The day of the opening I skitter around the gallery moving canvases from one place to another, deciding how they need to be hung.

The owner comes downstairs all flustery and full of excuses and news that she must attend to a last minute emergency. She is worried that nothing as yet has been hung. She doesn't ask about the whiteness of the images that are facing her. Perhaps she thinks I'll paint them to fill up the room, or maybe she has wine and canapes on her mind. She tells me the caterer is on his way and if I need help to get her assistant to come down. She says she'll be back in two hours and flutters out.

I feel myself falling into the white whirlwind of walls. There is only me and a cleaning lady who glances up at my work now and then and makes a tsk-sound with her tongue. I wonder if she is my mother.