Tara was surprised to feel annoyed, not excited. Seeing David walk into the interview room had been like a needle-scratch on a record. She’d thought they were friends, but he wasn’t. He was her competitor. He could end up being her boss.

She ignored the voice observing that she hadn’t told him she was applying either. That wasn’t the point.

‘Was it Daddy?’ Molly asked hopefully.

‘Sorry, no. It was someone from my work.’

‘Can you try Daddy again?’ Her little face. ‘Please?’

Tara had called Keith twice that morning and both times the call had gone to voicemail; she’d presumed he’d been asked to leave his phone off, and left polite messages asking him to update her with any news. Tara didn’t want to ring again, in case it looked as if something was wrong with Molly, but she looked so anxious that Tara felt she had no choice.

It rang out, six times, and she left another awkward message, feeling Molly’s eyes on her the whole time.

‘… and so you know, it’s raining quite hard here still. So, um, drive safely.’

She hung up and looked round for something to distract them. ‘Shall we see what’s on the television?’

Blimey, today was going slowly if it was still lunchtime, Tara thought, then realized this was breaking news. Scrolling-along-the-bottom-of-the-screen, slowly-getting-worse-and-worse, news.

‘… warnings of serious surface water flooding through the West Midlands. We’re getting reports of flood threats to the main power station at Tewkesbury …’

As long as there’s no bloke in a canoe, we’re fine, thought Tara, just as a bloke in a red kayak paddled down the main street in Leominster. Her heart sank.

Molly turned round, eyes huge in her pale face. ‘How will Daddy get home? Lily’s dad said the roads were going to flood.’

‘Lily lives in a different part of town, doesn’t she? Maybe he just wanted to be on the safe side. Dad’ll be fine. And if the roads do get shut, he can borrow a digger from somewhere. Did I tell you he once did that when Toby and I were little? He drove us home in the floods on a digger!’

I’m using a Dad myth I don’t even remember to cheer Molly up, thought Tara.

‘Tell me about the digger!’ Molly asked, predictably thrilled. ‘Did Dad drive it?’

‘OK, so … you know what, Toby remembers it better than me,’ said Tara, spotting Toby emerging from the cellar with five bottles of champagne.

‘Ah, the kayak!’ said Toby cheerfully, seeing the television report. ‘My theory is that the news crews have the one kayak and they take it to all the … what are you looking at me like that for?’