I am not an overly confident person. Not physically. It's all I can do to stand my full height. I have an enduring terror of photos. There are many photographs of me trying to escape the camera, or looking tense and unhappy at having been caught in frame. [...]

During the liminal stages of the disease

Later, from one of the foundry workers, I learned the prerequisite net worth for invitees that night. Heads of successful companies, each having amassed such and such a fortune by age forty. How many zeroes was it? A considerable number of zeroes.

The idea was that the honored (i.e., wealthy) guests and their plus-ones would arrive from touring the foundry for - surprise! - a pre-dinner sculpting lesson, and I would be there - surprise! - like a showgirl sprung from an oversize cake.

When I emerged, the studio was empty. Everyone presumably retired to the plastic marquee for dinner, leaving behind a woeful little army of clay humanoid stalagmites. At the foot of the gantry, repelled by the clinking of glassware and laughter, I slipped back towards the back of the workshop, where the foundry workers stood around with beers cracked, lighting smokes beside the cooling furnace.

"You okay?" one of them asked. "That looked ... a bit rough."

"I could do with one of those."

He offered the packet, a light. "Saw some real masterpieces up there," he added, brows raised.

They found me a chair [...] Most were artists themselves, working partly for access to the foundry and materials [...]