IN BETWEEN A time of unravelling after my marriage ended and pulling myself back together again, I went to a party. I don’t do that very often – maybe once a year. There’s a period in your thirties when you swap parties for coffee or ‘catch-ups’ that are inevitably rescheduled. I was out of practice.

We sipped drinks laced with MDMA from tiny rainbow cups. I talked to an artist who said something meaningful about finding beauty in imperfection. ‘Like the gap between your front teeth,’ she pointed out. ‘It’s fucking beautiful.’