I was on my own. My mum was sitting with that man, I didn’t know where Nana was, and Eileen and Carmel were fighting over what records to put on the radiogram. Barry was twisting open the lids on all the lemonade bottles so they fizzed up and squirted everywhere while his mum, Annie, was trying to stop him and light a cigarette at the same time. Uncle Eamon put his head round the door, ‘Look at you, smoking in the rain, you’ll get a cough.’ Annie blew out her match and gave him a look as he said, ‘Give us a drink.’ She nodded at the bottles, ‘Thirsty? Mine’s a Guinness.’ He looked over and said, ‘Bridie, have you glasses?’ My mum looked up and shrugged, ‘Blind as a bat. Try in the kitchen, is Nana there?’ Annie caught my eye, ‘Go and get an opener.’ I didn’t move. ‘Or I’ll use my teeth on you,’ she said, ‘Barry, stop that!’ Eileen shouted at Carmel, ‘Oi! You’re putting your grubby fingers on it!’ ‘They’re my records I’ll have you know,’ Annie said. ‘Barry!’ He was shaking the lemonade for extra fizz.

It was too much. I ran out and dodged into the bedroom and shut the door. Busola was sitting there in the bunk bed listening. Tess was out in the backyard banging and shouting up. We heard the bolt go and the back door open. ‘What you doing?’ Eamon said. ‘It’s a terrible long queue, you’ve to wait to get out of that toilet,’ she said. ‘I told you it was haunted,’ he said, and they went in.

Busola looked at me. We didn’t say anything. We heard Nana’s voice in the kitchen – she’d wait till our dad got back before she’d drink anything. Maggie, our eldest grown-up cousin, was saying the kitchen was a mess and really dirty. Uncle Eamon was calling up the stairs to tell her get down on her knees then and clean it, and Tess was telling them shush. Maggie came out on the stairs and shouted up, ‘Mum! Mum!’ But the radiogram came on with a breathy French song, and Tess passed our door saying, ‘That’s pure filth, get that off!’ It scratched and went quiet. Then there was a burst of laughter and it went on again.

‘Don’t be a coward, go in,’ Busola said. ‘It’s your house.’

She had her wig on. She didn’t have shoes and her toes were dirty. She was the one sitting there in the bottom bunk with her back to the wall, trying to hide.

‘It’s you,’ I said. ‘You’re saying it’s me – it’s you.’

She gave a big sigh.

‘Yeah,’ she said.