To those right-wing critics who would accuse me of not playing by the economic rules or who’d try to prevent me living the way I live, to the good people of the left who, for my own good, would be tempted to preach to me or bombard me with idiotic health warnings, I would reply that when an offence has no victim – if nobody’s body, property or rights are threatened – well then, it’s the Regime you’re trying to protect and I’ve had the shits with the Regime for a very long time now . . . And to the best of my knowledge, I’m not the one who enacted those rubbish micro-entrepreneur regulations . . . And for god’s sake don’t anybody come talking to me about drugs or public health, given what we eat and have to breathe every single day.

Like everybody else, I had my dreams: a pretty apartment for the two of us with a balcony and most importantly a lift, because hauling yourself up six flights when you’re disabled is seriously like the Stations of the Cross. I could have lived on the ground floor, you’ll say to me – I did that when Juliette was born, I swapped my maid’s quarters for the dismal concierge’s rooms, but when she was old enough to climb the stairs, we went back to living up there.

As a child growing up, America was the only thing on the horizon when I looked out from my house, so I find it impossible not to have some sort of view, to have a window looking straight onto another building. From my miniscule apartment, when we stood on that tiny balcony and craned our neck a little, we could see the Seine. And since the skies of the capital are filled with seagulls from who knows where because the fish have dried up, it just about does the trick. And there was no question of living in a less expensive arrondissement – quite simply because everything is concentrated in the centre and spread out in the suburbs. We had everything conveniently below us which is essential when you can’t get around.

I had another one, another dream. The particularly light and chic Japanese titanium exoskeleton which I use these days and which I’d spotted back then on Instagram. It cost me a bomb and there was lots of to-ing and fro-ing to adjust it and learn how to coordinate my movements. Fortunately I had a little helping hand on the financial front, thanks to looking after Tata Yvonne, because otherwise I would have had to sell quite a few of them – my lists that is – to be able to afford such a thing. Thanks to that device, I can finally get around after Juliette instead of always feeling rooted to the spot, clinging to my crutches as I watch her get further and further away, letting her think it doesn’t bother me.