‘What’s going on?’ my dad said, switching on the light. We heard him come up the stairs from work while the film was running but my mum had Busola on her lap and didn’t move. He came in and stood by the door. So we went on watching what happened with the two social workers. They didn’t know who he was so they just nodded and turned back to watch the film. Only they weren’t really watching it, they couldn’t make the sound work or even operate the projector properly. They were watching us. ‘It’s burning?’

‘No problem,’ the man said, jumping up to the projector and switching it off. We sat there blinking at the white of the screen with the film rattling, ‘I’ll have it fixed in a minute.’

The woman was sitting with her legs crossed in a long woollen skirt and cowboy boots. She had both hands over her knees with rings on her fingers and bangles on her wrist, and was wearing big glasses with her hair pinned up at the sides. She was looking at us like we couldn’t see her. She saw me looking out the corner of my eye and smiled, but it made her lips look thin. I fixed on the man’s trouser leg, it was caught on the back of his short boot and bell-bottomed out. He had on a brown corduroy jacket and had long reddish hair and a dark moustache that made him look like a detective off the telly. He was fiddling at the projector like he was in charge, but she was.

‘I think, Johnny, that’s all we need to show them just now. Would you like to come to the youth club? We’ll be showing films Mondays and Wednesdays after school? Would you like that?’

‘Yeah,’ Johnny nodded, ‘it was a cliffhanger.’

He was pretending to be stupid. What was interesting was it was in colour, Tom and Jerry was black and white on the telly. We looked at our dad.

‘Which youth club is this?’ my dad said.

‘For the young people in the area,’ Johnny said. ‘We’re opening one.’

‘This area?’ my dad said.

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s being knocked down?’

‘This is a priority area for us,’ the woman said. ‘We can see the need.’ And as Johnny nodded and started disconnecting the projector, ‘Are you the father?’

My dad looked at my mum. She let him see she wasn’t going to say anything, and moved Busola about on her lap.

‘Yes, and they must go to bed, I won’t offer you tea,’ he said.

‘Our concern is the children,’ the woman said, uncrossing her legs and standing up to go. ‘This gives them something to do. It must be a difficult time,’ and she gave her thin smile.

My dad gave her his charming smile back and said, ‘All of you, thank them and go.’