I seized another drink I didn’t need and downed it in one long gulp. On the stage, to my left, the microphone was set up, ready for the rock band and the toasts my kids had undoubtedly been press-ganged into delivering after dessert. But if anyone was going to deliver a speech at my fiftieth birthday party, by god, it was going to be me. Normally the thought of public speaking left me more terrified than a mouse in a python cage, but, emboldened by the booze I’d consumed, I suddenly found myself lurching up the stairs towards the mic to utter my rehearsed line of welcome, this time out loud.

‘Hello, everyone! Thanks for coming to my Fuck it, I’m Fifty birthday bash!’

I clocked my mother, whose high-rise hair teetered precariously as she shook her head in warning at me, her youngest daughter.

‘Oops. Sorry, Mum . . . We’re not allowed to use the F-word in our family. We have to say “fudge” instead, or it’s six cuts of the feather duster. But not tonight, Mother dear. Tonight I am fucking doing it my fucking way, thank you very fucking much.’

This outburst was so out of character that the undertone of conversation abated as surprised guests swivelled their heads in my slightly dishevelled direction.

‘And thank you for all the prezzies, too. Kind friends have been asking what I most wanted for a gift, you know, besides a one-way ticket to a tropical island in the arms of a poetry-quoting gymnast with a ten-inch tongue . . . And I joked that the only thing I didn’t want was a worm farm. Well, guess what my husband gave me? A worm farm. I hate worms. Although it appears that I’ve m . . . m . . . married one!’ I slurred tipsily.

A ripple of polite but puzzled laughter ran around the room. I felt myself sliding sideways, like a ship off the slips, and held on to the mic stand for anchorage. ‘Oops. God, I nearly went arse over tit there. That would have been attractive, flashing a fifty-year-old fallopian at you!’

This inspired a rowdy cheer from a few of the beer-sodden blokes at the back of the function room. I felt as if I were a cruise ship entertainment officer trying out edgy new material to keep the crowd in their seats, or an action hero who has just discovered her superpower and realised that she’s not merely a suburban housewife after all.

Through the fog of inebriation, I became dimly aware of a hand on the small of my back and registered, faintly, that it was my husband.

‘I think you’ve had a bit too much lady petrol, there, love,’ Harry joked into the mic.

‘And I think you’ve had a bit too much sex on the side in our marriage,’ I retorted.

Well, that’s one way to silence a crowd, I thought, as the entire room reeled and stared.