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Back The Night of the Flood
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. 1954
  7. PART 1
  8. 1.
  9. 2.
  10. 3.
  11. 4.
  12. 5.
  13. 6.
  14. 7.
  15. 8.
  16. 9.
  17. PART 2
  18. 1.
  19. 2.
  20. 3.
  21. 4.
  22. 5.
  23. 6.
  24. 7.
  25. 8.
  26. 9.
  27. 10.
  28. PART 3
  29. 1.
  30. 2.
  31. 3.
  32. 4.
  33. 5.
  34. 6.
  35. 7.
  36. PART 4
  37. 1.
  38. 2.
  39. 3.
  40. 4.
  41. 5.
  42. 6.
  43. 7.
  44. 8.
  45. 9.
  46. 10.
  47. 11.
  48. 1954
  49. Acknowledgements
  50. About the author
  51. An Invitation from the Publisher

‘It won’t be far. She’s close. You heard her.’ The voice was distorted, as if he was already underwater. He wasn’t sure if he had spoken or Jack. It was true that when she had cried out, even given the wind and the darkness, he felt as if he could reach out and touch her. But he didn’t trust his own senses. Between their voices a black void.

‘Come on,’ said another voice, a distorted echo of his own.

Arthur closed his eyes. Just a few strokes. He could swim. He had to swim. He plunged into the water, gasping. The coldest water he had ever felt. Cold everywhere, inside him. In his heart, in his lungs. He would die of the cold. Stop panicking. His arms splashed wildly. The boat. It was still there, behind him. It was sinking, but he wanted to cling to it, the only hard thing in a world of water. No. Splashing, his chin underwater. Don’t open your mouth. Don’t swallow. Don’t go under. Can’t go under. Move, he told himself. His limbs, in a spasmodic movement, smashed through the water. Don’t think about the shadow in the boat. Don’t think. Swim.

PART 4

EBB

Sunday, 1st February 1953

The morning after the flood

Low Z depression
Surge subsiding all along the coast
Full moon

1.

To most people there is something desolating about the ebb of the tide, but to Muriel it had always seemed the best possible time of day. This is when the richest pickings were to be had – when the cockles and mussels came out, when the waders, the curlews and the godwits fed, and the oystercatchers moved along the beach, waiting for mussels to open their shells so they could suck up the soft insides.

And she would never have said it, never have thought it consciously, but the time after a flood was always strangely full, teeming with life. Life had been undone, unmade, taken away by the sea. But what was left in its place? Her tiny brother was gone, his life barely begun. Her mother emptied out. There were other losses too; she felt them, like goosebumps all over her skin. But, but… she couldn’t deny it. The truth was, there was always something left behind, when the tide turned, dragging itself over the sand. Life bloomed in the ebb. And so it was now.

Muriel sensed all this, in the aftermath of the flood, as the town reeled and the people reeled and rallied, and soon, out of the darkness of the night, she would find out what exactly had been lost and what was there to be taken.

2.