After several minutes, she knew she wouldn’t sleep now. She eased herself out of her bed and felt her way gingerly into the kitchen like a blind woman, arms outstretched. She groped for the overhead light, then lit the stove and filled the kettle with water, trying to make as little noise as possible. She made herself a herbal tea and sat on the sofa. Water ran in rivulets down the windows and outside it was pitch black. Her reflection looked like the face of a drowning woman.

It was oppressively hot. Putting the empty mug down, she found the torch in the cutlery drawer and opened the door to the lower deck. The rain was vertical, drenching and warm. She tipped her head back and felt it trickle down her face, her neck. Almost immediately her night clothes were wet through. She turned on the torch and climbed the ladder to the upper deck where water ran like a shallow river. When she shone the torch over the canal she could see in its spotlight the arrows of rain piercing its surface, sending up hundreds of splashy explosions. She turned the beam of the torch, seeing the rain striping through it. The trees dripped like fountains. The towpath was churned up by the rain’s bullets. Small casings of mud lay strewn near the bank.

‘I thought it would be you.’

She turned, sloshing in the water.

‘Luke. Amazing, isn’t it?’

‘Mmmm.’ He was wearing boxer shorts and a tee-shirt. Rain poured off his smooth head. He looked a like a diver just surfaced from the canal.

‘I didn’t wake you, did I?’

‘Who could sleep in this?’

A lightning flash stood in the sky again like a vast, gnarled tree, its branches pointing upwards. They waited for the thunder to follow.

‘It’s getting further off.’

‘Maybe. Do you want some chocolate? I grabbed it from the fridge.’

‘OK.’

He snapped off a couple of squares and handed them across.

She wanted to say: there’s nothing going on with Mickey. But how could she? He would just look at her in embarrassment, shrug maybe. She gazed up into the teeming sky, blinking as the rain hammered against her face.

‘It’ll be lovely tomorrow,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing like a landscape after rain.’

‘Yes.’ Like me, she thought. I’m a landscape after rain. She imagined taking her shirt off and standing naked on the deck, then pushed the second soft square of chocolate into her mouth and chewed slowly, feeling sweetness slide down her throat.

‘Do you fancy some whisky? Help us both sleep.’

‘All right then.’

‘Up here or down there?’

‘Oh – up here, definitely. I couldn’t get any wetter anyway.’

‘Good.’

He disappeared below deck. She waited in the rushing rain. Her night clothes clung heavily to her and the water streamed across the deck, bubbling round her feet.

‘Here.’

‘Cheers,’ she said.