Pink and cream florals on a forearm

The big peony on the lorry door has come out wrong again, and Mr Haskett says if I paint it pink once more he'll have the lot sanded back to bare board. I told him peonies don't go pink like a sweet shop, they go the colour of wet brick under a streetlamp, and he laughed and said the punters don't pay sixpence to see a brick. So I've done it his way, with a rose-red so bright it hurts, but the cream one beside it I've left alone, because that one is yours.

You'll remember the bell flower from the back of Mother's linen press, the purple one with its lip curled out like a shell. I've painted six of those this week along the edge of the big backdrop, the one with the dancing horses, and each time I think of you stood on the step with the wash bucket, telling me I'd never get the shadow inside it right. I got it right in the end. Tonight the lamps came on along the midway and the whole front of the booth glowed like it had been dipped in honey.

Then the storm came over the field and tore the awning off the coconut shy, and the lads chased sheets across the grass until midnight. Mr Haskett stood in the mud with a torch and looked at the backdrop, dripping, and said nothing at all, which from him is praise. I've kept the cream bloom for you. It's the one by the lower corner, with the yellow heart and a bud just starting beneath it. Come and see it before we pack up on Sunday.

Your loving brother, Tom