Colour tattoo of a compass rose with loose watercolour splashes in blue, pink, green and yellow, with Roman numerals above it on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Watercolour compass rose on upper arm

Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A compass rose sits at the centre of the design, with dark blue and black points, a dotted circle and fine outlines marking the directions N, E, S and W. Soft watercolour splashes in pink, blue, green and yellow spread outwards behind it, and Roman numerals run along the top edge. The colour ink dominates the composition, and the skin around the design is shown in a close crop.

Upper arm Compass Compass rose Watercolour splashes Roman numeral Star Dotted circle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, The chart you sent back was the wrong edition, with pencil soundings where the ink should be and a rose drawn across the Skerries that no sailor would trust. I have pinned it up in the kitchen beside the window, where the light off the water throws everything into pink and blue by six, and I have been staring at it the way Father used to stare at the weather glass.

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Mrs Pryce brought her paints over on Sunday, the little cakes of colour in their tin box, and the two of us spent the afternoon washing green into the sea and yellow into the sky while the kettle boiled dry twice. She said a compass only tells you where north is, not where you are. I told her she had been reading the almanac again. Still, I took the brass compass out of the drawer, the one with the Roman numerals round its rim, and found the needle wandering a full point east of where it ought to be, the way it always did when the iron in the rock got into it.

I did not tell the relief boat that. I wrote the log as it should be, lamp lit at dusk, visibility good, and kept the compass in my coat pocket for the rest of the week. On Thursday the mist came in thick off the Skerries and I had to climb the tower to check the lamp by hand. The needle swung, shivered, and settled on the gallery door. I took that as a sign the old rock still knew its own way home, even if the rest of us had lost ours.

Come at Michaelmas, Tom. Bring the good pencils. We will draw the coast as it really lies, and you can tell me which of those splashes of colour is the mainland. I have left the lamp trimmed for you. Yours, Ruth.