Marram

The low arrived overnight and by Friday morning the forecast had stopped being a forecast and started being a problem.

Elias put it on the table in Bea’s back room at eight o’clock with a mug on the corner to stop it curling.

“Nine hundred and ninety-one millibars over the Dogger by midnight,” he said. “North-north-east six, gusting seven, easing through tomorrow morning. That’s a surge.”

“How much?”

“Models say twenty-five to forty-five centimetres. Call it forty, because it’s always more than they say on this bit of coast.”

“On top of four ninety.”

“On top of four ninety.” He tapped it. “Five thirty. That’s water over the quay from about twenty to twelve, and the track’s out from five past eleven till about twenty past two, and you don’t get a car up Staithe Lane while it’s happening because the bottom fifty yards is the quay.”

“Cleo’s making-up-her-face people…