The Night of the Flood
Chapters (51)
Cover
THE
NIGHT
OF THE
FLOOD
Title Page
THE
NIGHT
OF THE
FLOOD
ZOË SOMERVILLE
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2020 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Zoë Somerville, 2020
The moral right of Zoë Somerville to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781838934637
Head of Zeus Ltd
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
Dedication
To Will
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1954: A year after the flood
PART 1: LOW TIDE
May 1952: Nine months before the flood
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
June: Eight months before the flood
Chapter 7
Midsummer’s Night
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
PART 2: FLOW
October: Four months before the flood
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
November
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
December
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
January 1953
Chapter 9
Friday, 30th January 1953: The day before the flood
Chapter 10
Afternoon
PART 3: HIGH TIDE
Saturday, 31st January 1953: The day of the flood
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Before dawn, Sunday, 1st February
PART 4: EBB
Sunday, 1st February 1953: The morning after the flood
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Tuesday, 3rd February
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
1954: A year after the flood
Acknowledgements
About the author
An Invitation from the Publisher
1954
A year after the flood
It’s over a year since the flood. Verity sits in the window seat of a train to London. Now she sees that some things loop and circle and come back again and again, like the tide. What keeps returning is the image of his body. Behind her eyes, when she dozes, or at night when she sleeps, or even, like now, fully awake, gazing through the rain-spattered train window – this is what she sees, half memory, half nightmare.
In the ruined aftershock of the flooded marsh, she is running, hurtling towards the pine trees. At the far edge of her vision, a flash of white. She falls and trips and her mouth is filled with saltwater, choked with marram grass. Sinking into the bog, she is submerged. When she rises, spitting, retching, the white flash is transformed. It is an arm dangling down from a tree, the skin mottled and pale. Outlined against the setting sun over the salt-wrecked marsh, a white arm reaching from a black tree. It does not make sense.