Mateu's House

He sailed every route in Vellestria's waters by habit. My father learned to draw them by calculation. They argued about degrees, and loved each other.

Mateu Solera's house is one room deep and two storeys tall, wedged into a lane that runs down to the water. It smells of pipe-smoke he rarely lights and tar he can no longer scrub from his hands. Forty years of sea-charts are rolled along one wall, and on the mantel sits the bras…