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.

He said: Dad, where’s the senior residence?

I said: what senior residence? What are you talking about?

And something went across his face.

He said: Thea told me she moved you downtown months ago.

I said: I’ve lived here three years, son. Since the April.

He looked at me the way you look at a column of figures that will not add up.

I have given about four hundred people that exact look across a desk over forty years. I know what it means from the inside. It means: one of these numbers is wrong and I have not yet worked out which one.

And then he asked me the question.

Not angrily. Almost conversationally, the way you check a figure you are confident about.

Dad, are you happy with the eight thousand a month Thea sends you?