As I waited for the lift while all the old fogies were being taken back to their rooms, I’d sink onto a narrow couch and wallow in the misery of the situation, of my life, of life in general, a misery that crashed down onto me as if the cable holding it up had snapped.

After every visit, consumed by self-pity at the outrageous hand fate had dealt me, I used to weep, weep with impotence, again and again . . . And with each outbreak of emotional incontinence, the staff would feel obliged to console me and I would feel embarrassed — even though a sentiment like shame admittedly borders on inappropriate in a nursing home.

There’s a Jewish song that verges on the ridiculous it’s so Jewish, which neatly illustrates my then state of mind:

Wejn nischt, wejn nischt

schpor dir trern chotsch dich kwelt,

wajl dos leben hot nor tsores

oj wi schlecht, wen trern felt.

Don’t cry, don’t cry. Spare your tears, don’t waste them, for life is so dreadful you may not have enough for all you will still have to endure . . .

It was right there on that couch that my adventure began.

Madame Léger, an Alzheimer sufferer convinced she was on her way to her job as head seamstress at the fashion house of Balmain, was scurrying past me, back and forth. At first, I thought she had come to visit a relative, she was so dolled up to the nines. In fact, this woman who was so elegant, with her handbag over her shoulder and her high heels, was what was known as a roaming resident. A patient perpetually on the move, driven by the obsessive need to be going somewhere. Given the topography of the place — it was essentially a circular corridor — the poor woman went around and around like a goldfish in a bowl, her memory wiped after every circuit.

She must have taken me for one of her seamstresses who was slacking off because every time she went past, convinced she was catching me out for the first time, she made some unpleasant remark before heading off on another round. Dear girl, do stop crying. You have two left hands, you’re just not cut out for couture, that’s all there is to it . . . Get back to work instead of behaving like a prostitute! Another loop and there she was, back again! What do you think this is? Do you think you’re being paid to take endless cigarette breaks . . . Get back to your work. Generally, by the third round, I would have stopped crying, and by the fifth, I was having a good laugh, which then elicited threats of being sacked for insubordination from my demented chief seamstress.