Red poppy and teal flowers on an arm

The guard at Haldenstein took the tin off me and shook it like a rattle, then gave it back when he saw the paint pots inside. Father's brushes were wrapped in your old tea towel. He said nothing about the enamel tray tucked under my coat, the one with the poppy on it, and I did not offer to show him.

You will remember how Father painted everything he could reach: milk churns, the lid of the bread bin, the backs of kitchen chairs. He never drew a flower in pencil first. He said pencil made flowers look nervous. He would load the brush with red straight from the tin, then go round the edges in black, the way you outline a cat so it cannot slip off the page.

The teal flower behind the poppy is the colour of the jar you broke in March, the one Mother said was worth more than the kitchen. He laughed, then mixed another batch. I think he was glad of a reason to make something new that spring, with the new fences going up along the river and the bridge shut to everyone except lorries. The yellow bud and the blue berries at the bottom he added last, while the paint was still tacky, so that the stems would look like they had been there all along.

I am sending the tray on with the post, though I am told I may not carry it past the next village. Hang it where the afternoon light comes through your window. Keep the poppy for me. When somebody asks whose work it is, tell them it was made by a man who never once drew it first.