‘Come here and talk to me. Know how old I am?’ I shook my head again. ‘See ’em land on the moon?’ I nodded. ‘Not in my day. I was here before the war. Knew everyone. Now look at it. All the black people moving in.’

‘Who lived in our house?’ Busola said.

‘Down your end, those people would still be here if it wasn’t for the war. Lotta people didn’t make it. Come out the shelter, it’s a flying bomb, they’re all dead in the park, it’s all burning.’

‘She don’t know,’ Busola said.

‘Oh, no – I know. You’ve had fire trouble, ain’t ya? It’s not the first time. There was Madge lived there. Lost her husband, hadn’t she? Didn’t wanna go down the shelter. Too smoky. All those rough old men feeling yer. I told her, you had to. House up on the corner got hit. Come out the shelter, walls bombed flat. Her house on fire. Don’t know they ever found ’em. Be nice they were still alive. Her and her daughter, her Susan was lovely. All the fire engines. Couldn’t walk down the road for rubble. See an ’and sticking up there was people had the ring off it. Not like it used to be.’

She went on about how she went deaf and got cut when another bomb exploded the windows. But I wasn’t listening properly because I saw Busola go stiff when she said about Susan and I wasn’t sure they weren’t still teasing me.

‘... Irish fella stood here, digging out the road, wanted water – couldn’t understand him – what’s he saying? – sounded like grunts to me. Shook my head, said I can’t speak Irish. Didn’t mind though, let him use my tap.’ She leaned forward and laughed with her shoulders bouncing, ‘No one else to.’

Busola was walking away.