The first day after the flood, he’d limped through the reeking town – wrapped in a blanket someone had given him – to the wreck of the shop and to his mother, who clung to him. His limbs were aching and his right hand was throbbing and sore. All he could think about was Jack in the boat, his face indistinct but brightly lit, singing. Don’t let the stars get in your eyes. He couldn’t remember how he had got to Verity or the moment when he had lost Jack. He supposed he was in shock, like the men from the war who had hallucinations and facial ticks. But he was so tired, he didn’t want to think. In the state of half consciousness before sleep, Jack was singing, his eyes turned to stars. Then welcome oblivion.

In the morning, he had woken with an image of a dark figure slumped against the end of his bed. He blinked and it was gone. It was a dream. In the dream it had been Jack at the end of the boat, collapsed, like a discarded toy.

In a state of disorientation, Arthur had stumbled downstairs to a scene of devastation. Over the days that followed there was little opportunity to do anything apart from trying to clear up the shop. His mother developed a mania for cleaning that verged on the hysterical, so determined was she to get the shop open again. From morning to night she scrubbed and cleaned, wiping the surfaces over and over with vinegar. What supplies they had left had been moved upstairs to the flat and were now stacked in the kitchen so they had to squeeze round them to get a cup of tea. She wouldn’t let the goods into the parlour for anything. They didn’t talk about the damage or the money lost. There was no insurance, he knew, but when he asked his mother how they would replace the stock she glared at him as if he had blasphemed.

‘Not now, Arthur, there’s too much to do,’ she said, and shooed him away with her cloth.