best for FICTION

looked up at me, eyes bright with our future.

‘I think I was supposed to be here,’ she said.

When I patted Ruth’s dying hand last month and said I knew about Andreas, I meant it. I’d seen him in the casino doorway each night, thinking he looked lost. ‘I spoke to him,’ I told Ruth as she died. ‘Asked him for directions to different places. The day we met he told me to play blackjack because I’d be lucky. And I was.’

‘ You don’t fully know,’ Ruth said.

She told me then how on the last night of the cruise she went to buy the The Ancient Art of Towel-Folding from the front desk. Having not seen him all week, she asked the assistant about Andreas.

The assistant frowned, went into the back and eventually returned with the book. ‘Andreas isn’t here anymore,’ she said, softly.

‘He left the ship?’ asked Ruth. ‘In Stavanger?’

‘No, in 1962,’ she said. ‘Lost at sea – a sleep-walker who left the patio door open. Beautiful dancer, apparently.’

I looked for him tonight in the piano bar – and for Ruth. Youngsters dance differently now, all jerky and frenzied. I was never the best dancer but liked to be close to Ruth. Today they push partners away rather than embrace them. And so, I return each night to her cabin.

Tonight, the towel crab waited, pincers twisted from four flannels. Ruth’s colourful ones were better. I wanted to pack it, but it fell apart. Like memories, they only work as a whole. When you separate them, they mean nothing.

As am I without Ruth.