Tara flipped over to QVC, the channel least likely to have flooding updates, and said, ‘Toby, tell Molly the story about the digger. When Dad drove us through the flood when we were toddlers. You were wearing your frog wellies.’

Toby read the look on her face correctly. ‘Well, we were at nursery …’

Molly sat back, engrossed, and Tara took the opportunity to slip away to check her own notes about what to do in the event of a flood.

After a panicky call to her friend at the Environment Agency, Tara managed to trace the source of the brackish water in the basement. First to a ventilation brick tucked behind some shelves, then to a small (but rapidly expanding) stream which had appeared in the garden from underneath the hedges, and was now trickling steadily down the basement wall.

‘It’ll be a blocked culvert overflowing, there’s a lot of them near you,’ said Morris, darkly. Tara could hear phones ringing in the background; it sounded manic. ‘Nothing you can do now, but sit tight, and clear it out when it goes down.’

‘How much worse will it get? Is it bad in town?’

‘It’s not looking good. Do you need me to walk you through the basics?’ asked Morris, and Tara was grateful for his help.

Back upstairs, Toby had finished his story and Molly was showing him her photographs, proudly pointing out her favourites.

‘Right!’ said Tara, as brightly as she could. ‘I’ve had a chat with my friend and I’m going to have to turn the electricity off here, so I think the best thing to do, Molly, would be if you went back over to the studio. You can watch Netflix there.’

‘Am I in the way?’ Molly asked immediately. ‘Can’t I help?’

‘Best thing you can do is look after Lloyd,’ said Tara. ‘You’re in charge of him! Keep him busy. So, get your things together and we’ll go over, OK?’

Reluctantly, Molly nodded.

Back in the cellar, with the stairs covered in Ruth’s church candles like a Guns N’ Roses video, Toby and Tara moved what they could out of the way of the water.

‘Wish Dad would call,’ she said.

‘Ha!’ said Toby, and he didn’t need to explain. He passed her a box of wine to add to the pile on the stairs.

‘Did you ever think it was your fault Dad left?’

‘Yes and no.’ Toby paused and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. ‘Obviously me seeing Mum and Diane set the whole thing in motion. She told Dad. I didn’t. As I got older, I realized it wasn’t my fault their marriage wasn’t working and they were better off apart. But at the time, yeah, of course I felt responsible. I didn’t understand.’