‘Yes, sorry, the mouse gave me a fright.’ She pointed stupidly at its corpse.

Jack leaned back slightly.

‘Sorry – look, ignore the mouse, that’s not the real problem. I’m here because of the water – downstairs, the sink – there’s water all over the kitchen.’ Jack still looked half asleep, and she resisted gripping him by the shoulders. ‘Jack. Do you know how we turn the water off?’ With a sudden lurch, last night’s (cheap) white wine started roaring in her ears. ‘It’s flooding. Downstairs!’

That did the trick.

‘Shit.’ He swallowed and frowned. ‘Um.’

‘I thought maybe the water box might be up here. With the fuse box …?’ She paused, hoping that Jack would reveal himself – against type – to be the practical sort. ‘Do you have any idea?’

Jack looked stricken. ‘No, I don’t know how we turn anything off,’ he gulped. After a beat, he added, ‘Sorry.’

She clenched her left fist hard, and turned back to the chaos of the attic.

‘OK, in that case can you just help me look, please? Any box that might … control the water.’

‘Mm-hmm.’ Jack was slowly revving into action.

The two of them stepped over the threshold, past the mouse, with Jack’s eyes lingering a second on its rigid body.

‘Right. I’ll take this side, you take that one.’ Ellen shoved Jack gently towards a tangle of golf clubs. He crouched down to get a better look at them. ‘Jack!’

‘Sorry, yes! Flooding.’ He climbed over the golf clubs and started hunting more purposefully.

The box would be set into a wall, she thought wildly, casting around her own patch. In the corner was a lawn chair, on which rested a half-deflated pool float in the shape of a slice of pizza, and a decommissioned Slush Puppie machine. A sheaf of broken picture frames leaned against the wall. And there was the fuse box, above the frames. Hopefully, the two would be near each other? She stepped over the thicket of junk, clutching the wall for balance, while scanning its surface for another box that might control the water. In spite of the fairly wide skylight set into the ceiling, the chaos created a gloomy pall. She couldn’t see anything except the fuse box. Frustration rising like bile, Ellen leaned backwards and called out to Jack.

‘Have you found anything yet?’ she asked sharply.

Jack was still standing near the golf clubs. ‘He’s got a SEGA up here,’ he said, with some envy, pointing at a grey plastic shell in another corner of the attic.

‘Jack!’

Catching her tone, his face dropped, and then – was that a light-bulb moment of his own she was witnessing? – he spoke solemnly. ‘We should go and get Alexa.’