Pencil sketch of a woman's face framed by a fan, with a rose at the bottom and a flower in her hair, drawn as a neo-traditional tattoo design.

Woman portrait with rose and fan design

Neo-trad · Black and grey · Flash

A pencil drawing shows a woman in profile looking upward, with curled hair, a small hat decorated with a flower, and a bubble-like detail above. A large open rose sits at the base of the composition, with leaves and petals extending outward. The linework is fine and sketchy, with soft cross-hatched shading on the face, neck and hair, and a fan with rays and wing-like shapes frames the figure on the left.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Win,

Keep reading

The fan came in on Tuesday wrapped in a copy of The Times that had been used to line a boot, and I nearly put it straight in the bin. Ribs of ivory gone the colour of weak tea, a guard cracked clean through, and the leaf painted with a pale wing that might once have been a moth or a gull. Mr Aske from the Pier Arcade wants it ready for Saturday. He says the lady who owns it asked for nothing but the rose to be seen again.

I started on it at the bench by the north window, where the light holds until four. The rivets came out easily. Under the rib closest to the spine I found a folded slip of card, and on it, in pencil so faint I had to tilt it to the lamp, someone had written a row of numbers and then the words "meet me where the hat shop was". No name. I have thought about that all week. Who keeps a thing like that tucked against their own fan?

I am writing because of it, I suppose. You always said I was the one who kept the old things and never the people. So I am sending you the slip, and a pressed petal I found beside it, dark as a plum. Come up to the shop on Saturday if you can. I will have the fan finished and the guard mended, and we can decide together whether the lady ought to have it back or whether it has waited long enough to belong to us.

Love, Dot

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