Mr Adebisi took a deep breath and nodded and let it out. He sat back on the bed with his hand on the metal support and his head up against the springs of the top bunk, his face in shadow, and the metal frame creaked under his weight. He looked like he was in prison.

‘He’s angry, and he takes it out on us,’ Connor was saying. Mr Adebisi’s breathing was already calming it down. He nodded like he knew what Connor was saying and it wasn’t just to get round him. His eyes went to Manus and he tilted his head to listen. ‘And you?’ he said.

Manus nodded.

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s all on my shoulders,’ he said. ‘Just because I’m the eldest, I’m not old enough to stop it happening.’

‘Don’t worry.’

Manus shrugged, but his face was doing something different. He looked crushed.

Mr Adebisi leaned forward and gave me a hug, but his eyes were already moving on. He went over to Manus and picked him up and took Connor by the hand to the window, ‘What do you see?’

I went up on my own and looked out at the backs of the houses, the bomb site and the top of the church over on the main road. I couldn’t see what he was showing them and Manus’s shoe banged against my ear, so I moved back.

‘The backyards,’ Connor said, and Manus just hugged Mr Adebisi round the neck.

‘London town. In Liverpool your father was studying to go back home. He doesn’t see any future here for him. He’s doing this for you. And your mother can be near the hospital. That’s a big, heavy something he’s carrying for all of you, and he’s shouting out. Help him.’

I crowded up to the window under Connor’s arm, and saw someone opening a window across the way, an aeroplane going over, my own breath on the glass, and downstairs in the backyard Busola coming out the bathroom in a big towel, one hand holding up the wig slung over sideways on top of her head.

My dad was back and Mr Adebisi was helping him put up new curtains in the front room and bedrooms, banging in nails and cutting new wire. The curtains made my skin feel itchy so I left Manus and Connor holding them ready and went to look for Busola. She was combing her wig out in the bathroom mirror. I wasn’t sure I should go in, so I stood with one foot out in the backyard and one against the door keeping it open.

‘What d’you want?’ she said, changing the way the wig was attached and combing it down long at the back.

I didn’t know what to say, so I said, ‘Did you know Connor told Daddy to go back to Liverpool?’