Traditional colour tattoo of a woman in profile with a rose-red cheek and a scroll banner reading YOUR MY ONLY HOPE on the upper arm.

Woman in profile with banner on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A woman's head and shoulders are shown in profile facing left, with her dark hair swept into a voluminous rolled style. Bold black outlines and grey shading define the hair and face, while red blush, a yellow burst behind her head and an orange banner add strong colour. The banner crosses the bottom of the composition and carries the lettering YOUR MY ONLY HOPE.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The banner was meant to say YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE, and it would have, if Mrs Pardoe had not read the proof over my shoulder with her spectacles pushed up into her hair. She tapped the card with a knitting needle. 'Where's your apostrophe, Dennis?' I said I'd had it in my mouth all morning, which was true, and then I lettered the whole length of forty feet of orange ribbon in one go, because the Regatta Ball was on the Saturday and Lily Cutler paid in cash.

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Lily ran the Pavilion dance hall at the end of the front, and she wanted the banner strung beneath the sunburst lamp Ted had painted on hardboard the winter before, a great yellow starburst that threw its rays across the boards. I hung it myself on the Friday night, standing on a chair with a mouthful of tacks. From the floor the burst caught the orange and the black letters seemed to lean out at you. Nobody noticed the missing mark. They read it, laughed, read it again, and the band struck up.

I was still up the ladder when Marjorie Tennant came in out of the rain, her hair rolled tight under a headscarf. She looked up at the banner for a long while, then at me. 'Well, it's true enough,' she said, and went to the bar for a gin. I never asked her what she meant. I still have the proof folded in my wallet, the apostrophe missing, and I have never once been tempted to put it back.

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