On my way out of the Athenaeum, so tired I could hardly speak, I was approached by a young woman.

‘I heard you read that story about the friend. The painter. It made me very angry. I thought it was a cruel story,’ she said, clenching her hands. ‘You took all the little illusions that people use to make life bearable, and you stripped and stripped and stripped them away. I’m trying to be a painter, and I—’

Exhausted, looking at her smooth pale skin, her items of silver jewellery here and there, I thought, Come back in twenty years, sweetheart, and tell me about your little illusions then.

I walk away, get into my car, drive home, and go straight to bed, at five in the afternoon. What I could have said to her was, ‘Listen. There is no comfort. And if you think there is, then maybe you’re not really an artist.’