“The city’s being evacuated.”

I took off my plastic cape and draped it over a chair. “You’re still here.”

“There’s the stock. I was moving it upstairs.”

“Do you think the water will really come that high? I mean up the steps and inside?”

We turned as one to the window and to the newly born river running down the street. The sky was dark; it only promised more rain.

I snuck a glance at David. He was wearing glasses and seemed generally more solid, not only heavier but thicker about the neck and forearms, his features more definite but with a loss of tightness about the jaw. He reached for the light and then swiftly let fall his hand.

“I keep forgetting the power’s out. Oh shit. Oh shit.” Beneath the door a thin stream was seeping serpentine across the floor. “I’ve got to get the paintings upstairs. Will you help?”

And as though I were a friend who had popped in for a coffee, I found myself roped in. It took almost an hour. The stairs were narrow and twisty and led up to three rooms: a tiny bathroom, a storeroom, and a third space, long and narrow, in which there were bookshelves, a table, and a camp bed on which a twisted sheet and a woolen blanket were encoiled.

The stairs were too narrow for two, and several times I found myself halting at their foot, the corners of a frame digging into my arms, waiting for David to come down or to indicate that I should come up, and in the moment’s hesitation before one of us hurried forward every question hung.

The water was coming. In the little bathroom, along with the sliver of soap and a disposable razor, was a tired-out little towel. The photograph Alice had sent me—the huge painting, the rich, powerful man—suggested a greater enterprise than this. I picked up the towel and laid it in front of the door, but it did nothing. In the galley kitchen behind the wooden desk there was a tea towel and half a kitchen roll. I put them down and found myself laughing breathlessly. Beyond the window, the glaucous waters were frothing and gobbling. A stream was flowing in under the door and making for the Turkish rug. Then the last of the paintings was upstairs, David came down, and we rolled the rug up together and put it on the desk, and there was nothing more to be done.

“They said it would end. They said there would be some slight flooding, a little flooding…”

“But it won’t come up the stairs. You’re just going to have some water damage down here.” To my own ears, I did not sound convinced. “You don’t have any sandbags, do you?”