But I wasn’t sleeping. I was lying there on my own, listening. I could hear doors opening and closing, the sound of footsteps on the stairs as people came and went, the rattling of pots in the downstairs kitchen, running water, voices. There was the traffic on the main road, cars going past in the street, my dad being angry at the council and my mum whispering. Outside, someone went whistling by on the pavement, clicking their heels. He could have gone to prison. I turned over in the warm sheets, trying to stay awake to hear what happened when the others came in, and wondering where Nana was because she was staying to be close to everyone. Instead, what I heard as I fell asleep was my dad saying those people were from the council, Big Ben was just there and they wanted the land, they wanted to clear us out, they wanted to knock the house down and get rid of us.

Blue Rose Orange

I tumbled out of bed, tripped and caught myself on the banister. It felt light on my feet jumping down the stairs, two, three, four at a time. Again on the next flight, I missed my footing and had to stop from falling too far by putting my hands out in front and waiting for my legs to catch up.

It was strange because they were my stairs, I knew every creak. There was the feeling of being alone and upside down, and the strangeness of the smoke swirling everywhere. Through the door of the front room I saw a thin column of flame spurting up to the ceiling from the dome of the paraffin heater and spreading outwards. It had so many colours in it – blue, rose, orange, red, black – it was only as I burst out into the night air in my pyjamas I could grasp the reason I woke up was the house was on fire.

I didn’t know I could fall out the bed like that, and there’d be nothing to stop me as everything flashed past. It was like it was happening to someone else – only my mum’s face in the hospital made me realise it was us. Fire engines came and ambulances, hose pipes, helmets and flames leaping up out the windows. I saw a man drop Busola from the top window where we slept now the Carthys were gone and lots of people rushing to catch her. Later, they said it was Mrs Ralf’s son who’d gone in to find her before the firemen came, which was odd because his mum hadn’t liked us making noise and we avoided her.

My dad said if ever he came home again to see the house on fire and his children being thrown out the windows and crawling around in the street, he’d turn on his heels and never come back.