The Rosies’ weeds had set seed, died and settled in a composted square full of cat shit and rubbish that had blown in from the road. But I could still remember when it was freshly mowed, Mr Rosie sitting on the step with me, telling me about high school. ‘One trick’s filling the head with paper and flushing.’

I went in the back door: the laundry lino lifting, the rusted square where they’d had their trough, spilled toilet cleaners and bleach still colouring the floor. Tina, a few months after Mr Rosie had gone, telling the movers what to take, as I watched from my window and saw what was left of Oswald Rosie being loaded in the back of a truck.

He was still there, looking out the back door. Did you read the Dickens?

Yes.

And?

It’s okay, but a bit … unbelievable. Have you got anything else?

He led me to his study, and the bookcase that reached to the ceiling. I said, All we got’s encyclopedias.

That’s okay.

Planet of the Apes?

It’s about a world where the apes rule, and the people are in zoos.

That sounds okay. I leafed through the pages. Can I borrow it?

I stood where the bookcase had been and remembered the movers bringing out boxes of books, and thinking, if no one wants them … But you couldn’t say anything. Tina and Vicky standing in their driveway, and Mum sitting next to me, watching and saying, It’s sad, isn’t it?

What?

What happened.

What happened?

Well … Mr Rosie’s gone.

I know, but what happened to him?

Nothing.

I felt the walls, the window frames, as if Ossie might still be there, somehow. As if I could say, I saw you the other day.

Where?

Sitting on your front step.

And what I wouldn’t say: staring at the ground, for an hour, like you were looking at something, although you weren’t.

I’s getting some air.

The master bedroom. There was a hole in the floor and you could see the ground. Like he’d fallen (Curtis’s theory—explained in Cantos II). But I knew how it’d got there. Kids breaking in, a year or so after they’d moved. We’d heard them trashing the place, and Pop had rung the cops, and when they’d arrived you could see them scampering, climbing the back fence into other people’s yards. So now Mrs Donnellan’s cats had a way in, and their piss and shit was everywhere. (I wouldn’t tell Ernie, cos he’d just use it against her). There was a built-in wardrobe, and Tina had left a few rugs that sat folded, ready for use. Oswald (I imagined) placing one over his wife, kissing her, saying, It’s okay if you find someone else. Before going out, finding a rope and choosing the tree.