He realised now just how badly she had been bullied.
‘Well, you showed them,’ he told her. ‘London and New York designing amazing windows. You’ve had the glamorous life I bet they would love.’
‘It was never like that,’ said Amber, letting go of his arm to clasp her hands together as she stared down at them. ‘I walked for hours on my own in my free time. I went to all these amazing museums and theatres all alone. I don't know if you have seen the movie Lost in Translation, but I felt like one of the characters, just terribly alone in a big city.’
The thought of someone as gentle and kind as Amber being all alone made him feel terribly sad and protective of her.
‘You could have maybe joined in with a few things,’ said Josh gently.
But Amber shook her head. ‘You know me. I can’t do that. I’m not brave enough.’
‘You’ve joined in here,’ he reminded her, giving her shoulder a nudge with his own.
She smiled up at him. ‘I had no choice here. I’m stuck in the shop with the customers!’
‘Perhaps it’s been good for you,’ he told her.
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps it has.’ She stood up suddenly. ‘I think I’ll put an extra sweatshirt on. It’s getting cold. And I’ll check on Grandma Tilly as well.’
‘I can stay down here by myself if you want to rest,’ he told her.
Amber shook her head. ‘I won’t sleep with this storm going on. Besides, it’s not fair to leave you by yourself.’
As she headed upstairs, Josh received a call from his mum.
‘Is everything OK?’ she asked, sounding concerned. ‘Apparently you’ve got a big storm coming your way.’
‘We’re fine,’ Josh told her, before reassuring her that Grandma Tilly was safe upstairs in the flat and that the river wasn’t that bad yet.
He hung up, promising to keep her updated.
The wind had begun to whistle and howl outside. With no more customers, Josh went into the back room, where he managed to pull out the inflatable dingy that they had used on the river when they were younger. Once unpacked, he inflated it with a bicycle pump. Hopefully it wouldn’t need to be used, he told himself.
They kept busy through the evening. Amber took down the Halloween decorations and replaced them with the autumnal ones that she had first used. Josh made an inventory of the stock that they had laid out in the shop.
Sometime around eleven o’clock in the evening, Josh made them both a cup of tea.
Amber had pushed the two benches together so that they could move around them. So she sat down on one of them, putting her feet up as Josh did the same on the other bench, facing her.
Amber hugged the hot cup of tea to her chest.
‘This is awful,’ she said, as the wind continued to blow and gust outside.
‘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.’
‘We can’t,’ he told her. ‘The wind’s too strong. Come on. I’ll sort something out.’
So he moved one of the benches to the front window so that they could still see out onto the lane. Then Josh picked up a couple of the blankets and they sat huddled together under them on the bench.
Josh was trying to remain calm, but he was watching the river with rising panic, although he was trying not to show it to Amber. It was flowing much higher than had been predicted and he wondered whether they would be truly safe, even on their slightly elevated status.
For the first time perhaps ever, he realised that he truly cared about the shop and would be devastated if it became flooded. There were memories here. Happy ones, despite the recent sad times. His parents had danced on the shop floor one Christmas. His grandparents had run the shop when he was little. He and his brother had played on the veranda outside.
If the place filled with water, even the tractor, although not working, would be ruined by the mucky water flooding through the engine.