On Father’s Day my millionaire son walked into my freezing apartment, saw the tinned soup on the table, and asked how I was managing on the eight thousand a month his wife sends me. I told him nobody sends me anything.

Thirty-six payments.

Eight thousand dollars a month. For three years. On the fourth of every month, set up as a standing instruction and then checked by hand every single time, which I know because the bank has the log.

Not one of them missed. Not one late. Including the month her own mother died, when she sent it four days early because she knew she would be away.

Every single one of them went out exactly where she said it did.

Into an account with my own name on it.

Not a trust. Not a holding account. Not anything clever.

A current account at a high-street bank with the name Dunstan Vale on it, and one other name above it.

A joint account I opened with Marianne at a branch on Fullerton in 1998, for the house, which we then used for about eleven years for everything.