We’d just finished eating out the shared bowls, pounded yam and stews which were delicious and left your mouth on fire. I’d been allowed to eat with the grown-ups in the front room, and Busola had been in the kitchen which she said had all the best bits of beef and stock fish while we had all the tripe and knuckle. But I’d had the ewedu which was made by pounding and grating green leaves with the end of the witches’ broom Mrs Adenle said was a grater until it ran thin and sticky off the end. You couldn’t get enough of that, it made the hinges on your jaw ache just to smell it. Busola kept drawing air into her mouth to cool down and tell me how much pepper I’d missed out on, but we were both having fun telling Mr Adebisi we shouldn’t only be eating with our right hand because that was the hand we used to wipe our bums. The door banged downstairs, and Manus and Connor came in furious from the hospital.

‘What’s the matter?’ my dad said.

‘The anaesthetic wearing off,’ my mum said. ‘They’ll be all right.’

Mr Adebisi was the first to start heaping money on to their heads, sticking it to their foreheads, dancing and praising them for being brave. People joined in with money and turned the music up on the radiogram to drown out the sounds of Connor fighting people off and Manus not trusting anyone. My dad picked them up and did a dance with both of them in his arms, Manus sulking and Connor pushing my dad’s face away. He pushed out his chest and stomped with his legs, going lower and lower with his back bent until their feet nearly touched the floor and the boards shook from him about to leap. People cheered and sprayed money – pound notes! – all over them. And when he put them down, people pressed forward to stick even more money on their foreheads. Everyone was up on their feet, dancing and calling, and you could see as Manus and Connor filled their pockets, the money spilling out their hands, that what they were feeling was starting to change. I bent down to pick up a note but my dad pulled my hand away and told me to go and sit down. A big hole opened up and it was only my mum bending down in her coat to pick me up that stopped me bursting into tears.

She took me up to her bedroom on the top floor, where we could hear it still going on, and sat me on the bed as she took off her coat and gave me a hug.

‘Are you enjoying the party?’ she said.