I get him to sign his pension book. His signature is all indecipherable swirls curling into each other, like an elaborate doodle – to deter counterfeit, although now it takes longer to create this intricate artwork.

Hidden in his signature is my father, somewhere.

Heaven, Really

Bone white, white lead, blond, blanc d’argent, blanc de fard, blanc fixe, antimony white, titanium white, strontium white, Paris white, zinc oxide, zinc sulphide.

Before I moved into this place and redecorated I never knew there were so many official shades of white. When I get back home, stepping into my flat is like stepping on to a moving cloud, into heaven, really. If I don’t watch it, I’ll fall down, because the floor is an optical illusion and hardly there at all. My place is just white with sloping attic ceilings and nothing on the walls or surfaces. No ornaments or adornments to show my wealth or taste, or lack of it. No magazines to show I’m hip to popular culture or my esoteric erudition. No books to show off my catholic literary interests. No letters, photos, sentimental mementoes, such as my first comic book or old school tie. No plants to show I’m a nurturing kinda guy, and certainly no moulting quadrupeds, thank you very much. (Though I sometimes think a limply aristocratic Dalmatian would fit in nicely – on a cream rug, just there underneath the window – so long as it doesn’t move.)

Pure emptiness. Just the way I like it. Cheap too. Sophistication on a budget. The bare minimum of soft furnishings in contrasting shades, well, in the words of my design manual, ‘subtle complementary tones of white’; while my two lounge windows, at this level, provide mutable art works that cost nothing. My favourite painting comes at least once a year: it’s called January Snow Blizzard.

There is nothing more beautiful than a marble mantelpiece and fire surround, offset by ivory painted walls, with the sun pouring in and splashing everything with a warm orange glow. Nothing more beautiful than squares of snow-white floorboards, pearl-white skirting and an eggshell sofa throw, with flake-white cushions on it. Nothing more exquisite than an occasional wooden table painted off-white and, upon this, my occasional deviant indulgence: a single Van Gogh sunflower in a slim glass vase. A solitary sunflower that draws you in while standing out, a potent symbol of life and, as the week progresses, decay. In other homes a great bunch of magnolias mixed with carnations mixed with roses mixed with tulips mixed with branches and leaves and whatnots is stuffed into an ostentatious vase and completely loses any possible charm amid all the chaos of clashing colours and a room full of things, things and things. I am ’cos I have bloody things!

Here, a single flower is what I call – resonant.