pellow paid me in shillings and a pork pie. I am keeping the broken pin in my purse. Come down in May and I will show you the view from the top floor of the tower, which is the best view on the whole coast, and then you can tell me I was right to stay.

Yours, Bea