I stay fixed to my wet spot, until they are where our front garden used to be, which is close enough for me to see the fear on Daniel’s face, the determination on Mark’s, to hear Lou shout, ‘Almost there.’ I run inside, grab a stack of towels and barrel down the stairs. Sarah and the twins run down with me, despite me telling them to stay where they are.

I open the door to a gush of wind and rain, shouts of relief. As Lou’s children tumble inside, sliding on the glazed tiles, pushing Woof away as he jumps about and licks their faces, Mark places the surfboard against the wall and drops the box onto the closest stair. I hold his face in my hands and give him a kiss, Lou a hug, and then strip the children, creating a mound of sodden clothing in the entryway. Once the children are wrapped in towels and have scuttled upstairs together, and Lou has gone to our bedroom to change – ‘Anything you want,’ I say – I search for Mark. He’s standing at the kitchen sink, guzzling water.

‘Go have the first shower. The kids can wait.’ I pick twigs off his back.

‘Not done yet. Everything they own is in that house.’

This time I go, too, despite Mark and Lou’s objections, which are half-hearted at best. They both know I can outlast anyone in the water.

‘But if it gets too dangerous, turn around. They’re just things,’ Lou says. She holds me and whispers, ‘Thank you, friend.’

The flood is a living beast now, large and throbbing, a serpent. It could dumbly drown us in an instant, and while logic says that Mark and I should stay inside with our children and tell Lou that whatever she loses can be replaced, I feel a shiver of pleasure as I put my feet in the strong flow. With Mark behind me, I wade in slowly, assessing the currents, then feel the tug of the water and think, go on, try me. Like Mark, I don’t look back.

Together, we make two trips to retrieve bags of clothing and records, a box of paperwork and a typewriter, treasures from the kitchen and bedroom, a sack of masks.

‘Why does he collect these?’ I ask Mark. ‘Uglier than Blue Poles.’

‘And worth less.’

The second time we head back, the water is higher and the journey more arduous. I am panting when we return to our house, excited, unconscionably pleased with myself.

‘That’s it,’ Mark says as he drops a heavy plastic bag onto the kitchen floor. ‘No more.’ I have one more trip left in me but I can see he doesn’t, so I agree.

While we’ve ferried her belongings to our house, Lou has allowed the kids to run riot. The living room is a chaotic mess, but for once I don’t care. All six kids seem happy – a miracle in its own right – and I can see from the empty bags of chips and browning apple cores that they’ve eaten. Woof lies on the carpet, gnawing a wet branch into splinters. Lou isn’t in the room. She’s in the kitchen, on the phone, wearing one of my kaftans.