When it had passed, he wondered whether he should wait for the man to come to him, or venture out. He could hear water trickling and was seized by thirst. A jug on the bureau had a couple of inches of water in it and Silas drank it down. Water had never tasted so fine. He was alive. He fought the urge to laugh, knowing he was not in his right mind. He wondered again where his saviour was, the woman who had beseeched him to strike out for her, who had pulled him to safety, and he stepped outside the room to find her.

A smell like wet sheep and sewage emanated from the stair carpet. He moved downwards, crablike, clinging to the bannister, although the staircase was clear of obstacles. At the bottom, he stepped through a glutinous layer of sediment, afraid the ill-fitting shoes would be sucked from his feet. A shaft of sunlight blinded him to the detail of the ruinshe was surrounded by, and he was glad of it, afraid of what he might see. Would there be human limbs in this mess? How close had he come to being a water-swollen corpse?

The front door swung like a drunkard from its hinges. An internal door lay flat. In the room beyond, a ribbon of dusky pink wallpaper licked hungrily around a gaping hole under the window, like a cow’s curious tongue. On the doorstep, Silas stopped to stare at the object that blocked his path. After a few seconds he recognised it as an anvil, tipped on its side.

He edged around the contraption’s black bulk as though it was a hellhound there to prevent his exit, only pretending sleep, ready to leap up and clobber him. He thought suddenly of Shandy, his gentle lass, and what had become of her, then was immediately seized by fresh horror when the glint of white bone in the middle of the street caught his eye. His heart continued to hammer even as he realised he was looking at a stripped-bare tree trunk resting on the mud-covered road, like the spine of some great monster picked clean by scavengers.

A bird trilled, filling the curiously peaceful street with liquid notes, and a horse stepped delicately over the trunk, the rider giving Silas a nod of acknowledgement as he passed by. The man did not stop or speak. The horse, a handsome black beast though its shanks were encrusted with mud, did not seem to be even of the same species as the panicked and helpless animal that had rolled a wild eye at Silas in the maelstrom.

The faint warmth of the sun, still low in the sky, caressed his face, and this reminded him again that, miraculously, he was alive. Silas took a deep breath and watched the progress of horse and rider down the street to the corner, where a dozen people stood in a loose grouping near a seven-foot-high pile of metal junk. Now he had seen them, his ears were penetrated by their chatter.