I’m awake. I have to turn the light on to shake the panic. The house is quiet. My heart racing. I’m desperate for a pee. I check the clock on the bedside table, listen out for a sound, something that could’ve woken me up. There’s nothing. Just the clock ticking gently. No noise from the yard. Not even next door’s cat getting into a fight. There’s no drama here but I can’t shake the fear. Like someone pressing their hand against your throat. Like the only time Dad ever really lost it, when he pushed me into the hall and held me against the porch door and his hands were so tight on my arm that they left a mark. It was years ago. I haven’t thought about it in ages. I was asking for a baby sister. I was asking and asking and Mum just wouldn’t listen. She turned away. Back towards the ironing. It was like she couldn’t even hear. I pulled on her sleeve. I told her I’d do anything. ‘Even a brother,’ I said before I’d really thought about it, ‘even a little brother.’ Dad stood up then. It was so sudden. His face was red. I’d never seen him look like that before. ‘Don’t talk about this again, do you hear me?’ he said, ‘it upsets your mother.’ I pulled away and ran upstairs and we never spoke about it again.

I try to breathe slowly. Centre myself or whatever it is Claire’s sister does. She’s probably still up. Imagine it. Thousands of people still awake, right this second, talking their way into the night, dancing in the darkness and falling in love. I need the loo but I don’t want to move. Everything is grainy, like the TV when all the programmes are finished for the night. Empty. I can’t shake this feeling. I can’t make it go away. There’s nothing here and no one to talk to. Everything that really matters in the world is happening right at this second. It’s just happening to other people, somewhere else.

7:35 pm

and then you just have to sit and do what you’re told                  and watch the                pictures.

There are people on the thingy           and there’s water. The water is drowning the houses. The houses are floating and the people travel on roofs. I don’t know where they’re going.

the carpets are bound to be soaked.

Policemen and firemen and people on boats. And rain on the windows. The water rising outside. Coming down from the heavens and rising from the deep. Coming to wash everything away and start again. I wouldn’t mind about the carpet if the water could take me away. The letters would be soggy but I could sit on the roof and look for Ned.

Very far, very far, over land and sea.