I didn’t know they were moving. They’d always been there, two doors down from us. They had the whole house to themselves. And even though they were old they both had pearly teeth and their clothes were clean. They made you feel they were always going to be happy living there and watching you play.

‘It’s easy for us, just renting,’ Lottie said, ‘We haven’t got to sell up and deal with that council.’

‘You going?’ I said.

Lottie looked at me, but I didn’t know what she was thinking because she said, ‘You look after your mum.’

‘Look at that,’ Charlie said.

They all looked up where he was pointing over the tops of the awnings at the houses. Most of the windows were empty and boarded up like some of the houses round by us. Some trees were growing out the bricks along the roofs, their top branches almost touching the low clouds moving like grey smoke across the street. A gust of wind shook the awnings and spilled rainwater on the pavement, and another one came down and made the striped screens of the stalls flap like boats.

‘They don’t care,’ Lottie said, but I didn’t know who she was talking about. Charlie looked back at her and shook his head, ‘End of an era.’

‘I must be getting on,’ my mum said, ‘before it rains again. Say goodbye to Charlie and Lottie,’ she said to me.

I looked at them and said, ‘What’s it the end of? Why you going?’

‘Come on, we’ll be late!’ my mum said.

Charlie scratched his head, and Lottie shook her head at me and looked at my mum, ‘Life goes on.’

As my mum pulled me along, I looked back and saw them holding hands and watching for cars going across, Charlie was limping and pulling the trolley. Manus said he was a soldier in Italy, and he had to change his leg when it hurt, but I didn’t know what to make of that.