Rose cluster with ribbon design

The roses came in on the Tuesday tender, wrapped in wet sacking and smelling of diesel, and I nearly cried into the potato sacks. Captain Harrow's steward had ordered them for the Bosun's wife's birthday in Lisbon, but the ship sailed a day early, so they were ours to make do with. Three open blooms and a fistful of buds, the stems bruised where the crate had shifted. I trimmed them with the galley's bread knife and stood them in a jam jar on the chopping board, where they lasted longer than I expected.

Mr Pardoe came down at the end of the middle watch, grey as the bulkhead, looking for tea. He stopped at the jar and said nothing for a long while. Then he asked if I had any ribbon. I found a length of red bakers' twine and a strip of green tape from the stores, and he tied them round the jar with fingers that had been in the winch cable all week. It looked ridiculous, like a banner for a village fete. He laughed, which I had not heard him do since Gibraltar.

When I come home I want to be the sort of man who buys roses without a reason. I know that is a poor promise from a cook who burns the porridge. But the jar is still on the shelf above the sink, the twine gone soft and brown, and every morning before the bread goes in I look at it and think of you standing at the gate with your hands in your coat pockets.