The big boy growled at the dogs and got them to come to him. I didn’t know why they called it the halfway house except from the outside there weren’t any doors. There was a narrow passageway with a tall iron gate to go in and that’s the way I came out with the sound of the dogs panting and scuffling their feet behind me. It closed up again like it was somewhere I shouldn’t be.

Rows of houses were standing empty all the way back, with broken windows and dirty curtains left up. I couldn’t see why the halfway house was any different from the other houses they were going to knock down. I started to run, past the shut-up doors and windows and the ones lit up with people still living inside. There was a damp smell of charred wood like there’d been a fire. The sound of thunder, it was going to rain. Emily told me in school they were moving on, but when I reached out to touch her elbow she shook me off. She said they were going near the sea to pick hops and everyone would get drunk. I didn’t want her to go and she shrugged and said she had to. Everyone was going, I didn’t know where. I ran my hand along the bumps of the corrugated iron. I didn’t know why people were trying to stop me being with her, and I didn’t care. I was going to follow Emily. And I wasn’t going to tell my mum.

My mum was in the front room telling this story that in the old house they lived in down by the quay in Limerick there was a hook in the ceiling which they couldn’t take down because it held the roof up.

‘And let the rain in,’ Busola said. ‘Why don’t we just move?’

Buckets were out upstairs again in the big bedroom because it was starting to rain, but we couldn’t repair it because the council were knocking us down and it would be a waste of money.

Busola wanted to move, we all did, but my dad was holding out and Manus shouted her down so we could get on with the story. And the story was that a Spanish sailor had hanged himself off that hook and sometimes you could hear it creaking in the night and it would stop you sleeping.

‘Boring!’ Busola said, pretending she wasn’t listening.

‘Why you telling us this?’ I said because when I got in my mum asked if I’d been with Emily, and when I shook my head said, ‘Don’t be sad.’ I could see she thought that was why I wasn’t sleeping. I didn’t want her to bring it up again but Manus shouted me down as well because we were in the middle of the story.