Silas caught Shandy in his arms.

‘Christ Almighty!’ He staggered and went down with the dog, pulling at her thick ruff and holding her head back so he could examine her bright amber eyes, the pink tongue lolling over sharp white canines, her doggy breath in his nose. It was Shandy. It was. He released her so she could lick his face. ‘Shandy, Shandy, it’s thee all right.’

He looked at Harriet, his eyes shining. She had flattened herself against the wall and beside her an older woman was shouting something about dogs showing their true, vicious nature. Silas laughed and walloped Shandy on her haunch, marvelling at her solidity.

‘No, she’s his!’ said another voice. ‘She’s his dog.’ A girl fell to her knees next to him. So this was the Lou that Harriet spoke of.

‘Louisa,’ he said and the two of them embraced, there on their knees, Shandy dancing around them, barking wildly. He looked over Louisa’s shoulder at Harriet’s dumbfounded face, wanting to explain, but not trusting himself to speak.

Later, they sat around the fire with mugs of tea and bread and dripping doled out by Millicent Leigh. Shandy left his side to push her nose against Louisa’s apron pocket. The girl took out of a piece of cheese and Silas watched his dog nibble it gently from her fingers. When Louisa began to tell them about her escape from the flood, her mother collected her darning needle and retreated to the lean-to kitchen. ‘I can’t bear to hear this tale again,’ she said.

‘Anyhow, the weather were wild, so I got up to fetch Shandy from the yard,’ Louisa said, and smiled at Silas. ‘Poor bugger were glad to get back inside. I snuck her upstairs wi’ me.’

‘If I’d been there, I would’ve—’ said Silas.

Louisa touched his arm. ‘I know, Silas. I’m not saying owt against thee. Nobody knew what were comin’. So I lay her a blanket on the floor and I goes back to bed. I can hear Hilda through the wall, settling the baby.’ She paused. ‘It woke me up, the noise of it.’

Silas said, ‘I’ll never forget that noise. I thought the world were ending.’

‘It did, for some.’ Louisa gave him a watery smile. ‘But right then, I had no idea what it were. I thought the house was falling down on me. Well, it were. Nowt left o’ it.’

‘I saw. How did tha get out?’

‘Shandy warned me.’ Louisa scratched the top of the dog’s head absently. ‘She jumps up and starts barking and growling. At me! An’ I’m sitting up in bed wonderin’ if she’s about to attack me. What sort o’ bleedin’ dog has he brought to my house that I’d then took inside?’

Silas grinned. Shandy continued to gaze up at Louisa, eyebrows twitching.

‘Next minute, this roar, no, more like a hissin’ sound, like a gas lamp makes, but deafening, tha knows? And a groan like the ground – the ground under the ground – is tearing itself apart. All o’ a sudden, I’m breathing water and the house is gone. I mean, no walls, nothing, just the wave, and me in it.’