NaNo'17 - Back to Alice

On the home stretch for the first part now. 10.11am is the last update time before "After" kicks in.

After what, exactly?  Read on...

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– Friday, 26^th September, 2025 –

 – 10:11 –

 – Alice –

With her flat locked and the Venetian blinds set to half, Alice hoisted her rucksack and set out for her brother’s house.  Zack lived on the other side of town with his wife, Jessica, and baby Molly. He was an architect, and had a lot of leeway about working from home. They rubbed along as well as brother and sister might be expected to, though there had been moments growing up when she though he was the biggest idiot on the planet.

She had tried to spend the last of her credit on getting through to him, to let them know she was on her way, but the network was completely down now, a situation confirmed to her by a police officer at the next main road.

‘Where are you headed to, miss?’ he asked.

‘Going to my brother’s,’ Alice explained. ‘He’s up in South Fields.’

‘Okay, well take it gently,’ he advised her. ‘Ground is pretty badly buckled on the other side of the town centre.’ Alice thanked him for the information and plotted a new route in her head. She needed to swing by a cash point, whatever road she took, so she turned left and followed the old path down to the canal.

The tarmac was scrunched up and tricky to walk on. She was glad of her sturdy brown boots, but she kept both hands free of her pockets, despite the cold, in case she tripped or overbalanced. She went down onto the tow path first, to have a look at the bridge she needed to cross to reach the cash point, but it appeared intact and she could see no visible cracks. She decided to take it at a brisk walk but, except for the hammering in her heart, she felt no tremors as she crossed.

The supermarket in whose wall the cash point sat, however, had a very long queue waiting to use it and, although she did move steadily towards the front of the line, everybody seemed to be withdrawing the maximum three hundred pounds. She only wished she had that much to withdraw. With each person that left the queue ahead of her, she fretted that the machine would run out of money before she got there, but luck seemed to be on her side when she got to the front and the machine dutifully dispensed eighty quid. A quick balance check told her she had been paid, despite the chaos, but eighty was what she had thought she could realistically risk; if payments were still automatically going in, then they could assuredly be automatically going out, as well, and if Mark Sanders of U&U Properties tried to take the rent again, then at least it had a good chance of debiting successfully this time. As she walked away, she heard people complaining that the machine was empty.

The roads remained empty, though people filled the streets. She overheard people say that all the motorways were shut until the inspection crews had done their work. She heard other snippets; about the damage, about the power outages, or the lack of water and telephone signals. She heard people saying which friends and loved ones that had not been able to get hold of.

She heard nothing about the dead, though she presumed there must be hundreds. Thousands, maybe? No, she thought, and hating herself for it, if the damage was as widespread as she had seen, then thousands was going to be very wide of the mark.

The police officer had not been exaggerating; Alice approached South Field, up high on a hill at the very edge of town, and at least two miles from the gaping maw that had once been the Summerlands Industrial Estate and surrounding houses, but the ground was rippled, as if a great wall of sound had rushed through, baking its mark in the tarmac as it whooshed by. The unevenness made walking painful, each stride a different length from the last, and she stopped several times. The weight of the rucksack did not help, either. It was as full as she could make it, without packing anything she didn’t think she would absolutely need; she had a week’s worth of clothes, folded up and rolled down so tightly she wondered what state they would be in when she needed them; a bag of assorted charging cables and the devices they belonged to; her last few cans of Sprite and all the toiletries she thought she might need to last a week. In her favourite coat she had slipped her phone, keys, a handful of change she had been keeping in a jar, and the smallest purse she could find. She didn’t want to be carrying another bag, too, so this would have to do.

Give it a week, she hoped. By then, with any luck, we’ll be getting back to something like normality.

She reached the little square of shops at the top of the hill and found the newsagents open. Everybody in there could speak only of the calamity, or were glued to the little TV on counter. Some stood in tears. Others left, unable to take any more of the awfulness. Alice paid a pound for packet of bourbon biscuits, and set off again.

She was a little further up the road when she heard a door fly open and a loud, brassy voice cry out her nickname.

‘Ally!’

She turned, looking towards the row of mostly intact houses to her right, to see her supervisor from work, Erin, running towards her. ‘Erin!’ Alice exclaimed, meeting Erin in a warm hug.

‘Fucking hell, you’re okay!’ Erin sighed. Alice saw the distinct redness around her eyes. ‘You’re okay…’

‘Yeah…’ Alice agreed, but did not elaborate. ‘Yeah, I’m alright.’

Erin stepped back, her face still taut. She was biting her lips. ‘Fuck… it’s all fucking crazy. Well, come on, come in. I’ll do you a cuppa, you look absolutely frozen, love.’ Alice nodded, and merely allowed herself to be led towards Erin’s house, and noted that Erin had not asked why Alice was in this part of town. ‘I brought the kids straight home when it… it started,’ Erin explained, as they stepped around the broken tiles on the garden path. ‘School’s shut, anyway. Headmistress pinned a sign to the gate. We haven’t had any messages, at all!’

The hall was full of pictures of Erin, her husband Sam, and their two children. ‘No, I haven’t been able to call anyone,’ Alice agreed, straightening a couple of frames as she passed.

‘Have you heard from anyone? I’ve been going fucking mad trying to get hold of people.’

‘I saw on the group chat that Jack and Hannah were okay, but I haven’t heard from anyone else since.’ Erin quickly swept a jacket off the stool at the breakfast bar. ‘You sit there, Ally love. Tea okay? Coffee?’

‘Oh, coffee please, Erin. That’s great.’ Now that she had stopped moving, this false cheer was the only thing keeping Alice’s thoughts away from the darkness of that awful maw.

‘I’ve only got instant,’ Erin apologised.

Alice smiled, for what felt like the first time in hours. ‘Instant’s fine.’

They came the sound of feet running down stairs, then a small child appeared in the kitchen. ‘Mummy!’ the boy called out. ‘Mummy, I want a drink!’

‘What do you say, Olly?’ Erin asked, without looking up from the kettle.

Olly looked briefly guilty, then tried again. ‘Please can I have a drink?’

‘Apple or orange?’ his mother asked.

Olly smiled. ‘Apple!’

Erin filled a small glass and handed it to Olly, who beamed. ‘There you go,’ his mother said. ‘What do you say?’

‘Thanks…’ he mumbled, mostly to the glass, which was almost all the way to his mouth. Alice shared a smile with Erin as the boy departed, and some of the lines in her supervisor’s face seemed to relax at last.

‘He’s adorable,’ Alice said, and Erin laughed.

‘When he’s not being a little shit bag, yeah,’ Erin exclaimed, once the sound of feet was more than half way up the stairs again. ‘Fucking nightmare, sometimes,’ and she stirred the coffee absent mindedly. ‘But, I love him to bits.’

‘Were they frightened?’

Erin looked away and nodded. ‘Soon forget, though,’ and she wiped a fresh tear from her cheek. ‘Kids…’

They relocated to the lounge. Erin didn’t have the TV on, and Alice did not ask for it to be turned on. They told each other what they knew, though Alice gave an account that she had set out late, and was turned back by the police.

‘Up on the main road,’ she explained. ‘Everyone was running away, so I just turned around.’ At this evasion, she felt a sudden prickling sensation in her right heel, the very same foot that had wobbled on the pavement beside the office, seconds before –

She hid her discomfort behind her mug, and drank deeply.

‘Well, I just know the police have roped the whole fucking estate off,’ Erin went on. ‘I’ve tried calling, but there’s nothing…’

Alice didn’t know what to say, and certainly couldn’t say that she knew exactly why there was no reply to the phones. The damage had been so widespread, the footage so copious and dreadful, that it wasn’t surprising to find that Erin didn’t know the whole area had sunk into oblivion. And, what with the various power cuts and the lack of mobile signal, and the sheer enormity of the event, there could be any number of people who didn’t know about this particular catastrophe.

Or, and this though scared Alice even more, maybe Erin did know what had happened, and was simply skirting round the truth, just as Alice was; maybe she could not bring herself to talk about it, either?

‘Why are you out this way, anyway?’ Erin suddenly asked.

Alice spluttered slightly, but recovered. ‘My power’s out. And the water. I was going to go to my brother’s.’ She wondered if Erin had been convinced by her story about turning back on the main road.

‘Oh, of course, you said he lived up this way before,’ Erin said. ‘His other half okay? And…?’ she fished for the names.

‘Jess is fine,’ Alice confirmed. ‘Molly’s nearly one, now.’ This topic reminded her, though. ‘Is your internet working, Erin? Can I be a pain and borrow it for a bit? My phone’s completely out of credit, and I had no power, so I couldn’t get on the wifi at the flat.’

‘Of course you can,’ Erin smiled. ‘Let me get you the password.’ She disappeared, but soon returned with the plastic strip from the back of the router.

‘Thanks,’ Alice beamed, tapping the password into her phone. She waited a few seconds, then her notifications exploded into life. Erin smiled, and excused herself, saying she would check on the kids, but Alice knew she was simply being given some space.

After scrolling through the swarm of I’m safe notifications from Facebook friends, making sure to add her own, too, she checked for an update from the work chat – everybody in her team was accounted for, and she called up to Erin to let her know.

‘I’ve just got through to head office, too,’ Erin said, coming back downstairs. They’ve said they’ll contact everyone when they have an update on the office.’

‘Do we keep getting paid in the meantime?’ Alice wondered.

‘I don’t know,’ Erin sighed regretfully.

Alice returned to the lounge, drank the remains of her coffee, then picked up her phone again. She was just looking for signs of Zack and Jessica, however, when the handset buzzed, and her mother’s picture appeared on the screen.  

NaNo'17-11

 – Dean –

Dean found it difficult to remember most of the rollercoaster ride up the wave front, and he was ready to be thrown off into the churning sea at any minute. He and the other trawler men were clipped onto a coil of steel chain that ran across the deck. Dean was no mountain climber, but apparently these things could fully support the weight of two or three people. He was stood between the captain and the other most junior member of the crew, a young man called Paul, and everyone held tight to a rope. First mate Carson was at the wheel.

The deck reared, tipped, and he felt gravity trying to overwhelm him. His hands and arms ached from the strain. The sound of the wave was horrible; sucking and churning and crashing all at once. But the deck righted itself, the horizon came back into view, and the Blackwater Star settled on the sullen North Sea.

The crew raised their heads carefully. They could hear Carson whooping and hollering from the bridge; Dean thought the man was either delirious or mad. Or both.

The captain stood first, and Dean saw him taking a headcount, then immediately handed out tasks. Most of the crew were sent to inspect the vessel for damage, and they darted off, before he finally turned to Dean.

‘Lad, I need you to get down to the comms room and put out an emergency broadcast. You’ll find the process in the manual,’ he added, seeing Dean’s worried, confused face. ‘We might be the first people to have run into this wave, so I need you to get the word out.’

‘Right, captain,’ Dean said, though he still felt unsure and it must have shown, because the captain leant forward.

‘Don’t worry, they’re not going to care if you don’t get the call signs right, or some other bollocks. Not if you save lives. That’s all that matters now, Dean.’

‘Got it,’ he said, turning for the hatch and unclipping his carabiner. He walked quickly for the hatch and descended the ladder. The room was quite a mess, but the important fixtures were screwed down, so he plucked the radio manual from the draw and flipped through it until he found the emergency procedures. But, try as he might, he could not get through. He checked again; was he on the right frequency? The guide said emergency broadcasts could be made on any channel, so he cycled through, hoping to get hold of someone.

The minutes passed, however, and he heard no voice in reply. Panic filled him; was he was doing something wrong? He tore through the book, eyes raking the pages for any reference that might help in the event that nobody was answering on any frequency. Nothing jumped out at him, and he returned to sending out the form of words he had now settled on; their identifier, their position, their situation.

There was still no reply. Dean dropped the book and the handset, and turned for the ladder. The captain was back on the bridge, and Dean heard the first mate’s voice as he approached.

‘We’ve got some buckling on the bow, but I think we’ll make it back to port.’

‘Very good, Mr Carson,’ the captain acknowledged. ‘Come in, lad,’ he added, when he saw Dean in the entrance.

He shuffled in, feeling like this was like a trip to the head teacher’s office. It always felt a bit like that. The captain was clearly a man who commanded respect, and Dean certainly respected him, but he was also a little bit intimidating, though he thought that more his problem than anything the captain did deliberately. But this was unlike any visit to the head teacher’s office he had ever experienced – there had been a couple of instances he could recall, though none had been for anything more serious than being in a few fights – but none he could remember where he had delivered bad news.

The worst news.

He saw Carson leering behind the captain. He wouldn’t be put off. He needed to be clear.

‘Captain, I’ve broadcast on all the frequencies, but nobody’s answering.’

He heard a small cough of disbelief from Carson, but he kept his eyes fixed on the captain. However, the captain’s reply caught him off guard. ‘Dean, thank you for trying, but I think we now know the reason for that,’ and he gestured out of the starboard window. Dean looked, not really understanding what he was seeing.

‘W-what…. What are those things sticking out…?’ he asked, and he surprised himself when he heard how quiet his voice was.

‘That’s Lowestoft, lad,’ the captain said quietly. ‘Wave must have carried us further than we thought.’

Dean simply stared. He couldn’t believe it. The sea lay all over the land, broken only by little clusters of roofs and the upper floors of some taller buildings. He clutched the rail very tightly. Out at sea, with the wave bearing down on them, he had been afraid. Holding onto the rope as the deck lurched upwards, he had been frightened. Trying to raise the alarm without hearing anything back had made him panic.

But seeing thousands of homes under fifteen feet of North Sea water, terrified him. He didn’t need to ask why his messages had not been answered. The reason was as clear the bright, sunny sky, looking down upon the inflated ocean.

He didn’t move for an hour.

– Anthony –

He came to, still looking at the sky, though it was noticeably lighter than the last time he had seen it. He might have expected to be looking at the ceiling of a hospital ward, or the inside of an ambulance, but this lack of either surprised him.

‘Tony, mate, you there?’

It was Steve. His back felt wet; he must still be lying in the grass verge. ‘What’s going on?’ Anthony managed to mumble. The paramedic swayed into his view again.

‘Back with us, Tony? Come on, let’s get you sat up and ready for the trip.’

‘Trip?’ he wondered. His brain felt very slow.

‘Getting you off to the Infirmary,’ Steve said. ‘I’ve let Kayleigh know. She’s meeting us there.’ Anthony tried to stand, but the paramedic laid a restraining hand on him.

‘Easy there, Tony,’ he said. ‘Just take this nice and slowly. Air ambulance should be here any minute.’

‘What about…’ Anthony began, thinking back to when he had arrived at the plant. Thinking seemed problematic at the moment. ‘What about the ambulances you came here in?’

‘They’re all wrecked, mate,’ Steve put in. ‘Whole plant blown to bits and four fire engines along with it. A couple of police cars and ambulances, too.’ Anthony felt very wobbly again.

‘It’s all gone?’ he managed to ask.

But any response was lost as the air filled with the thud of rota blades. Steve and the paramedic shielded Anthony from the buffeting, and when the craft touched down on the road, they helped him stand. With their support, he hobbled to the helicopter and the paramedic strapped him. Steve got in the other side, and Tony accepted the oxygen mask that was handed to him.

He thought about what had just been said. ‘Did you say you called Kay?’ He could hear her voice even now, fretting and worrying, as she had a few hours ago. 

‘Yes, mate,’ Steve confirmed. ‘She said she’d head straight for the Infirmary.’

Anthony nodded, and stared out of the window. Kay had said not to go, that it wasn’t his week and he should stay in bed, but seeing the blazing wreckage of his place of work, he thought he couldn’t have done anything else but come out here and try to stop it. He had just been too late, that was all.

The helicopter turned west and flew over the city. He stared down at row after row of damaged houses, shops, pubs, and offices. Blue flashing lights marked the major junctions. Steve wondered why all the roads were shut, but he couldn’t see why from his window; Anthony’s faced south and, by the light of the advancing morning, he could see the tidal bore racing up the Humber, topping over the docks and washing around the Deep. In the distance, he could see the water sloshing over the Lincolnshire countryside and right through Immingham. Ahead, he saw more flashing lights at either end of the bridge, where looked to be leaning at a funny angle.

He shut his eyes and concentrated on the oxygen mask, breathing as steadily as he could. He didn’t want to look down there anymore. It was the wave that scared him most of all; how may had been driving innocently along, minding their own business, only to find their route suddenly inundated? How many were dead?

How many were missing?

He felt his breathing becoming difficult again. How many would blame him? Well, he thought, not just him. He just worked there, of course. But the protestors’ chant from a few hours ago – “planet-killing bastard” – kept playing out, over and over. He knew what Kay would have told him – what she would surely say when he next saw her – that he worked hard and was doing his best to minimise the environmental impact. They took extensive scans, she would remind him. They were careful with filtration and emissions. He knew she was only repeating his own reassurances back to him, but he had always found it comforting before. Helpful before. It put his part into perspective; he was doing his best for the country in this difficult climate.

But now, though he couldn’t be completely sure, he had a horrible suspicion that, if the brief explanation he had had from Steve – that the shale pocket they had been extracting had somehow been acting as a lid on an even larger reservoir – then this catastrophe could very well be attributed to him. Or at least, to his employer.

Though, as the protesters proved, they were not above directly targeting employees.

He braved another look just as they came into land on the Royal Infirmary’s rooftop helipad. The waves were not running down Anlaby Road, and he breathed a small sigh of relief. It was the only good bit of news from the last few hours. Kay should be able to get to the hospital without running afoul of flood waters.

They wheeled him off to a private room, though Anthony was indifferent to special treatment, but he could see plenty of movement in the ward beyond, constant silhouettes dashing across the curtains that blocked out his room. A nurse delivered a prescription of pills and a jug of water, and said she would check back in an hour. They weren’t massively concerned, and he would probably be discharged tomorrow.

Kayleigh soon appeared, looking more scared than he could have imagined. She flung herself at him, and he briefly thought she might hit him; he had promised to call at the first sign of trouble, and if he was completely honest with himself, that first sign had been the fleet of emergency vehicles at Mytongate.

But she simply threw her arms around him, whispering things he barely caught, though he knew her tone was relieved.

‘I understand why,’ she eventually sniffed, and he looked into her tear-filled eyes.

‘I had to go,’ he said simply. ‘Steve was right… it was serious. And maybe I could have done something about it. Could have changed it, somehow. But I didn’t get there quick enough.’ He had though how best to put his regret into words ever since the helicopter had taken off.

‘I just wish you hadn’t had to,’ she breathed, and he pulled her a little closer. ‘I wish nobody had had to.’ His mind was suddenly back in the plant carpark, listening to Steve stumbling over the words; Chirag was dead, probably crushed by falling rock and metal. He’d just been doing his job, he didn’t deserve what had happened.

His chest spiked unpleasantly at this thought. He needed a distraction.

 Kay was leaning so far forward, she was practically lying on the bed, and they remained like this, in silence, for several minutes, listening to the bustle outside. It sounded very busy out there.

‘You got your phone on you?’ he asked. ‘How bad is it?’

She sat back on the chair and retrieved her mobile from her bag. ‘It’s very slow,’ she said after a moment, but eventually got through to the news channel and set it playing.

It said nothing good.

Update 10

 – Alice –

They cut through beside one of the ugly offices, and reached the main road through the industrial estate, before Alice dared look back. The sound was colossal; she had seen a building demolished before – a long-winded, careful affair, despite the fact that destruction was the goal, and that had taken weeks – but this was the sound of a months’ worth of wrecking balls and splintering masonry rolled up into a few, heart-shaking seconds. The sinkhole was now at least five hundred metres across, and still expanding. The office block that she had skirted around, was just a plume of dust and handful of girders now.

They kept running, Alice gesturing to the traffic to get clear, but instead, people stopped and leapt out of their cars. ‘Just run!’ Alice yelled, her bag swinging madly on her arm. The man was beginning to carry himself now, and she felt able to let him go. The onlookers had realised now and were backing away. The road began to crack; people shrieked and started to run, following Alice, who was now at full sprint. The terrible crumbling roar continued, punctuated by the crunch of cars toppling into the void.

At the crossroads, she banked left and kept on going. Traffic was starting to screech to a halt now, at the sight of so many people running away from their workplaces. They were pouring out of the buildings and joining the throng. The garage on the corner, its forecourt filled with fancy cars, upended and slid back into the maw. Alice didn’t think about anything except running, about anything except putting one foot in front of each other as fast as she could and praying with all her might that the ground that she landed on was solid.

She lost track of the route she was taking, knowing only that all she could do was put distance between her and malevolent, swelling hole that was swallowing her town. She was heading down hill, now, and thought that reaching the valley in the bottom was the right thing to do. Hertfordshire was a reasonably hilly place, for somewhere so south, but getting off the hills had to be better than stopping here and just hoping.

Others either had the same idea, or were simply following her, assuming she knew what to do.

Eventually, as she finally obeyed the stitch in her stomach, Alice slowed to a jog, then finally, a walk. The roaring sound seemed to have stopped, but Alice was not going to go back and look. She had it now; she was going to get back to the flat, if she possibly could, then make her way to Zack’s. He had been saying for weeks that he and Jessica would be happy to put her up in the spare room, but she had resisted, saying she was managing. It had been a lie, and she knew Zack knew it, but he hadn’t pressed her very much. With any luck, she’d be able to get hold of mum and dad, and she wondered whether they had seen the news yet. She did a quick calculation in her head and thought it was probably very late in the day down under; she would speak to them later, then, by which time she might be able to really say out loud that she had missed being buried alive by only a few seconds.

Well, now she would pack a bag, walk across town, and throw herself upon her brother’s mercy. Most of her possessions were packed, anyway, and had been for a while, ever since she had started getting behind on the rent. It wasn’t for a lack of trying; she had been working all the hours available, but there weren’t that many to go around.

And now, as she realised there would be no more hours, because her office was now in millions of pieces, she thought with a pang of her colleagues. Immediately, she pulled her phone from her coat pocket and brought up the Whatsapp work group, but the connection was flaky; she presumed the network was being flooded by thousands of people all doing the same thing. There were messages from a few of them; Jack and Hannah confirmed they were okay, and supervisor Erin had been dropping off her kids at school on the other side of town, so she was safe. But several others had said nothing at all.

Just then, her phone pinged to alert her to the dwindling credit, so she disconnected the data and slipped the phone back in her pocket.

As Alice strode purposefully through the town, jaw clenched tight, she saw the TV screens in shop windows showing nothing but devastation; and not just the sort from which she had so recently escaped, but extensive earthquake damage and, she did a double take, the sea coming inland, smothering green fields, hedgerows, and houses. People were crowded around, unable to take it all in. Some cried quietly to themselves, others were trying to get through to loved ones and friends, but the networks seemed to be crippled.

‘Hello? Mum, can you hear me?!’ the man nearest to Alice called into his phone.

A murmur went through the crowd. ‘Can anyone make a call?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Nor me,’ said another.

‘A load of cell towers could be out,’ someone else suggested. Alice thought they were probably right. The footage on the screens kept updating, as more and more dreadful footage rolled in. Alice lingered a few minutes longer, but it soon became numbing; the enormous sink holes, the collapsed buildings with people already digging in the rubble, the roads turned to moonscapes by the churning earth. And it seemed have affected everywhere more or less east of the M1, from Edinburgh to London. The scrollbar along the bottom of the broadcast announced the PM had summoned a meeting of the COBRA committee, though the underground had been shut down and the traffic all through the capital was backed up for twenty miles.

She pressed on, trying to keep things in perspective. Her fists were balled, deep inside her coat pockets. The shaking seemed to have finished, thankfully, but there was no sense of normality returning. The police had moved as quickly as they could to shut down main routes, bearing in mind that a significant route through the town had suddenly vanished into the ground. All non-essential traffic was being ordered off the roads. People were out in front of their houses, trying to make sense of the damage, but kept Alice pounding the pavements, sidestepping the many deep cracks, craters, and gawkers, her mind fixed on her plan.

Her flat, tucked at the back of a row of old terrace houses, seemed to have mostly escaped the external damage, but the inside was another matter. She stood her lamp back up, but the bulb had smashed. She gingerly picked the shards out of the carpet and tossed them in the bin. Pictures had leapt off the wall and she picked them up, leaving them in a pile for now. The cupboards in the kitchen had all swung open, and the few packets and tins within had fallen out. These went back carefully, and she waved the kettle hopefully under the tap, but no water poured when she turned the tap. This was, she told herself, to be expected, and hopefully temporary.

But she had seen the roads closed all the way from the town centre to her flat. How would repair crews get there? How would they even know where to start. Could they even get here, or was the whole town cut off from the rest of the country? She took a can of Sprite from the counter and pulled the ring, but it fizzed excitedly, showering the worktop and Alice herself. No doubt shaken up by the quake.

The bathroom light did not work. She then went from room to room, but the power was out. She risked a very quick look in the fridge, but there was very little left in there; she had never thought she would ever find the sight of an empty fridge comforting, but she did now. Clean towel in hand, she dabbed up the worst of the spillage and supped on the can, glad of the sugar hit.

In her bedroom, Alice found her bookshelf had toppled over and all the books lay scattered, spines bent out of shape by the weight of the wood.

It was this, more than anything, that hit her hardest. She lifted the shelf and stood it back where it belonged, but couldn’t pick up the contents; some of them had been presents from her father – a new book every birthday and Christmas, and she had kept every single one. She felt as if they were a link to him, across ten thousand miles of land and sea, in a way that email never could be. But now they looked broken, defeated, and she felt the same, slumping against the wall, with the tears she had been supressing for at least an hour finally running down her face.