...The screaming and shouting went on while Mum made the tea, let it brew, and poured it. We were lifting our spoons to stir the little bit of sugar that rationing allowed us when we heard someone run down the stairs and pull open the front room door.
We looked at each other. Dad stood up, Mum went to open the living-room door that led to the corridor, but before she reached it there was a crash, something being smashed. Smash, smash, smash. And the sound of piano notes, not being played, just piano notes at the same time as the smashing.
“Oi-oi,” said Dad, and rushed to the door, tore it open, disappeared up the passage.
“Oh my bleeding eyes.” His voice was desperate, not Dad’s voice at all. “Come and see this bleeding mess.”
So we all trooped up the corridor to the front room.
Lilly was standing there, her right arm raised, a poker in her hand. Her red hair seemed to be in flames, shaking around her head as she cried, her face twitching and her freckles showing. They only showed when she was angry or excited. Her green eyes were like something out of a Captain Marvel comic, a cat’s in the dark, the eyes of a baddie.
Dad closed his fingers around the fist holding the iron poker, but she wouldn’t let go. She tried to hit again, but Dad managed to stop her.
The keys of Honky Tonk were like a row of gapped teeth, some were on the floor, a couple on the piano stool. The candlesticks were no longer straight, they drooped down towards the keys as if they were sorry about what had happened.
“And just look at my Alsatian,” said Mum, because the poker had knocked it off the mantelpiece and it was now lumps of plaster in the fireplace.
Lilly had bitten her lower lip and it was bleeding, trembling.