Skin Deep

I rarely like new fashions when they first appear. Only
after they've been around for a while do I finally get my eye in and decide that actually they're really not too bad. I think this demonstrates my lack of originality and flair, or possibly my unique blend of conservatism and slavish conformity.

But slavishly conformist though I may be, there is one fashion that, no matter how much I am exposed to it, I am unable to embrace. I think this may be partly because it is something I associate from childhood with slightly menacing sailors, images of ribbon-entwined anchors and a faint odour of booze, fags and machinery oil.

For tattoos - which, of course, are the fashion item I'm referring to - were until recently pretty much restricted to the arms of burly men - at least, in the Western world. The images those men usually chose to adorn their biceps with were either pictures of their women - or possibly their dream women; declarations of love; or things somehow related to the seafaring life.

In the years since I was small, however, the range of tattoo-'appropriate' images has broadened enormously, and nowadays the temptation to decorate oneself painfully and indelibly seems to be something quite widely felt. Indeed, the last time I was in Europe, it seemed to me that, whereas once tattoos were a sign that you were a bit of a maverick or on the edge of polite society, currently being without a tattoo is the thing that sets you apart. During a few hours spent in Luton airport at its most crowded, (thanks Wizzair, I really, really enjoyed that), I saw virtually no-one who had not submitted to the inking process - and their arms were by no means the only places they had chosen as a canvas for their permanent displays.

On every visible part of their anatomy, (and who knows which hidden ones), all kinds of people had invested in their own artistic statements. Leaves and flowers twined round the hairy calves of a man in shorts and flip-flops in the row of seats opposite mine; snakes writhed across the shoulders of the woman he was travelling with. Tiny butterflies had alighted permanently on countless shoulders and ankles, while on numerous necks I spotted mysterious hieroglyphs. Did they say something profound about life or explain the wearer's complicated allergies? I don't suppose I'll ever know, (or actually care much). I wonder if the people who will carry these things on their skin forever are always absolutely certain what they say themselves.

Sadly, try as I might, I could not bring myself to admire any of these expensive doodles. This was largely, I decided, because skin is a really unattractive background for pictures. It does not lend colours any added radiance or vibrancy. Furthermore, it rapidly starts to show its age. As it grows dull and loses its elasticity, the images printed on it also lose whatever glow they might originally have had.

All the same I couldn't help wondering whether, if tattoos had been the fashion in my youth, I wouldn't have just conformed and had one pencilled in somewhere. I thought about what I was like in the summer after I finished school. In those days, I was awfully inclined to join in with almost anything.

Despite not actually having been invited, I spent that December, January and February staying in Bondi with a friend from boarding school. I managed to find a job as a motorbike courier and, once I'd mastered the map of Sydney, I abandoned myself to an existence that involved very little thinking and hours and hours in the not particular fresh but at least usually sunny Sydney air.

Each evening after work I'd go down and splash in the sea for a bit, amazed to live in a city where that was possible at the end of the day. On the weekend, I'd visit my brother in Coogee, who had the very civilised habit of cooking a steak and a tin of mushrooms for Saturday late breakfast or early lunch. Generous soul that he is, he never seemed to mind sharing this meal with me. In the evening I'd go out with my friend - or with some rather racy medical students I'd met somewhere or other. Our most memorable outing was to hear the new phenomenon called Skyhooks at the Rocks on Australia Day.

I was relaxed and easygoing, perhaps for the only time in my life. I'd probably have done anything anyone suggested. For instance, I happily trotted off with my new friends to Luna Park one Sunday afternoon. I'd never do that these days (possibly because I still remember the feeling of terror as one of the rides turned me very abruptly upside down and the speed with which that feeling was replaced by a sense of outrage when I noticed that all the change that fell out of everyone's pockets at the moment of being turned over was being rapidly collected up by funfair employees, already waiting in a mesh-covered pit beneath.)

I was utterly feckless and had no thought whatsoever for the future. I lived entirely in the moment, more or less purely hedonistically, and for a brief period I think I almost understood that mysterious thing called fun.

But tattoos, I wonder. For there's one other thing that I've also just remembered. There was a milk bar on the corner of Bondi Road, just near where I was staying - it was the one that famously bore the following unappetising slogan, visible on its side wall if you were approaching from Bondi Junction and heading towards the beach:

Fish
Milkshakes

Sometimes in the evening, after I'd eaten whatever disgusting mess that passed for my attempt at cooking, I'd decide that what I needed - to take the nasty taste away usually - was something vanilla-y and sweet. That milkbar sold pieces of fudge that came from Poland, wrapped in shiny striped paper emblazoned with a picture of a cow. The moment when I would decide that I wanted a piece of that fudge was usually about two minutes before the milkbar was due to close, and so I would make a dash for it, belting as fast as I could down Boonara Avenue through the balmy evening air.

Usually I was lucky and the place would still be open. Once inside, I'd go straight up to the counter. The jar with the fudge pieces stood by the till. I'd take one out and open my purse. The dark haired, rather taciturn woman who stood behind the counter would look at me unsmilingly as she put out her hand for my cash. Glancing down, I would catch sight of her arm for a moment, emerging from the sleeve of her nylon dustcoat. Hedonism vanished. The light hearted pleasure of the beach, the frivolity of Sydney in the summer, it all just evaporated. For an instant, nothing existed but that row of dark numbers tattooed just above her wrist.