“In Upton and Barrow End,” I say, still wiping, “we speak of little else.”

He makes a sort of gurgling sound and leaves the room.

The sky is low, heavy, thundery. Ellen is holding a child against her hip, dancing around and around. The child’s small cardiganed arms stick out sideways, her chubby chin is lowered. Her shoes are brown. Girls’ shoes, covering the toes only, with a strap at the ankle. Between toes and strap the top of her plump little foot, covered in white lacy sock, bulges slightly. Ellen turns back toward me but it’s Yvette, singing, bouncing the child who has got smaller, who is now two, three. The child’s hair has gone curly and dark. I reach out. I want to take hold of this little foot and kiss the bulging part.

All I need is for people to—

What are you saying? I can’t hear you above the thunder.

Yvette shakes her head and bears the child away. The back of the small dark curly head recedes, the air rumbles. Yvette’s hurrying now, she must take her in before the rain falls.

All I need is for you to say her name.

—

“Dad? Wake up! Dad?”

The rumble bursts out of my dream. I leap out of bed. A worried Tom is just outside my bedroom door, looking up at the hatch to the loft. The noise is much louder on the landing. Tom grabs my arm just as a series of gigantic, tumbling bangs shakes the house. We both shout with fright and leap into my bedroom, where we wait, our eyes fixed on the ceiling, until the bangs stop.

Tom is clutching my arm. “Holy shit, the roof’s come down.”

“So much for the warning creaks.” I head out across the landing to his room.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting your table and chair.” I drag the table out onto the landing.

“Dad, that’s crazy.”

“I can’t not look.”

I fetch the chair and position it on the table before climbing up. The hatch won’t budge at first. It must be weighed down with bits of roof. I bend forward to get the back of my head and my shoulders against it. Heavy things slide off as I push the hatch upward. “That’s very bad for your neck,” says Tom.

“I don’t care.”

I heave myself into the attic. Dust hangs thick in the air. A hole has appeared in the side of the gable, a snaggletoothed rent five yards by two and roughly the shape of a whale. It starts about halfway along the roof and almost reaches the gable end. On the floor beneath it lies a long mound of broken timber and tile. The upper rafters and the ridgepole seem to be intact. I call back down to Tom.