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.

The honest answer is: nothing. There was nothing you were supposed to do, son. You asked, every week, for a hundred and fifty weeks, and I had already decided what I was going to say before you dialled.

Here is the only thing I have.

Everybody wants this to be about a rich son who left his father in a cold flat, or a daughter-in-law who took the money.

Neither of those things happened.

She sent every cent, on the fourth, thirty-six times, including the month she buried her mother.

He rang every Sunday, a hundred and fifty times, from four countries, and asked the question every time.

What happened is that a man who spent forty years telling other people to open the account they are avoiding went home and did not open his.