All in all, I was ready to continue to ride through this decade with a margarita in one hand and novels spouting from the fingers of the other. As Chris and I rose from the swamp of having babies we wanted to party more, dance more, write more and fuck more. Everything was on track for life to become really fun. I’d waft drunkenly through my forties, hosting parties in our garden, wearing vibrant kaftans, living off tequila and weed gummies. That was how it was going to be. Until that one Saturday morning when I woke up and everything went dark.

My friend Caroline Flack took her own life on 15 February. She was my funniest friend. It broke me. I remain unfixed. One of the worst things I could imagine happening had happened. All plans stopped. My forties were off.

This isn’t a book about Caroline, what happened to her or why. But to understand my emotional experiences of lockdown, you need to know how it began. I was grieving, and in a pretty terrible way. I quit Twitter. I refused to read the tabloids, or even listen to negativity. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to isolate (careful what you wish for). I wanted my life to be smaller (not that small, thanks Covid-19). Something seismic had happened to me and a lot of the people I love. The world could never be the same again, and then suddenly, it wasn’t. During that weird space of time between losing Caroline and isolation kicking in, I felt like I was in a world full of people who would never understand me again. Most of my friends were in London, my husband, Chris, and I were in LA in our own sad and cloudy bubble. I felt a million miles from home, but was also terrified of returning to London for the emotional memories it would throw at me. Caroline is embedded into those streets, how could I ever walk down them without screaming?