Tribal arm, shoulder and chest tattoo

The dust came over the Bardsey road again on Tuesday and buried the pump island up to its knees. I spent the morning with a yard broom and Dad's old hand scoop, clearing the swirls it leaves on the forecourt concrete. You'd laugh. They come out the same every time, curling off the kerb in long black-edged loops, as if the desert is trying to write something and keeps losing its nerve halfway through.

The lorry is still under the tarpaulin behind the shed. Grandad's pattern is still on the cab doors, the one he cut with a bradawl and a tin of black marine paint the summer before he died. The lines run from the wing mirror over the bonnet and fold back on themselves at the hinge, heavy at the root and fine at the tips. Mrs Okafor from the post office says it looks like a wave that has been told to stop. I told her it looks like the road from above, which is the only way I've ever seen it.

A coach stopped on Thursday. A boy in the back with a sketchbook asked if I'd ever drawn anything on a wall. I said no. Then I thought about the paint on the doors and didn't finish the sentence, because I'd have had to explain that I'm the one who painted them, the year you left, when I had nothing else to do with my hands.

Come home at Christmas if the pass is open. I'll keep the kettle on and the broom by the door, and I'll leave the last loop on the forecourt for you to find, the one that doesn't quite close.

Ruth