Traditional style tattoo of a grey stylised profile face within an oval frame with orange scrollwork, orange flowers and black leaves, on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Traditional profile face in an oval frame

Traditional · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A stylised profile face in grey and black shading with red highlights sits inside an oval border. Orange scrollwork curls along the top, while a cluster of orange flowers with grey centres and black-and-orange leaves runs down the left side. Bold black outlines and flat, saturated colour fill make the design read clearly against the pale skin, shot straight on against a dark textured background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The brooch came back to the hall in a biscuit tin, wrapped in a handkerchief that smelled of camphor. Nobody at the reunion would say who had left it on the trestle table, only that the face inside the oval was Agnes Coyle's, who had sat two desks from them at Saint Brigid's and had never once been seen to laugh.

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The silversmith in Kirkby cut her profile the winter she turned sixteen, the story went, because she asked him to make her look like someone who had already left. He gave her the scrolls along the top, the orange flowers down the side, and leaves shaped like little flames. She wore it to the bus every morning. When her father moved the family to the coast, she pinned it inside her coat and left her name off the register.

The old women say the brooch keeps its flowers fresh while its owner is away. Gerald Dunning, who had been the cleverest boy in the year and was now a magistrate, said it was rubbish, and then he went quiet and counted the petals with his thumb. Every flower had two grey eyes at its centre, and every one of them was turned toward the door.

At the end of the night Gerald put the brooch back in the tin. He did not take it home. He left it on the sill for whoever came next, and the lid was still rattling when the caretaker turned out the lights.

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