It’s a hot, bright Friday afternoon in May when Cassandra Jenkins stops in her tracks, the overview she has been offering me on André Breton’s concept of le merveilleux coming to a halt with it. She spots something lying on the pathway that winds around Regent’s Canal, kneels down to pick it up, then becomes lost in the object for a moment; turning it over in her hands, trying to prise some of the memories it holds out of its physical shape.

“For you,” she says quietly, and reveals the treasure to me in open, cupped hands. It’s a beaten-up piece of costume jewellery embossed with diamanté stones, adorned with a pattern designed to resemble intertwining leaves. It is, by any evaluation, a sumptuously tacky piece of crap, and I adore it. I slip the ring into my pocket, and we both take a moment to try and recall why we’re here, what we were talking about, which direction we were travelling, how much time has elapsed since the last literal or conceptual detour, and so on.

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