Black and grey treble clef tattoo with ornate scrollwork and music notes running up the calf.

Treble clef with music notes on a calf

Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A treble clef decorated with ornate acanthus-style scrolls sits on the lower leg, with a column of musical notes on five-line staves curling up its left side. The linework is solid and outlined, with grey shading giving the scrolls depth, and the design is centred on a plain skin background with dark fabric behind it.

Calf Treble clef Music note Scrollwork Music

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Walter,

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The Pavilion's new pianist turned up on Tuesday with a suitcase full of scores and not one of them in the key we play. Mr Gorse, who has run the ballroom since the war, stood at the side of the stage with his arms folded and told him the dancers don't read music, they read feet. The pianist laughed, sat down, and played Ada Mellor's waltz from memory, every bar, and Mr Gorse unfolded his arms.

I have been counting bars for him since. Three beats to the waltz, and the whole floor turning like a slow clock. You'd like the notes painted up the wall by the cloakroom, the ones the old bandleader did for the Coronation. He drew the clef himself, all swirls and leaves, and the lads from the Co-op set the crotchets on the lines so they seemed to climb out of the fancy bit at the bottom and up towards the ceiling.

Last night the power cut at nine and we danced by candle, the pianist playing without a lamp, his hands carrying on regardless. Nobody left. A girl in a yellow frock stopped by the tail of the clef, that curl at the bottom where the paint has worn thin, and hummed the tune back to him as if she had been waiting her whole life to be asked.

Come home at Easter. The clef needs touching up, and I've told Mr Gorse you'll do it for nothing.

Your loving sister, Nell