And now I was lying here fucking another woman. A much older woman what’s more. A woman who just happened to be here. Who was available. I had fucked her for one sole reason: because I needed a woman.

That’s the kind of guy I am.

I got out of bed quickly, pulled on my clothes, and went out into the cockpit. I had to escape from myself. Had to do something.

Marguerite was sitting on the recently aired-out cushions and looking up into the trees. She had done up only half the buttons on her dress, and I could make out the cleavage between her breasts. She didn’t turn around when I came out.

I thought I could hear the stand under the boat creaking when I moved outside. A stranded boat on a stand. It didn’t belong here. It was just as out of place as I was.

And suddenly I knew what I should do.

“We have to move it,” I said.

“What?” Now she looked at me.

“We have to move the boat back to the canal.”

“We do?”

“It has to be ready when the rain comes.”

She looked at me in wonder.

“It’s going to start raining,” I said.

And suddenly the words poured out of me. “The rain will come back. Sooner or later it has to start raining again. I don’t mean a pathetic kind of rain like we’ve had the past four winters. I mean a proper autumn rain that lasts, weeks of rain. All the rain we haven’t had. Sooner or later it has to come back. Sooner or later.”

“I will do everything I can,” I said. “So the boat will be ready when the water comes.”

Marguerite still didn’t say anything, but she got to her feet. And buttoned up her dress all the way.

“Will you help me?” I asked.

“Of course I will,” she said.

It took us two days.

I invited Caleb, Martin, and Christian to lend a hand. They accepted the task without asking any questions. They were happy to have something to do to fill the hours. To get out of the camp, where everything is just getting worse.

We broke into a couple of barns and found what we needed: materials, tools, an old cart. Caleb attached a log to the wall of the house. He’d gotten hold of some pulleys, drilled deep holes into the wall. Constructed a mainstay.

We used all the old ropes from the canvas, throwing out only those that had decayed the most. Wound them around the boat, again and again. They would have to support the full weight, they had to hold.