Close-up of a small black Roman numeral tattoo running vertically on the upper chest, beside a white vest top, in a lettering style.

Vertical Roman numerals tattoo on the chest

Lettering · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a vertical row of black Roman numerals inked on the upper chest, shown between a white ribbed vest top and a slightly blurred background. The letters use a clean, serif-style black ink with solid lines and no shading. The composition is tightly cropped on the chest, with the warm, soft lighting giving the photo a slightly filtered look.

Lettering Chest Roman numeral Numeral Letter

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The new lodger in number four has been painting the pier posts again, and Mr Coombes has threatened to take the price of the paint out of her rent. I told him to leave it be. Somebody in Marrow Bay ought to keep count of something, and the tide has never once bothered.

Her name is Ada Pryce. She came in February with a tin of black enamel, a folding rule and a brush worn down to a sliver, and she asked the landlady for the room with the best view of the harbour wall. Every morning since, she has walked down in her oilskin and climbed the ladder to the lowest post, where she paints a single stroke for each storm the boarding house has come through. They go up the timber in a column, one under another, like the rungs of a ladder that leads nowhere in particular. Mr Coombes says it is bad luck to count storms out loud. Ada says it is only bad luck to forget them.

Last Tuesday she stopped at the top of the ladder with the brush dripping and said she had run out of posts. I asked what she meant. She pointed at the stack and said the last five strokes were the ones she had not been able to paint until the lifeboat came back, and that she would not be painting any more until she knew who had been aboard.

She left this morning on the early train. Her room is tidy, the rule is on the sill, and the key is under the mat with a piece of card that reads I XXXXV. I have no idea what it means, so I have left the door unlocked.

Your sister, Margaret