Page 80 of The Village Shop for Lonely Hearts

‘I didn’t think my tea was that bad,’ he told her.

‘You know what I mean,’ she said, laughing briefly. ‘The waiting.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

They drank their tea in silence, all the time hearing the heavy rain hammer onto the roof of the veranda and the side of the building.

Then Josh got up to head outside and look at the river once more.

The beam of light from his torch highlighted how bad things were getting out there.

‘I can barely stand up in that wind,’ he said, as he came back inside.

Amber shivered at the cold rush of air that had swept in as the door was opened.

‘How is it?’ she asked.

He hesitated to tell her, but she needed to know how bad it was. ‘It’s up to the top of the riverbank now.’

Amber’s eyes grew wide with alarm. ‘But that’s level with people’s front doors.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘What can we do?’

‘Nothing,’ he told her. ‘We’ll stay open with the lights on in case anyone’s flooded and needs somewhere to go. It’s got another couple of feet to rise to get anywhere near the top of the veranda out there.’

Looking concerned, Amber shrugged on her jacket and went outside to see for herself, so Josh went back outside to join her, the wind and rain immediately swirling around their faces as it swept in under the roof of the veranda.

‘Show me,’ she said.

He switched on his torch and swung it around. Amber stared in horror at what the beam of light revealed. The river was thick and brown and had completely covered the lane on the other riverbank. It was rushing along, taking wheelie bins and anything not bolted down along with it.

On their side of the river, it was now lapping at the tarmac and slowly creeping inch by inch across.

Down the lane, they could see people waiting anxiously at their front doors watching for any signs that the water would flood their houses.

Josh peered around the corner and saw that the door to the newspaper office had finally been closed. There were a couple of sandbags propped up against the front door to try and protect it.

‘They must have gone to the pub,’ said Amber. ‘Did you want to go over there?’

Josh shook his head. ‘I think we should stay here if we can. They say it should peak in the next couple of hours.’

He could see that the river was lapping at the front door to the pub, which thankfully was also up a couple of steps. The door opened slightly as Belle peeked out. She gave them a small wave of solidarity across the darkness and they both waved back.

Amber wrapped her arms around her waist, looking stressed. ‘This is awful,’ she said.

‘We’ll be OK,’ said Josh, putting an arm around her shoulders.

‘Sorry,’ she told him. ‘You must think I’m ridiculous. It’s not even my shop. I should be comforting you.’

He looked down at her and smiled. ‘Well, if the flood water suddenly rushes in, we’ll climb onto the tractor for safety.’

She smiled at his attempt at humour, but there was no laughter to be found in their dire situation, knowing how devastating flooding could be. He had seen it on the news so often but had never imagined that the village would be surrounded by water like this.

‘Come inside,’ he told her. ‘There’s nothing we can do out here.’

But Amber shook her head. ‘I think we should wait out here. Otherwise we won’t know what’s going on.’