Small black silhouette tattoo of a figure holding an umbrella and carpet bag, placed on the neck behind the ear, in a black and grey photograph.

Umbrella and figure silhouette behind the ear

Neck · Black and grey · Photo

A small solid black silhouette of a woman in a long dress, holding an open umbrella in one hand and a carpet bag in the other, appears to drift upwards. The figure is drawn with simple filled shapes and no interior shading, and the ink sits crisply on pale skin. The tattoo is placed low on the neck behind the ear, with loose hair framing the upper edge of the image.

Neck Silhouette Umbrella Woman Figure

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the third step, it's loose, and keep your biscuit out of the gulls' reach. Now, you'll want the tale of Hester Pell, who came down to Gannet Row the spring the Tolley boys ran through three nurses and a mattress. The advert in the post office window said plain speaking and no nonsense required, and Hester, who had never once been called nonsensical to her face, took it up with a shrug.

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She carried a carpet bag the colour of old mustard, and nobody ever saw the bottom of it. Out came a tin of tacks, a lemon for the boys' sore throats, a length of blue string, a spyglass with one lens cracked. The boys, Ned and Alfie, swore she'd pulled a whole mackerel from it once, though the fishmonger said that was a lie and he'd know. Every evening she stood on the quay with her black umbrella furled, and every evening the boys begged her to stay the night. She always said the wind kept its own timetable and she was only a passenger on it.

Then came the hard blow off the Dogger in October, the sort that lifts the tar off the slipway. Alfie ran out after a runaway crab pot and the rope round his ankle went taut. Hester caught the rope, caught the boy, and when the harbourmaster lunged for her skirts the umbrella snapped open with a crack like a sail filling. Up she went, slow as a kite, bag swinging, boots dangling, and she called down the only instruction anybody remembered: keep your feet on the ground and your heads out of the rigging.

On clear nights, if you stand where the slipway meets the lighthouse wall, you can still see a small dark shape against the moon. Ned says it waves. Alfie says it winks. I say it's a woman who knew when a job was finished, and went looking for the next one.