I had bad dreams going on from when I saw it before that King Kong had me in his fist on the edge of a cliff and was waving me about. Down the bottom, the devil was standing over a boiling hot cauldron of fire, shaking his horns and roaring to have me. I couldn’t go anywhere. That’s how I was until downstairs the front door banged open and my dad came home.

‘What are you doing?’ he said.

I looked up at him, standing in his work clothes with pieces of solder on the sleeve, mud on his boots and rain on his face.

‘Hiding,’ I said.

‘What happened?’ My mum was looking up at my dad with a hand over one eye. The light went on and the telly went off, so I could go in with everyone blinking and frozen by the film. He got a blue airmail letter crumpled out his pocket and showed it to her. He looked like he’d seen a ghost because his dad was dead. He opened it on the bus on the way home and didn’t know what happened next until the conductor told him it was the last stop and the bus had to go into the garage. He walked home knowing his dad was already in the ground.

‘Oh, God!’ she said, and put her arms round him because he looked like he was going to fall. He shook his head and sat down by himself on the edge of the armchair and looked at the floor.

‘Sorry, Daddy,’ Busola said.

He looked up like he didn’t know we were there and had to think about why everyone was still hiding under the blanket. Then he nodded and said, ‘Everybody, get ready to write home.’

‘Tch, shh ...’ my mum said, even though my dad was upstairs and couldn’t hear. We were brushing our teeth out in the bathroom and Busola was saying she didn’t even know what his dad looked like or what his name was.

‘How can we write if he’s dead and we don’t know who anyone is?’ Connor said. ‘Who we writing to?’

‘Your grandmother.’

Connor gave her a look, and she said, ‘Don’t use his name, it’s Ajagbe. Just say you’re sorry to hear the news, and do it before the pain goes away and you bring it back. Do it tomorrow.’

‘Daddy says she doesn’t speak English,’ Busola said with the toothpaste in her mouth.

‘Oh for God’s sake, someone’ll read it to her, just write, I’m going upstairs.’

‘Did you ever meet him?’ Manus asked.

‘No,’ she said, ‘but look at your father and he’d not be far off that.’