Don't Lie to Me

He came on the Saturday evening, as he did every Saturday. He'd brought fish, a whole sea bass he'd bought at the market in Ostend and wanted to bake in a salt crust, because he'd seen it done in a restaurant and wanted to surprise me.

I'd spent two days with the yellow ticket in my bag.

Two days taking it out, looking at it, putting it back. Telling myself there was an explanation. That Adrien was a shipwright, that he went to every harbour on the coast, onto every pontoon, that he repaired boats for dozens of clients, that pontoon C at Nieuwpoort had forty berths and Hugo only had one of them. That there were a thousand reasons for a shipwright to be in Nieuwpoort at a quarter to five on a Sunday in November. A thousand reasons, and just one I couldn't bring myself to look at squarely.