Tattoos
- INT. TATTOO STUDIO – EARLY AFTERNOON, 2019
A tattoo needle is heard as the title card [‘TATTOOS’] appears. Fade in from black. A tacky, yellow vintage radio is playing tinny orchestral music: ‘Jerusalem’ by Charles Parry, on a cluttered old sideboard. LUCY (24) is sat having a tattoo on the inside of her left forearm, silently wincing. She has short hair dyed a bright colour. Unable to bear watching anymore, she turns her head and watches the radio. The ARTIST (38) wipes some stray ink off LUCY’s arm, nods at her and goes over to the desk. LUCY looks down at her new tattoo – a set of delicate arrows, all in black.
The music fades out…
FADE TO:
And back in…
- INT. CATHEDRAL – EARLY EVENING, October 2012
An organ plays the same music as SCENE 2 but the sound is far crisper. FAYE (18) is singing her solo. The church is lit by candles and electric lights in a strange mix of modern and ancient that is not quite comfortable.
In the choir stalls behind FAYE, standing, is a school choir, with LUCY (17) standing in the middle. She has long hair, dirty blonde, a shy girl. She is staring intensely at her sheet music. The choir members are dressed in red blazers and red pinstripe skirts, all ill-fitting. All through the scene the piece, first with lyrics and then without, continues.
Voices are inside LUCY’s head, distorted and echoing, but still intelligible. LUCY’s accent is a non-regional English accent, not impossibly posh but from the Midlands, the Cotswolds or the Wye Valley region.
FAYE
They really don’t hurt that much. I think you’d suit one.
LUCY
Really? Not sure I’m really the type.
FAYE
(mock offended)
What you saying about me?
LUCY
You know what I mean
FAYE
I do.
LUCY
My mum’d kill me.
FAYE
Just don’t tell her.
The sound of a cigarette being lit.
Music fades out.
- INT. MACMILLAN CENTRE RECEPTION – NOVEMBER 2012
In her school uniform, LUCY waits for her friend in her mother’s workplace. The reception is clinical and the doors are all closed. It is poorly lit but everything is visible.
Two people leave on the rooms and LUCY smiles at them, which they return, and shuffles a little to get out of their way. She bumps into long poster on a stand. On it is examples of tattooing being used to cover or incorporate scars, with the words ‘what can tattoos do? Ask us about complementary tattoo sessions’. LUCY smiles.
After a short wait, her friend GEM (17) comes out of the kitchen and drags her through the front door.
- INT. TATTOO STUDIO – EARLY AFTERNOON, 2019
Cut back to the tattoo parlour. LUCY examines her new tattoo again. Without much conversation, she pays him and leaves. Outside is grimly dark and grey in a small city, she hurries towards the bus stop. Her smile quickly fades into a sad expression. Fade to black.
- INT. LUCY’S TEENAGE BEDROOM – LATE EVENING, 2019
Fade in, with shouting heard over the top. Open on a framed, slightly faded photograph of LUCY (6) with her MUM (33). Her mum, NORA (now 51) is banging on the door.
NORA
For God’s sake, Lulu, open the door.
LUCY
I’m twenty-four. It’s a tattoo; get over it.
NORA
(A growl of frustration)
Why did you have to get it there? You’ll never get another job! Your dad and I didn’t work that hard to send you to a good school for you to-
LUCY
For fuck’s sake
(instantly regretting her outburst)
Sorry.
- INT. LUCY’S TEENAGE BEDROOM – EARLY EVENING, 2019
A single street light outside clicks on. Music plays from her speakers. The room is well-loved, not untidy but not immaculate, 2000s era-appropriate posters and memorabilia are present but not too prominent.
LUCY (24) is naked in front of her mirror, watching her body as if she is expecting it to do something. She runs her hands over the tattoos on her hips and the large ones on each thigh. Snotty crying, happy laughter and screams, sharpening blades and the snapping of rubber gloves overlap as a distorted soundscape as fade to an idyllic Christmas scene.
- INT. LUCY’S FAMILY LIVING ROOM – MID MORNING, 2014
A softly lit living room, a family are opening presents. Silence except gentle piano music over the scene. The scene moves slowly through a montage of Christmas things – Buck’s fizz, croissants being handed out and eaten messily, wrapping paper littering the living room, nice outfits specially bought for the day, sitting at the dinner table, far too much food for present company, with AUNT HELEN (42), Nora’s sister, and JOAN (68), LUCY’s grandmother. The conversation has moved to tattoos. This is not the first debate they have had that day.
JOAN
Speaking of, have you seen that model recently?
LUCY
Not personally, no.
NORA
Lucy! Sorry mum, what model?
JOAN
Oh, you know the one. She was in that film. With that one from Men in Black. Kayla somebody?
LUCY
Cara Delevingne.
JOAN
That’s it! Oh, she’d have been so beautiful if she hadn’t done that to herself. So many pretty girls, ruining their bodies.
LUCY
Some people like them, Gran. I like them. Not sleeves, just little ones.
NORA gives LUCY a look of warning.
JOAN
(disgusted)
Oh, Lula, no. Don’t get tattoos, will you?
Fade out.
- INT. NORA AND HARRY’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
The room is dark and the shadows seem to move. Nora sleeps with her face to the door. The room is impossibly neat.
LUCY enters, facing her mother. She grins, flicking the light on. Her face is fully covered with a criss-cross of blue ink, with the words ‘take that, mum’ on her forehead.
Nora’s breathing grows heavier as Lucy moves towards her.
Nora opens her eyes and looks at her daughter silently for a few seconds before she starts to scream.
CUT TO:
Nora is awake in the dark, her husband still asleep. She pants and then shakes her head, laughing at herself and turning over to go back to sleep.
LUCY (VO)
I didn’t believe her when she told me about it in the morning. She had to be making that up.
I guess dreams are just funny like that.
9 EXT. LUCY’S PARENTS’ HOUSE – EARLY MORNING, 2014
Two swallows fly after each other, landing on a telephone wire outside LUCY’s house.
LUCY (VO)
So, it wasn’t quite a full face of blue ink.
She jumps onto her bed and grabs her sketchpad, starting to sketch out the design, two swallows diving towards one another.
I wouldn’t say I got them out of spite. Well, alright, I did, the birds anyway, but spite is such a horrible word. I wanted them.
Maybe I wanted to be them.
10 EXT. EXMOUTH BEACH – MIDDAY, 2018
LUCY (23) sits on the beach in a bikini, running her hands over her thighs. It is windy and cloudy. There are similar sized tattoos on each leg – about 5×5 inches, black ink, one is a mandala and one is a lily – she views them as matching, although they are not the same.
LUCY traces short, erratic lines over the lily, but not the lines of the ink.
Her friends, SAM (24) and FLORA (23) grab her arms, laughing and they run off down the beach. Freeze. The clouds part and the sun breaks over them.
LUCY (VO)
They’re like twins.
Two sides of the same coin. Relief. I was never much of a linguist but these deserve something better than ‘I thought they were pretty’. So here goes.
It might be a stretch too far to say I love everything that they represent. No, like yin and yang there is light in the dark and dark in the light – trust me, I thought of having that on me somewhere – but, in a way, they are my proudest achievement.
11 INT. LUCY’S BEDROOM – EVENING, 2011
LUCY is crying. She is sat on the floor at the end of her bed. The room is obsessively clean and tidy. She wears a pair of blue nitrile gloves and her head is in her hands.
There is blood on the gloves and when she notices she panics.
LUCY
Shit.
She stands up and rips off the gloves, shoving them to the bottom of her bin. She squirts sanitiser liquid on her hands and then puts on another pair of gloves from a box.
Nora knocks on the doors. Annoyed, LUCY takes off the new pair of gloves and hides them under her duvet. She opens the door to her mum, smiling.
12 INT. LUCY’S BEDROOM – EVENING, 2014
Fade to her sketching out the mandala on her left thigh in the bedroom from SCENE 4 AND 5, papers discarded around her, charcoal and ink on her fingers. She is smiling but concentrating solidly.
LUCY (VO)
I was decorating myself finally, rather than covering something up. This one was special. The others were an impulse – like chopping off your hair or buying a new car, just my thing that I did when I needed a change.
The mandala always spoke to me. It’s chaotic but ordered at the same time. Each line feeds into the next.
It wasn’t the last one I’d ever have. But it finished something.
- INT. LUCY’S BEDROOM – LATE AFTERNOON, 2011
Cut to LUCY (16) sat on the edge of her bed, breathing heavily. Her lip wobbles and her face is pale and blotchy from crying. She is on the verge of a panic attack. She is wearing the gloves again.
LUCY (VO)
I’ve come to love it, but I’ve got no idea if it’s what I really wanted. It all happened so quickly.
- INT. SPA SWIMMING POOL – JUST AFTER MIDDAY, 2014
LUCY and NORA are lying on loungers silently, avoiding eye contact and breathing heavily. They both swimming costumes but Lucy covers her legs with a towel. Nora reads. Around them, children laugh and a hen party celebrates.
The sound grows louder and more high pitched until it seems to press on Lucy and it cuts to silence.
LUCY (VO)
I didn’t mean for her to find out. I didn’t mean to do it, if we’re going on intentions. It just…happened. It wasn’t deep or anything, it never hurt too much.
I think she was scared for me.
I had a bad few years there. It went as quickly as it came but it was too late.
(beat)
I’m not ashamed. Why should I be? She asked me how I could possibly have done it. Why would I do it. In her mind, it should never be seen. I think that might be more important to her than it not happening at all.
Still, I covered them anyway. My birthday spa day was in February and Easter my lily was healed. Sort of. It bled – a lot.
FADE TO:
12. INT. TATTOO PARLOUR – 2014
LUCY is sat on a rickety exam bed that is covered in cling film. It is the same parlour from the SCENE 1, except the designs on the wall are fewer and different. An ARTIST (33), the same from the first scene but visibly younger, leans over her leg, concentrating.
He sits up, changing his ink. She looks down at the half-finished outline of the lily – it is bleeding, noticeably but not ‘a lot’.
LUCY begins to look panicked and breathes heavily. When the artist looks around, she stops and lets him keep going.
LUCY (VO)
I really thought I would die that day. Blood poisoning or something.
But it was that sort of thinking that got me into that seat in the first place so I kept my mouth shut.
Anyway, it didn’t matter.
My armour was beginning to take shape.
FADE TO:
13. INT. LUCY’S ENSUITE BATHROOM – EARLY EVENING, 2019
LUCY is in the shower. Her hair is slicked back down her neck, the dye from yet another colour joining the water as it runs down her. She smiles.
The sound of tattoo needle plays over water washing over her tattoos. ‘I Was Glad’ (instrumental) begins again.
Read With Me 