Superhero emblems and bats on upper arm

The lift in Carrow House has been dead since Tuesday, so I have been climbing the eleven floors twice a day and thinking of you, which is the only good thing that comes of stairs. The caretaker's notice says the bats are back in the car park. They come out when the sodium lights flicker on, a ragged flock wheeling over the bins as if someone shook an old sheet of paper out of the sky. Mrs Okafor on four swears they're the same ones from the church on Mill Road, and I've stopped arguing with her.

Remember the summer you and Danny Pryce drew on the stairwell wall with his mum's eyeliner? The shield, the spider with too many legs, that bat you copied off a cereal box? Somebody painted over it in March, but Mr Hale has started going back with a damp cloth to see what he can save. Last week he told me he'd found the spider again under the paint, right where you left it, and he stood there a long while before he went on scrubbing.

I know you think I'm soft about all that. But I walked back tonight with the shopping and the sky over the estate had gone the colour of wet slate, and the bats came in low over the roof, and for a second the whole block looked like something that needed defending. I thought of you, naturally. I laughed out loud on the landing like a fool.

Come at Easter. Bring the eyeliner. We'll see what's left of the wall.

Love, Nan