In horror, I stare at his back. Ben’s still turned away from me. He can’t even look at me, he’s probably so angry. I feel terrible. I’ve made everything ten times worse.

‘I just wanted you and Stanley to know.’

‘It must be coming from the new boiler.’

We both speak over each other, and it takes a second to register.

‘Excuse me?’

‘The leak.’ Turning to me, he gestures above his head. For a moment I can’t see anything . . . until there it is, emerging through the ceiling: a drip of water. He wipes it from his forehead. ‘Something must have come loose or burst.’

‘Burst?’ Distracted from my speech, I step closer and together we watch as the drip slowly grows bigger and falls, before another appears. I don’t know much about plumbing, but ‘burst’ doesn’t sound good. ‘So what do we do now?’

It’s that inevitable moment when you can see it happening, but can’t stop it. A split-second pause. And then the ceiling suddenly collapses and a deluge of water, mixed with messy chunks of lath and plaster, pours down from above us, completely soaking us both.

Hiding in Plain Sight

From my back garden you can watch the sun setting over the Dales: streaks of orange and red across the vast expanse of sky, illuminating the dark purple ribbons of clouds. Ben and I sit side by side in a couple of old stripy deckchairs – another vintage find from the garden shed – watching as it slowly sinks into the horizon. Next to us, Harry lies stretched out on the grass, exhausted by all the commotion of the last few hours.

After my ceiling came crashing down, Ben managed to turn off the stop valve to prevent the boiler from refilling and creating any more damage, and called Flood, his plumber, who was busy but promised to come and fix it first thing tomorrow. At this point I reasoned it was probably too late to ask how Flood got his name. However, the water had already shorted all the electrics, so after we’d done our best to clear up, we decamped outside to wait for Ben’s electrician.

‘Sparky shouldn’t be long,’ he says now, checking the time on his phone again.

Stripped down to our underwear, we’re both wrapped in towels. I’ve hung our clothes from the branches of the tree, hoping they’ll dry a little before the electrician arrives. Thankfully, it’s almost summer and the evening air is warm and syrupy. Thankfully also, to spare my blushes, dusk is falling and the only illumination comes from the soft amber glow of the solar lights strung in the branches of the old sycamore. I’d put them up for Naomi’s visit and they were so pretty, I haven’t taken them down.

‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’

Ben makes some murmur of rebuttal.

‘Faulty valve on the boiler. It’s just one of those things. Once that’s replaced and the ceiling is patched up, it should be as good as new.’