Black and grey suspension bridge tattoo with small lettering on a forearm, shown in a black and white photograph.

Suspension bridge on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph of a clenched fist and forearm against a blurred grey background. The forearm carries a suspension bridge drawn with fine black linework and light shading, with small lettering above the deck. Partial lettering reading DON'T is visible on the upper arm at the right edge of the frame.

Forearm Bridge Lettering Fist

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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The wind came up the estuary again last night and the whole deck sang like a struck wire. I stood on the north tower with a flask and counted the hangers the way Dad taught us, two by two, until I lost my place near the middle span and started again. Forty-one years the bridge has carried lorries across the mud, and the rivets still knock when the tide turns. The foreman says we'll have the new paint on by March if the gulls leave us alone.

The stencil on the deck still reads EL 308, same as when Grandad's crew first poured it. Nobody remembers what it refers to. Mo reckons it's a survey number for a drowned barge. I told him it's a bridge, not a grave, and he said that's exactly what a grave would say. On Tuesday we found a biscuit tin under the approach ramp, full of old pennies and a card that said DON'T LET THEM CLOSE IT in pencil, in a hand like Dad's. I've put it in the site office drawer and haven't decided whether to tell anyone.

I went out at low water to look at the pier footing, and the sand had shifted enough to show old hand-cut steps going down into the silt. Whoever cut them knew the tide better than the council does. From the bottom step I could see the whole span lying on the water upside down, the cables sagging into their reflection so the two halves almost met. It looked finished from down there in a way it never does from the road. I'll come up on the Sunday bus. Save me the good end of the loaf.

Love, Tom