‘I can see you keep them under control,’ she said. His smile stopped being charming.

‘Thank you for coming,’ my mum said. ‘My husband will see you out. Children, let’s go and brush our teeth.’ She came down the stairs with us to the backyard, and put a finger to her lips at the back door so we could listen to them going.

My dad was asking on the stairs how they heard of us and the woman was saying lots of agencies were involved to help people with the move and that we were well known to them. Johnny was telling my dad where the youth club was in the old Beaufoy Institute on Black Prince Road, and would we be coming? We could hear him getting open the front door and them lugging the equipment out. She was asking if he’d like to set up a meeting to discuss it. As the door closed we heard him saying, ‘Please, thank you, and don’t come back.’

He couldn’t wait till we’d gone to bed, he came straight out the backyard, ‘What are you doing letting them in?’

She had us around her and said, ‘The children need something to do.’

‘You can’t see they are targeting the children?’

Busola had her arms wrapped round my mum’s waist and I took hold of my dad’s hand, and we let Manus tell him it was our fault wanting to see cartoons in colour and first we thought they came through school because they knew our names. Connor wasn’t getting involved, he was kicking loose bits of brick off the wall. Mrs Banacka had moved out next door and stopped mending it, but he was making it worse because he wanted to go more than anyone and was saying we lived in a house that was falling down.

‘How do you expect me to protect them?’ my mum said, ‘They can see themselves what’s going on. Those people won’t stop till they bring the roof down on top of us.’

‘What can I do? We have to hold on. They won’t pay, I won’t move.’

‘It’s hard on the children, that’s all I’m saying. We have to do something to stop him kicking bricks, otherwise they’re the ones paying the price.’

We all looked at Connor. He stopped like he’d been caught and couldn’t see why he had to be dragged into it. My dad let go my hand and went to pick him up until they were looking into each other’s faces. Connor dropped his eyes but you could see the anger, and my dad lifted him up more so he could look up at what Connor was feeling. He shook him gently and said, ‘Look up.’

Connor did, but he was telling my dad off. They were like each other losing their temper, but it was hard to see how they could meet up. Connor was letting himself go limp and hard to carry.