Colour tattoo of two cat silhouettes seen from behind, outlined in black, sitting on a lower leg against pink, purple, blue and orange splashes.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two cat silhouettes with colour splashes

Ankle · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows two seated cat silhouettes side by side, seen from behind, with their tails curling at the base. The cats are left unfilled, so the skin shows through, and they are outlined in black with soft, sketchy linework. Loose splashes of pink, purple, blue, orange and yellow surround them in a rough circle, creating a watercolour-style background.

Ankle Cat Silhouette Paint splash

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hold your tea, Dilys, I'm getting to the cats. Two of them came aboard at Falmouth in the spring of 1889, a grey tom called Pudding and a white queen named Sixpence, who would not be parted from him and would not be picked up by anyone who wasn't the cook. Every evening they sat side by side on the taffrail, tails curled round their feet, looking aft at England going grey behind us.

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Off the Horn the sea went mad for nine days. We lost the foretopsail and a boy called Ned Carew went over the side in the dark and was not seen again. Mr Ashby swore the cats knew before any of us. Pudding would not come below, and Sixpence sat on the hatch staring at one stretch of water that looked no different from the rest. When we finally put the helm over and went back to it, we found Ned lashed to a spar, half drowned and too stubborn to die.

The ship's painter, a miserable Dutchman called Hendrik Vos, spent the calms trying to paint them. Each sunset he dabbed his brushes in whatever colour the sky had turned that night, rose and violet and gold, bruise blue, and each time he went to fill in the cats his hand stopped. 'Leave them clear,' the captain said, 'they're the only things aboard that know where they're going.'

So that's why they're empty in the middle, Dilys. Something for the sea to show through. Now drink up, the watch is changing, and mind the one on the rail. That's Sixpence, and she'll have your fingers if you stand too close.