When the ambulance came, the crowd fell back and drifted into the ballroom. Peter went with the invalid and she hung back. The ambulance man was talking to her brother.

‘Is he going to be all right?’ she said, thinking of only a year before, running down to find Peter and him turning her back to the house. Knowing something was wrong but not believing him when he said their mother was dead. How did it happen? she’d asked him, and he said she must have got out of her depth.

Behind her, someone crunched on the gravel and she looked around expecting to see Arthur but no one was there. She watched the ambulance leave. In the ballroom, the band was striking up a rendition of a Perry Como song. Someone asked her to dance and she shook her head. She looked around for Arthur and saw that another American was handing him a flask. She must do something. It was becoming harder to pretend nothing was wrong.

She moved over to him and touched him tentatively on the shoulder. ‘Are you all right, Arty?’

‘Couldn’t be better,’ he slurred.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, alarmed at the bitter tone, as if it was directed at her. As if he knew the disloyal thoughts she’d had. A burst of anger flared through her that he should make her feel like this. ‘You’ve had a shock. Why don’t I take you home?’ She sounded impatient. Her fingers touched his arm but instead of responding to her in kind, he shivered and she withdrew as if the tips of her fingers had been singed.

‘I’m fine,’ he said.

Helplessly, she cast about for something to say. Was it only that she had called out Jack’s name? It did not seem, in itself, so very awful. Yet it was clear that she had done something terribly wrong and could not undo it. That she had somehow created this entire, disgusting mess. The moment that she and Arthur had shared under the trees was long gone, so far away it was like a different night. ‘Arthur,’ she started miserably, but couldn’t finish. The recriminations and unsaid apologies hung in the air. She felt nauseous. ‘Shall I help you get home?’ she tried again. ‘I really think you should go home.’ She wanted to go home herself now, was all of a sudden overcome with tiredness and guilt and confusion.

‘I’m worried about you,’ she said, although she was just as worried about herself.

‘You too,’ he said in a faint voice. ‘I should never have trusted him.’ He took hold of her shoulders. ‘Jack—’ he said. He swayed a little. ‘He tried to kill me.’

PART 2

FLOW

October

Four months before the flood

Deep depression
Early morning frost and fog
Squally showers followed by persistent rain in the evening
Waxing gibbous moon

1.