‘You shouldn’t be in there,’ I yell. The wind is so strong that it’s difficult to stay upright. ‘What are you trying to do?’

‘Raise the banks and straighten the channel. Water flows faster along a straight course, and the quicker we can move it away from the trees, the more chance they’ll have of not drowning.’

‘What about you? You look like you’re in with a pretty good chance of drowning!’

He looks over his shoulder and shoots me a grin. ‘Nah. Hypothermia, on the other hand …’

‘It’s not funny.’

‘Why, because you care? You think I’m some kind of underhanded con-artist who’s befriended you solely for the purpose of stealing your farm, so don’t pretend to give a toss when you obviously think so little of me.’ He goes back to shovelling mud out and throwing it up onto the edges.

I hate the way it makes me feel because I care about him so much that I want to wade into the river and drag him out. I’m pretty sure that when rivers are flooded, the general advice is not to stand in them. ‘I do care about you, Noel. Why do you think I’m so hurt?’

‘What about me? How do you think I feel?’ He’s shouting to be heard over the howling of the wind and the battering of rain. ‘I let my guard down with you, I told you things I’ve never told anyone before. I thought we meant something to each other, and one bloody rumour is enough to change all that.’

‘Is it just a rumour?’ I say, hope suddenly lighting up inside me. Maybe I’ve got this all wrong.

He doesn’t reply. That’s answer enough. I let out a sigh and go back to digging, and Noel moves along the river carefully, scraping silt from the bottom and earth from the sides of each bank to make them steeper, and piling it along the top to make the sides higher and try to contain the water.

Everywhere is slippery and the rain is still beating down, turning the already sodden earth into pure sludge. My wellies sink into it and I slip every time I move. I can feel his eyes on me. ‘Will you concentrate on not drowning, please?’

‘Only if you concentrate on not falling over.’

‘In case I fall in a puddle and get wet?’ I shake a dripping sleeve at him.

He throws another shovel of silt over his shoulder, seeming to have perfect depth perception as it lands exactly on top of the pile without him even looking. ‘I’m sorry I told you not to worry about the river flooding. You had instincts and I told you to ignore them. I wish you hadn’t trusted me.’

Me too. But I don’t mean about the river. ‘I thought this river never flooded.’