This piece was first published in issue twenty-seven. You can buy the issue here or subscribe here.

One evening, I am speaking to my mother on the phone after work. “Do you have any plans for tonight, bubala?” she asks. “Yes, Mother,” I reply. “I am working on a new piece of writing.”

“Oh good,” she says, sounding pleased. “Is it one of those funny pieces you do about a character based on a version of yourself? Will I feature in it at all?”

“The answer is no on both counts, Mother,” I reply. “No, Mother,” I say. “I am writing”—I pause dramatically—“about tattoos.”

She does not sound as impressed as I had hoped she would. “It is not normal you should be writing about such things,” she says after a while. “I mean, what do you know about tattoos? You have not even got one.”

“But I have many interesting thoughts on the subject,” I say. “For example…”

“You would not ever contemplate getting one, would you?” she interrupts, sounding very worried all of a sudden. “Oh, Benjamin...” “Of course not, Mother,” I lie.

An awkward silence follows. There is a muffled noise on my mother’s end of the line. I worry that I have somehow upset her. I decide to diffuse the situation with humour. “Hey, Mother,” I say, “How can you tell that someone has had a tattoo they regret?” She does not know. “It is written all over their face.”

It is an effective strategy: we laugh loudly together for some time and then she asks me what I am having for dinner. Everything is back to normal.

. . .

I sit alone at my desk. A document is open, but it is almost entirely blank. I have written a title for the piece, but nothing else. The cursor winks at me from the screen, taunting me.

I just can’t seem to gather my thoughts. I look at the preparatory notes I have made over recent days. I do not recognise the person who wrote them. His jokes are terrible.

I start to wonder whether the conversation with my mother has somehow unsettled me. Perhaps she is right; perhaps I have nothing of interest to say about tattoos. No, I decide. That is not true. After all, I have often contemplated getting a tattoo, even going so far as to draw up a shortlist of likely designs. Surely this gives me licence to write with some authority on the subject?

But then why have I never followed through with any of my plans? And why did I not explain this to my mother earlier? I am getting nowhere. I decide to give up and get an early night.

. . .

That night, I have a strange and vivid dream. In it, I am lying in bed with a new partner, both of us studying each other’s bodies for the first time in the pale light of dawn.

“What is that on your backside?” she suddenly shrieks. “Oh, that is nothing,” I reply, secretly pleased that she has noticed.

“It appears to be a tattoo illustrating a scenario that many would deem misogynistic,” she says, frowning. I tell her a story about a lads’ trip to Magaluf I took at the age of seventeen, and of a drunken visit I took with my friends to the tattoo parlour. “It was a long time ago,” I say as I finish my story, “but in a funny way I have grown fond of it.”

She strokes the tattoo absentmindedly, realising for the first time that there will be a side of this sensitive, cultured and independent man that will always remain unknowable. She looks into my eyes. “I think I am falling in love with you,” she says.

I wake up with a start. I am alone, in my bed. It is dark outside and my backside is unblemished.

. . .

“It is strange, though,” I say to Seb the following evening as I recount my dream to him. “I have never even been to Magaluf. I wonder what it could mean?” “I doubt it has any significance,” Seb grunts patiently. “Dreams rarely do. Can I get you a pint?”

We have been in the pub for some time. I have drunk three pints of Indian Pale Ale and have been explaining to Seb my thoughts and feelings about tattoos with great insight, urgency and eloquence.

“You have certainly been thinking a lot about tattoos, Ben,” he says when he returns with our drinks. “Have you ever thought of getting one?” “I would like to, but I always worry that I would choose something that was not wholly representative of my personality and that I would later regret my choice but be unable to do anything about it,” I say. “And also it would also upset my mother too much.”

Seb looks at me gnomically. “You look at it the wrong way, Ben,” he says. “Tattoos are signs of lives being lived. By capturing a single moment, they can anchor us, or remind us how far we have travelled. We all have regrets, whether they are inked onto our skin, or etched into our minds. We are fools if we pretend that we don’t, or shy away from doing things because we worry that we might.”

“Seb doesn’t half talk some rot when he’s had a few,” I say to myself, but nod back sagely.

Some time later, when we have said our farewells and I have stumbled back to my flat, I stand swaying in front of my laptop as I undress for bed. The unwritten document is still open. I read the title out loud: “What the tattoos I will never get say about me.” I laugh bitterly as I turn off my computer, still none the wiser.

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