Colour realism tattoo on an upper arm showing a woman with downcast eyes in teal tones, with a sea turtle below her and streaks of water-like colour above.

Woman and sea turtle on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A woman's face and shoulders are shown in soft, blended shading with closed or downcast eyes and red lips, set against streaked teal and blue water-like colour. A sea turtle sits along the lower edge of the piece, rendered in orange, yellow and green with detailed scale patterning on its head and shell. The composition wraps around the upper arm, with the figure filling the upper section and the turtle grounding the lower section.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marjorie,

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The turtle came back to Porthgwidden on the Tuesday tide, and I've not told Dad because he'd have it in the freezer by supper. It was lying in the shallows below the slipway with its head turned towards the sea wall, as though it had been waiting for someone to notice it. The shell was the colour of marmalade where the sun got under the water, and the green on its neck looked like moss on a wet stone.

I went down with a bucket, meaning to bring it up the slip, but I couldn't lift a thing that old. So I sat on the wet step and talked to it the way Nan talked to the hens, about the price of diesel and the new man at the chandlery who wears his trousers too high. It opened one eye. Just one. The eye was clearer than anything I've seen on this coast, and I swear it looked at my face the way you look at a photograph of someone you used to know.

Then I did what you always told me not to do and I got in. The water was cold enough to make my teeth ache. The turtle didn't move away. We drifted together over the weed for a while, and the light came down through the surface in long, bending ribbons, and for a minute I couldn't tell which of us was the one holding still.

When I came up, the tide had turned and the slipway was empty. There was only a trail of flattened weed going out past the wall. I'm not going to write any more about it because you'll think I've gone soft, but I've kept the pebble it left on the step, and I'm bringing it to the funeral on Friday.

Love, Ros

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